Layering Conflict in Your Story with Brian Baker

We welcomed back Brian Baker from our Wes Anderson/Montblanc episode to talk about adding conflict to your story!

Brian Baker is a poet, YouTuber, freelance editor, and craftsmen. He reviews stationary on his Youtube Channel, Down the Breather Hole, and crafts his own stationary and mini books on his Etsy shop. If you’re interested in working with Brian, check out his Fiverr profile.

We all probably know that conflict is essential to writing a compelling story, but how do we make that conflict not only realistic but also personal to the characters? We talk about the different types of conflict, raising the stakes, choosing your conflict based on your characters, and when to let conflict be resolved.

We praise the use of conflict in ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL (2020), as well as the 1978-90 series; ALIEN (1979) and ALIENS (1986); THE WAY OF WATER (2022); and TED LASSO (2020-2023).

Hey Jon Meyers

Learn more about today’s secret topic here and here!

Call to Action

Look at your work and try to add conflict to it! If you have conflict already, add another layer. Let us know what you did and how it affected your story!

*Emily is an Amazon affiliate and may earn a commission from purchases made through our links.

Notes

00:00 Paul Guay will visit us 07/30/24 to discuss the 30th Anniversary of The Little Rascal

00:26 Introduction

00:44 Quite the List
02:37 Jon Meyers has a dream

11:46 Emily has a conversation with a stranger

14:14 YOU RESPOND: Yamile Vaena tells her #VillainOriginStory

15:15 #BigIdea: Layering Conflict with guest Brian Baker

23:10 Conflict in Storytelling vs. Conflict in Real Life

27:00 Different Types of Conflict

31:40 Start The Hard Conversations

32:52 One of Emily’s Storytelling Pet Peeves

35:45 The Positive Role Modeling of Ted Lasso

39:44 Is There a Time A Time We Should Seek Conflict?

47:30 How Do You Address Conflict in Your Characters?

50:30 Emily Explains a Deeper Way to Raise the Stakes

54:00 CALL TO ACTION: Add conflict (or more conflict) to your Work In Progress

56:40 #HeyJonMeyers

01:02:00 Like, Subscribe, and Follow

01:03:00 THE FINAL ACT: Untangle This Cord, While You Untangle Your Life

01:12:53 We Couldn’t Have Done It Without You