The Central Dilemma in Your Song's Narrative

A dilemma (the crisis or when your character is standing at the crossroads) is when the path they wanted to follow to reach their goal is not a one-way route anymore.

They now have to choose whether they will turn left or right.

They only have two possibilities and no matter what they choose, they’ll lose something in the process.

Either they face a Best Bad Choice in which neither option is acceptable or preferable.

Or they face an irreconcilable goods question of two choices that are either good for the character in the song but bad for someone else, or vice versa.

The good thing is if you think about a crisis moment for the character in your song, you can build a story around that character whose inner strength will be tested by having to make this extreme choice.

There is one sentence that will clarify what you want to write about, help you understand your character, and create a foundation that will guide you through your song and your listeners.

In this sentence, there are three fundamental elements that we need to include in the equation:

The template for this sentence is as follows:

In "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor the central dilemma (according to the template above) is the following:

In Eminem’s song "Sing for the Moment" the sentence is:

In "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica the core of the song is:

In "I'd Do Anything for Love" by Meatloaf:

This central crisis is the very foundation behind the idea of the song that shows who the protagonist is, and what kind of conflict the force of antagonism is creating while the character has to deal with a problem.

In "I'm Not Okay" by My Chemical Romance the core of the song is:

Why is that one sentence so powerful?

Okay, let’s use Eminem’s song "Sing for the Moment" as an example.

This sentence provides us with

That one sentence also shows the internal dilemma brought up by the external goal.

Internal Dilemma = He needs to decide if he wants to be selfish and choose his safety or does he want to serve others through his songs?

External Goal = Question the ones in power.

The sentence can inspire you to find out which incident has led to making your protagonist face his dilemma.

And you can also include the decision they are making, as well as how that decision turns out for them.

What are the consequences or what is the outcome of having made that particular decision?

In Eminem’s song "Sing For The Moment", the inciting event that must have led to him writing this song was the external pressure weighing on him.

That means it must have been that incident when they tried to question if he could raise his little girl. More complications were added on top, which led to a real-life crisis for Eminem.

So, the song is the decision of Eminem's real-life dilemma

He had decided to write Sing for the Moment and even release it as a single to make his statement to all the people who are trying to make an example of him.

And how did this decision turn out for him?

He has gained respect by not selling out and standing true to his values and his purpose as an artist.

This leads us straight back to why storytelling in songwriting is so important—this is exactly why.