All drama deals with conflict of one sort or another, even a love story. You may wonder how there can be conflict when two people love each other, but a love story does not make good drama unless there are problems to be overcome before this love can be fulfilled. The conflict in a love story could come from a disapproving parent, religious differences or physical distance between the lovers.
Primitive audiences would have been happy with resolving this simple conflict and getting on with drowning the village idiot, but modern audiences are a little more sophisticated and expect more from their entertainment.
To that end the writer adds Complication or Escalating Conflict. So, in our love story, not only does the maiden’s mother disapprove of our swain, but then the old biddy goes and dies, leaving our maid in mourning and not in the mood for romance.
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This is how the screenwriter works, by adding complication upon complication and constantly searching for solutions to these problems. This is why screenwriting really does demand pre-planning before the writing process begins, because otherwise you’re going to add so much complication that you’re going to write yourself into a corner.
There is also no rule which says that you must have only one conflict to deal with. An impending hurricane may threaten our lovers, and begs the question, which is the plot and which the sub-plot?