- A dictionary paraphrase defines drama as a conflict between persons and/or forces, assuming a conventional meaning for conflict as competing oppositions.
- Gustav Freytag's Technique of the Drama defines drama as a passionate clash of wills involving causation and tension.
- One or two off the cuff creative quips about drama I found at online venues define drama as causation, which accords with Aristotle's Poetics' sense of causation and drama's relationships.
Conflict meaning clashes, contentions, competitions, confrontations, conflagrations between two or more persons or forces in diametric opposition, including internal forces that cause internal conflicts. Conflict also meaning motivations and stakes as compelling forces and related to final outcomes. For drama requires a satisfactory outcome payoff, emotional or otherwise, a final irrevocable, unequivocal outcome in order to be a completed conflict action.
Yet conflict by being diametric opposition doesn't fully answer why lesser antagonisms can be dramatic. Say a mentor counsels a protégé. They have compelling needs or purposes and stakes and motivations and desired outcomes. They aren't necessarily engaged in a diametric opposition relationship.
Their relationship is more likely to be codeterminate--mutual efforts to accomplish a mutual goal, or cooperative--shared efforts to accomplish shared goals, or coordinate--reciprocal efforts to accomplish reciprocal goals. A readily identifiable major compelling force isn't necessarily diametrically opposing their goals. Forces external to their relationship and other internal forces pose problems though. The mentor might be distracted when the protégé is most in need of the mentor. The protégé might lack fortitude or stamina for a task at hand. Any of a number of problems could complicate their goals and none of them absolutely must cause diametric opposition, conflict. And yet, the circumstances can still be dramatic.
It's said by many writers writing on writing that incorporating conflict is key if not paramount for every dramatic unit, every narrative, every chapter, every page, every paragraph, perhaps every sentence or clause, even every word. Drama's other subtle contributions of causation, tension, and antagonism are I think equally as essential as conflict.
Conflict's cause and effect, action and reaction causal contribution, Causation, relies on reader rapport, empathy, and curiosity, suspense, in other words Tension; and purpose or goal, need, desire, want, and problem or complication, obstacle, setback, reversal or, in other words, Antagonism.
We are social beings progressively driven by gamuts of forces and persons who push and pull against us and which we push and pull against. C'est la vie. Conflict writing is imitating those competing and compelling forces. That's to me drama.
