A good story has a central conflict or obstacle for the protagonist(s) to overcome. Stories without conflict are boring; I doubt many would want to read, watch, or hear a story in which a person goes to work, goes home, and goes to bed with no extreme or life-changing events occurring. This story serves no purpose as it simply describes life as it often happens in modern society: mundane and routine. A humourous story thrives off of this by taking normal, everyday, relatable events and putting them in a different context.

Think of your favourite television show. Does it follow the boring, routine life of someone working 9-5, with no humour or life-changing events taking place? Chances are this show doesn’t. Good television is all about drama and humour. Events take place that threaten the lives of characters, and they may even joke about the events. Good conflict or obstacles make the audience sweat and hope everything will be okay, and when things finally do settle down, disaster strikes. A family member dies, an earthquake occurs, or a shoot-out maims a bystander and ruins their life forever. These conflicts and obstacles provide essential flavour and predictability to television shows that viewers have come to expect. It’s almost a rule of thumb. If things settle down, and characters are happy and things are starting to look up, the viewer should expect a sudden and often drastic change in tone and atmosphere. One of the best ways to create more drama in a television show is to make the characters desperate, while giving them a glimmer of hope.

Stories of all types and genres are told endlessly all around the world, and are all tied together, by conflict and obstacles. Without those two things a story has no meaning, no purpose, and no lesson to be passed onto its audience.

Stories are an excellent way to escape. Who wants to escape into a story that is a mirror image of their life?