Steven Pressfield Quotes

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

With any good story, you need the adversary, the heroes and villains. You need a good mixture to make it work.

I think conflict is one of the things that makes for a good story.

The story [for the western genre] is everything. Whether it's a book or a screenplay, the story drives everything. And if you just go out and try to make one by putting on boots and jumping on a horse and riding off... If you don't have the material, the characters and the things to overcome and conflicts that give life to drama, you don't have it.

You can't tell a good story without conflict - the story can't be beautiful or meaningful. We're taught to run from conflict, and it's robbing us of some really good stories.

Here's what happens in a play. You get involved in a situation where something is unbalanced. If nothing's unbalanced, there's no reason to have a play. If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad's not dead and asks him if he's had a good time, it's boring. But if something's unbalanced, it must be returned to order.

The roles I'm interested in or have been interested in, you know, it's going to get down to conflict. Drama is conflict - conflict of interests.

Storytelling is about two things; it's about character and plot.

Conflict drives fiction; no one wants to read a four-hundred-page novel in which everything rolls along smoothly.

I like having a plot; I like characters with a reason to get up in the morning.

Whether you're writing a horror show or a James Bond film, I think what bubbles beneath is interesting characterization. The colors that emerge through storytelling is what a dramatist does. There's always got to be something bubbling underneath that will erupt at some point.

Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.

Whenever you can manoeuvre your characters into a situation where they both have a good argument to make, you're on the right track.

Storytelling is storytelling. Good stories need compelling characters and interesting conflicts. That's the bottom line no matter what medium you're writing for.

If you have a beautiful story, it has to have conflict. If you don't have conflict, it can't be a good story.

At the heart of drama is conflict.

Real life is messy, and drama is a shaped version of real life.

In each scene, the writer sets up a situation, which brings a conflict as well as either a small victory or a loss at the close of that particular scene.

The parallels between a stage and a book are compelling. You, like all authors, create 'characters' in a 'setting' who speak 'dialogue' encased in 'scenes.' Most importantly, you - like the playwright - have an 'audience.'

As for writing about temptation, there's no drama without temptation, and no novel without drama.

Tension is the cornerstone of any good story.

You asked what is the secret of a really good sketch. And it is a sketch is a small play. It's got a beginning, and a middle and an end. It should have a plot; it should have the characters, conflict. It is a little play. And in it, will be funny stuff.

The fundamentals for me are character and conflict. I put character first because readers will be indifferent to conflict if they are indifferent to the character who is experiencing it.

You won't have a story unless you have conflict, which means if there's no conflict in a situation, people look for a way to make some.

Character is plot, and casting is character.