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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42227
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42227
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In order to create emotional projection, you need to portray common experiences that every in the audience has had or can relate to. They must be able to put themselves into one of the roles on the screen, at least metaphorically or emotionally.

Most of us can relate to "two best friends fighting". Depending on the age of the audience, most of us can relate to somebody we love dying, a sibling, a child, a parent. Also age dependent, but most of us can relate to finding romance, struggling with school or a job or an abusive boss. Work through the list of life experiences you have had, good or bad, and decide if they are unique or others have probably had similar experiences.

Now for most of us, these common experiences don't involve fighting to the death, but that is what you do next: ramp up the experience (be it romance or a terrible job) to 11 or 12 on a scale of 10. In the comedy "9 to 5" they take a common bad-boss scenario everybody can relate to, ramp up the bad-boss to 11, and ramp up the response to 12 (they kidnap the sexist tyrant of a boss and run the business themselves).

Or in your example, a rift between best friends gets ramped up to lethality.

Original score: 1