Tommy Walker is the founder of The Content Studio, a content marketing consultancy for Fortune 1,000 companies and fast growing B2B startups. Prior to founding The Content Studio, Tommy was the Global Editor-in-Chief at QuickBooks, and the first marketing hire at Shopify Plus. Currently, he hosts "The Cutting Room" where he interviews industry-leading marketers about their content marketing philosophy, process, and pre-game before they edit an article live. Guests have been from companies like Asana, Calendly, Docusign, Vimeo and more.
🔸 What is the role of conflict? pt. 3 of 4 🔸
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Top of mind:Your A-hole boss. ​ ​ ​
Before we get too deep, I am going to suggest that when we talk about personal conflicts, we’re not actually talking about our reader’s relationships. ​ ​ ​ ​ “The properties of people and the properties of characters have almost nothing to do with each other.” That’s because when we talk about conflict in personal relationships, what we’re actually talking about is the conflicting ideology that the other person represents. ​ ​
These elements are:
We’ll talk about loglines and themes another time, but for now, consider what screenwriting consultant Tyler Mowery says: ​ ​ “Falsely accused of killing his wife, a doctor desperately searches for the real killer, with a relentless federal agent hot on his trail.” There are several smaller themes in “The Fugitive,” but the main one is the search for truth. ​ ​ ​
The idea is that as each perspective or belief emerges, there will be some characters in natural conflict and some that complement each other - this builds your cast, and naturally creates allies and enemies. ​
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Our extra-personal conflict would be time. Here’s how this piece might open: “Tsk, tuk tuk tuk”
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Another Slack notification. ​
“God, at this rate, I’m never going to get this article edited,” you mutter. ​
It’s your manager. ​
“Hey, I just got out of the marketing budget meeting with Emma. She said marketing needs to start putting out more content, and Cassie from Finance reminded me if we don’t use our budget by the end of the month, we’re going to lose it. I know how you feel about it, but I agree with them, and we’ve got to select an AI tool if we’re going to hit these goals. Get me a list of the best options by EOD - and try to keep it under 10k a year. I know you’ve got a lot going on, but this has to be a priority.” ​
You knew this day would come. ​
Now that it’s here, how do you choose an AI tool when you’re fundamentally against them? What are the considerations? ​
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered This intro hits all of the notes of the logline formula and even incorporates the extra-personal Super Conflict we discussed in the last issue:
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See how it’s all tying together? ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Want me to edit you? Starting in 2024, I'm hosting a monthly writing workshop where we'll explore the concepts through the lens of your work. Join me, and a group of your peers live while I edit attendees work and discuss these concepts live. What's on our radar?​ Let's get socialLots of folks talk about giving ChatGPT and other AI language models a personality if they're going to write for you, but they don't say how. The Cutting Room Replay: What is going on here?​ “If you don’t have the resources to do the thing […], there are other things you can try. That’s where innovation can happen. Constraints breed creativity.” Enjoy the episode. From "The Vault"
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​​Braveen Kumar's edit emphasizes the importance of sign-posting throughout the article to set up what happens next, as well as word economy, and the "shape" of the paragraphs to make the content as easy to consume as possible.
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Tommy Walker is the founder of The Content Studio, a content marketing consultancy for Fortune 1,000 companies and fast growing B2B startups. Prior to founding The Content Studio, Tommy was the Global Editor-in-Chief at QuickBooks, and the first marketing hire at Shopify Plus. Currently, he hosts "The Cutting Room" where he interviews industry-leading marketers about their content marketing philosophy, process, and pre-game before they edit an article live. Guests have been from companies like Asana, Calendly, Docusign, Vimeo and more.
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