Rule of Drama



""And once again, Probability proves itself willing to sneak into a back alley and service Drama as would a copper piece harlot.""

- Vaarsuvius, Order of the Stick

If the potential for conflict is visible, then it will never be passed over.

Without drama and Conflict, There Is No Show. A show where everyone gets along and nothing unpleasant happens will bore everyone. This is the reason for the Rule of Drama. For adding drama, just push this button.

Does everything look conflict-free? Not so fast. Something new and unpleasant must be introduced out of the blue. This is why happy couples tend not to last (unless writers can find good conflict without breaking them up).

Raymond Chandler once described this sub-rule: ""When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand."

Chandler's Law"

Essentially, when the writers run out of drama, they must invent ways to force drama into undramatic situations. When handled poorly, this leads to unusual, irrational, or highly improbable scenarios which only exist for the sake of prolonging the conflict.

To determine if a trope is a product of the Rule of Drama, ask yourself: If this trope weren't used, would this much crap even be happening?

The only place where the Rule of Drama does not apply is the Denouement; the show is supposed to end there. But even then, you can wind up with an Sequel Hook.

Compare Acceptable Breaks From Reality (video games following what makes them fun instead of realistic).

Related to Rule of Funny in comedy. See also Anthropic Principle.

Tropes That Quickly Come To Mind For Their Roots In This Rule, But Honestly, 90% Of All Tropes Might Fit Here:

 * All Love Is Unrequited
 * Anyone Can Die is the platonic love affair between the Rule and Realism
 * Bigot vs. Bigot
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension
 * Chained Heat
 * Chandler's Law
 * Conflict Ball
 * Dramatic Wind
 * Diabolus Ex Machina
 * Dysfunction Junction
 * Disaster Dominoes - Mishaps will enough collateral damage to enhance the plot, no more and no less.
 * Disposable Woman / Stuffed Into the Fridge
 * Drama Bomb
 * Dramatic Shattering
 * Emerging From the Shadows
 * False Innocence Trick
 * Finagle's Law
 * Good Is Boring
 * Gun Struggle
 * Hand Wave - how bad writers preserve the Rule of Drama in the face of potential conflict-quenching rationality when they don't want to resort to Poor Communication Kills.
 * Idiot Ball
 * Idiot Plot
 * It's Personal
 * Law of Inverse Fertility
 * Locked in A Room
 * Melodrama
 * Million-to-One Chance - If the unlikelihood of a random outcome is deemed too low to be of concern, the likelihood of its occurrence will instead be based on the dramatic potential of that outcome.
 * Murder Is the Best Solution
 * Out-of-Character Moment
 * Poor Communication Kills (and all its varied Sub Tropes)


 * Remembered Too Late
 * Rising Conflict
 * Sex Changes Everything
 * Smart Ball
 * Tempting Fate - Stating the unlikelihood of mishap causes its likelihood to approach 100%.
 * Too Happy to Live
 * Waking Up Elsewhere
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?
 * Will They or Won't They?
 * You Can't Thwart Stage One