Mike Judge Quotes

A compelling story requires conflict, friction, an obstacle to be overcome.

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

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

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.

At the heart of drama is conflict.

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.

Tension is the cornerstone of any good story.

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

Character development is conflict.

I have a plot, but not much happens.

The best fiction is geared towards conflict. We learn most about our characters through tension, when they are put up against insurmountable obstacles. This is true in real life.

The beginning of a plot is the prompting of desire.

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.

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

Stories work better when not everyone gets what they want.

There's conflict in every story.

The climax is the place where the opposing forces in your story finally clash. This is true whether those opposing forces are two armies or two values inside a character's soul.

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

I think that's what makes characters interesting - when you paint a person into a corner, and you see what they do to get out of that corner. It's what makes drama drama.

I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.

The villain drives the plot.

Stories hold conflict and contrast, highs and lows, life and death, and the human struggle and all kinds of things.

With a mini series you can give the story a proper sense of pacing, a proper sense of closure.

An action movie should, like any other, follow the narrative traditions of literature. That means there should be subtlety, a slow build and a gradual bringing together of all the separate threads of the plot. To see all of it coming together slowly is very rewarding for the audience.

You have to go to the ultimate situation in drama.