Development of drama

Conflict: External conflict:
In a scene that encounters a protagonist against a antagonist, the protagonist has a dramatic need but the antagonist opposes that need within the scene.
An editor might decide to show this through shot-reverse- shot, which means that during conflict between the two characters the editor would switch between shots of the protagonist and shots of the antagonist, usually close ups of the characters faces as the struggle through their fight.

Conflict: Internal conflict:
Internal conflict arises when a character (usually a protagonist) is involved in a battle with themselves and they feel two opposing needs.
An editor may favour close up coverage on the character to capture this struggle in side them, the shots the editor might choose will be focused on the eyes and face.

Withholding Information:
Although taking information away from an audience might seem contradicted when it comes to building dramatic effect but you would be wrong as an audience enjoys being feed suspense and they liked to be teased and challenged especially during highly dramatic scenes.
An editor might choose to do this by withholding a characters identity, usually done when a new antagonist is introduced. Another way an editor can pull this off is by cutting from a scene where the tension is at its highest to a scene with other characters, this gives the audience a chance to imagine for themselves what is going to happen in the scene they just cut from.

The dramatic context:
An editor need to make sure that when they are putting different scenes together that the current scene still related to the scenes before it and the scenes that will come after it.
The editor must decide whether or not the tension in the scenes to come need to stay at the same (or higher) level or whether or not they need to put some dramatic relief in to break the tension for a awhile, this can be dome through comic relief or other methods.

Subtext:
An editor can some times create subtext through the way shots are put together.
A characters might be saying one thing but depending on what the editor chooses to show the audience might be led to understand something differently from what is being expressed verbally.
If the audience understands something within a scene that a other character has yet to understand, the audience might feel initiated within the film.