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In Paradise There Are No Stories: Adding Conflict

The Individual vs. the World: Add Color to a Black-and-White Photo

One of the hallmarks of a successful story is that there is conflict. Sometimes the conflict is between individuals. This is the classic good guy versus bad guy conflict we see all the time in action movies—think Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader in the early Star Wars movies. But at other times, the individual must battle not just one bad guy but a whole family, community or system of “bad guys.” Protagonists in these stories feel like no one understands them. They think differently than the world around them. This is the type of conflict you’ll be tapping into to create No One Knew She Rode a Unicorn to School, and you’ll be using one of the artist’s best tools—color—to show the conflict. This is the story of a colorful spirit in a black-and-white world. While the setting for this project is a school, you can apply the techniques from this chapter to many different settings and individual-versus-the-world conflicts.