Writing Themes Man VS Man
Man VS Man
The Struggle
One hero fights against a villain. There is an active conflict going on between the characters. Both want to win some prize or an argument.
The person has to fight this other person in some way. However, this is not an internal conflict. The second character is a living person or creature.
The Story Moves Forward
By having two or more characters fighting to win the story is moved forward.
For example:
The main character in Hunger Games must win against several other humans to be able to stay alive. The others are her antagonists. If she wants to live longer than the games, she must act against the other characters in the games.
The story movies forward by attempting to pull some of the characters together. The Hunger Games even brings two characters together, ready to make the sequel. They end up helping each other.
For example:
In the Jurassic Park movies finds some of the characters trying to fight small battles against the creature of the park. One is the man that talks about chaos. He tries to fight against his lover so that she will leave the park. Also, his group choices to free the baby T-Rex from the hunters.
There are some small arguments in the movies involving characters fighting over petty differences that don't matter at the end of the movie.
The arguments and the fighting push the characters to find a solution or get out of the argument.
The Fight
There are some stories that exist for one person to fight the other person.
Example:
Rocky fights people in his movies but one fight is spotlighted above all else.
Example:
Halloween movies has people trying to outsmart the killer that is coming for them. This is a little different, since the antagonist is one person and the protagonist is everyone else trying to stay alive. However, there is one protagonist that just survives by chance or pure luck.
Ongoing
The protagonist and antagonist in a series do not have to know of each other in the beginning of the series of books. However, they do know of each other by the end of the first book.
In the first book, the ongoing fight does not matter much to the larger story. The protagonist and the antagonist may never met. This type of person is the boss of all the series. The one person that can not be fought the first book.
The main character must get stronger in order to try to fight this antagonist.
Example:
Harry Potter VS Voldermort- the main character can't defeat the other guy in the first book.
Example:
Sherlock Holmes is not able to go when after the man he was fighting against.
