Just three years ago, CW announced that it was doing a reboot of the classic show "Dynasty" starring Elizabeth Gillies, Rafael de la Fuente, James Mackay, and more.
I recently binged the series on Netflix (a great pastime, in case you were wondering; there's 22 episodes per season and each episode is chock full of drama) and as I was watching, I found myself noticing that the show is actually a great vessel with which to look at arguably the most important component of plot: complication.
Briefly, let's talk about complications and how they are important to plot.
In every story, no matter if it's 100 words or 100,000, the plot is defined by key moments of complication in the story. Good stories, ones that have us gripping the pages and hovering on the edges of our seats, are full of complications, and use these complications to propel the story forward and keep our attention.
A complication, simply, is any sort of problem or conflict in the plot. And while that can seem like a big moment—a war, when enemies are born, a fight, an affair—it doesn't necessarily have to be. The beats of all stories are big complications, but a complication in a story can be so small as a young boy not wanting to take off his shoes at someone else's house and the homeowner insisting.
In fact, while big complications are important to stories otherwise there is no climax and there are no beats it, oftentimes smaller complications can be particularly productive and fruitful. Looking at the instance of a young male character not wanting to take his shoes off, but the family whose home he is at insists, we can learn a lot, both about the tone of the story and the characters involved.
This moment could be as quick as this:
"Sweetie, can you take your shoes off?" asked the mother, stooping down with a smile so wide it stretched the edges of her cheeks.
The boy moved behind his father's legs and murmured, "I don't want to."
"Oh, but I must insist," affirmed the mother, shuffling to the left to keep his eye contact. "We just don't want dirt trekked into the house, now do we?"
The woman's smile still lingered, though her words were poisonously sweet.
"Surely that's not a problem," the boy's father said with a half-laugh. He put a hand on the boy's back and said, "Take off your shoes, okay?"
The boy did so with a huff.
In the context of a story, these six lines are practically nothing, a passing moment that in just a few paragraphs will be forgotten for the next complication, but it is incredibly revealing.
First off, this moment sets the tone of the piece as tense. The air is already taut between these two families as the boy defies the homeowner. This isn't necessarily a fight, and nothing should be coming to a head in moments like this, but they're helpful tools if you want to establish tension and electricity in the air before the rest of the plot unfurls.
In addition, this one complication tells us a lot about these three characters. The son is massively uncomfortable, and very particular. He doesn't feel relaxed in this scene, and for whatever reason, taking off his shoes is a big no-no. Similarly, we learn that the homeowner must have things her way, no matter how small and no matter who it is pertaining to. Oftentimes you might have a character make a passing comment about it if they are slightly less uptight and slightly more passive, but here, we see that the mother confronts things head on, and is very particular about everything.
With the dad being the parent that the boy hides behind, you can tell that they have a good relationship, so much so that the boy feels most safe behind his legs. However, in the dad leaning down and asking the boy to take off his shoes with a laugh, we can tell he is a peacemaker and he wants nothing more than to comfortably and politely diffuse the situation.
Do you see how these small complications, these moments that could seem insignificant, could actually produce a lot of useful information in terms of tone and character that will be relevant later in the story?
Thus, complications, both big and small, are essential to stories and are something most writers should strive to have a lot of. If you can pack in these complications—as long as it's sensible and fitting—then the story will be propelled and attention will be hooked.
The show "Dynasty" is a great example of that.
Every episode—hell, every ten minutes—of this show is so full of complications that you cannot get up for even a second because you could be lost by the time you come back. Every time you think you're heading to a solution, every time you think it cannot possibly get any crazier, another wrench is thrown; somebody comes back, a scandal is leaked, somebody goes missing, an old secret is unearthed, etc.
The writers of this show (really, the original "Dynasty" writers, as this is only a remake) are complication geniuses, because not only do they pick the perfect complications to tell us what we need to know and to show us more about people's characters, the complications are always believable.
Now, "Dynasty" is a soap opera, so of course some things are going to be overdramatic and of course sometimes the complications are going to feel a bit excessive. If you are a writer and you're writing anything that isn't a serialized soap opera, you probably shouldn't use "Dynasty" as your exact model, but we can look at it to take inspiration for how to create complications.
If you haven't watched the show and want to, I'd suggest you watch the show and then come back, because I am about to spoil the plot of the first episode to show how they create complication.
First, in episode one, we open with introductions to the characters and to their billion-dollar-lifestyle.
Both Fallon and Steven—the children of Blake Carrington (owner of Carrington Atlantic, a Fortune 500 company) have been called to return home, and neither quite know why. Within minutes of the opening shots, Steven and Fallon have had a conversation about Steven not wanting to come home because he feels unfulfilled, pressured, and a misfit in the affluent and corporate world that the rest of the Carringtons live in.
This is already a huge complication (not to mention smaller ones, such as Fallon sleeping with her father's driver, which we find out he doesn't know about, Fallon longing for the COO position in the family business which she is certain she will get) that will drive the plot, but that teaches us a lot about that family's life.
When they arrive in their father's study, they find him on top of a woman, one garment away from having intercourse. There is disgust on both of their faces, only for Fallon to realize that this woman works at Carrington Atlantic. Another two complications in the plot.
Then, Blake and the woman—Cristal—announce that they are engaged and that the children were called back for their wedding. A further complication because as the next scene reveals, neither children really approve of or are comfortable with this marriage, let alone that it is someone from the company.
Keep in mind, all of this has happened within ten, maybe twenty minutes of footage.
The rest of the episode unspools and we see Steven running into a boy at a bar who he recklessly has sex with, and through that it is revealed that his father and his family were not very accepting of his sexuality. Then, moments later, the man he has sex with is shown moving into the Manor that they live in, as he is in fact Cristal's nephew.
Blake and Cristal move up the wedding and lie about the date, and to top if off, Blake names Cristal the new COO of the company, embarrassing Fallon and robbing her of the one thing she'd wanted.
All of these complications (and, quite frankly, probably more that I missed or forgot about) are packed into just the first episode of this sweeping drama show, and you'll notice a few things.
One, all of this charges the air with so much tension and such clear character dynamics that you can't help but marvel at how the writers selected the complications to reveal stuff to us about this family. Two, there is so much in the first episode, you almost have to keep watching because you're so on your toes about how all of these things could possibly play out. Three, all of these things are appropriate conflicts and complications for the characters. It's believable. Because of what we know about Fortune 500 companies, because of what we know about ambitious people and the lavish lifestyle they live. Every thing that happens you can believe because it all fits nicely, if not a bit haphazardly, into the frame.
And this is why "Dynasty" shows so much about complications that all writers could learn from. Is it perfect? No—a lot of this show feels crazy, and it heavily banks on its frame as a soap opera, but through all of the insanity of the show, we can learn a lot about how to create plot and how to use conflict to the very best of your abilities.
P.S. if you keep watching the show, the complications only get bigger and more frequent. It's truly brilliant.
