C is for Conflict

C is for Conflict 

Because if you are just describing what is on the table for dinner, and something isn't overcooked, poisoned, or a bloody writhing mess for your vegetarian boss--then I'm not entertained. I'm the opposite of entertained, I'm BORED.

When you don't have conflict, you might have boring.

Example: Boring

Sylvia had been looking forward to the night out for weeks. She picked out her favorite knee length cocktail dress and peep-toe sling backs and got ready to meet her husband's boss and his wife for the first time ever. The reservations were at a new, super trendy, restaurant downtown that had been receiving excellent reviews for weeks. She couldn't believe she would soon be enjoying a two hundred dollar steak--all on the company's dime!

When they arrived, everyone said their hellos and sat down. The dinner was delicious, the conversation delightful, and Sylvia got a lovely picture of herself and the boss's beautiful wife to post on Facebook. Her friends would be so jealous.

Example: Conflict

Sylvia had been dreading the night out for weeks. Despite the scornful glances she'd been shooting her rickety treadmill, she had yet to shed a single pound of the baby weight. As she stood in her closet, staring at the tiny, depressing reminders of how thin she used to be, a creeping panic pulled at her throat. Why the hell hadn't she just gone and bought something that fit? She reached for the only viable solution, the two piece maternity cocktail dress she'd worn to her brother's wedding last winter. She was going to look like total crap next to all the super hip, pencil skirted lawyers sipping brightly colored martinis they never had to consider paying for.

Never mind the boss's practically seventeen year old wife.

When they arrived, she couldn't stop fidgeting with her top. She had tried to compensate for her sad attire by digging out her old push-up bra from the back of her drawer and using extra eyeshadow. Unfortunately, since she was no longer a svelte, toned cat and was now a lactating cow, her enormous milky breasts hardly fit inside the shallow cups and were now bubbling over and threatening to spill a nipple at any second. When she pulled at her top for the twelfth time in as many minutes, her husband gave her a shitty look that practically melted her spine.

He was embarrassed. Standing here, in his slick tailored suit, next to her has-been body, she embarrassed him. The realization made a knot lodge in her throat and ignited an overwhelming desire to run from the room.

Blah, blah...but you get the picture.

In short, if everything is going just fine with your scene, everyone is getting along simply great, you have a problem. Unless of course that just great is going to get completely turned on it's head. Like if in my first example she posted the picture on Facebook and, after posting it, she noticed the way her husband and the boss's wife stood a little too close...