When Mike Nichols approached directing a play, he first sought to classify each scene into one of three categories: a seduction, a negotiation, or a fight. After that he would know how to direct the actors to bring out the salient elements of the work.
No doubt problems arose if the playwright wasn't operating from the same how-to manual, but Nichols was at least able to get a handle on his process.
You have to start somewhere, after all, even if you're wrong.
Let's see if we can subvert this play-directing technique into something we can use in our own creative world.
Since fiction is mostly about character, and character is best revealed through conflict, placing every scene of your story into one of Nichols's three categories of dramatic action might inspire you to work your own brand of magic.
If done correctly, the act of assigning motives to the actors can force a confrontation, thus enhancing conflict. In addition, if you invent contradicting motives for your actors, the conflict can be amped-up even more.
In a seduction, one actor wants something from the other, something the second actor must resist giving up. If the second actor fails to resist, the seduction proceeds to its natural goal and the scene is over. (Nevertheless, character has been revealed.)
Negotiation is a similar action, really, though usually operated by appeals to logic or other intellectual ploys. Again, the second actor must provide active opposition. (Assuming passivity is not the trait being illustrated.)
A fight is simply naked aggression.
A character who is a bully might behave the same way in every category of scene, attempting to take what he wants through force. From his point of view, all scenes are fights. He may be opposed by force, seduction, or negotiation, one at a time or simultaneously. If the bully is powerful and can't be beaten physically, maybe he (or she) can be derailed by cunning or sexual distraction.
An intellectual bully just wants to win the argument. If the second actor won't concede, but rather agrees to disagree, this type of bully might need to resort to violence to have his way.
A character who is a grifter at heart tends to avoid physical conflict, but may employ a variation of seduction and negotiation to achieve his goals. But because he is a con-man (or con-woman), both the seduction and the negotiation are lies: fake seduction, bogus negotiation. It's all a trick. (One variety of conman literally seduces a woman in order to steal her money.)
Mike Nichols's angle of attack in play directing reminds the writer that all characters must need something. Finding out what your character needs, and how far he's willing to go to get it, takes the reader a long way toward discovering who that character really is.
(Kurt Vonnegut used to say characters should begin a story by wanting something, if only a glass of water.)
Freighted with their unquenchable desires and desperate needs, fictional characters slam together without mercy, taking the reader on a journey we call plot.
[Now, an odd note: I heard Mike Nichols speak of the three-kinds-of-scenes in a TV documentary. Reminiscing about Broadway, he mentioned a time when he was a teenager with a girlfriend whose mother had access to theater tickets. That meant he and his chick were able to see Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. The youngsters were so blown away by Brando's performance they sat stunned during the intermission, paralyzed in their seats, helplessly transformed by this monument of dramatic art. Right after that I watched another documentary, this time about Arthur Miller, and there was Nichols telling the same story of poleaxed teens, but in this version, the play was Death of a Salesman. Strange.]
