As a death-row prison guard, experience has taught him that the men in his charge are guilty and deserve their punishment. This is the situation Paul Edgecombe encounters in The Green Mile. How can we add internal conflict to our story? shares 5 ideas Click To Tweet Nothing causes psychological turmoil quite like a challenge to one’s core beliefs, and no beliefs are more central than the moral ones, because they define who we are. Then, before you know it, an important human need has been compromised, leading to more problems. It can lead to her sacrificing her own joy for the happiness of others. This fear of disappointing others can influence her choice of career or who she marries. She may worry that if she takes on something big, she’ll screw it up, so she discards goals that could result in personal fulfillment, such as having children or leading a beloved charity group or event. This fear will insert itself into every situation where she’s accountable to others, steering her toward doing what others want rather than what she wants, or causing her to step back instead of stepping up. Imagine, for instance, a character who is afraid of letting others down. Fear of failure, being alone, losing a loved one … these can push the character to embrace unhealthy habits or paralyze her into maintaining the status quo and resisting needed change.
(This is the voice of experience talking.)īut in storytelling, it’s the larger fears that drive both character and story. The inconvenient, everyday ones? Sure, because no one makes split-second decisions better than an arachnophobe who’s just stumbled into a spiderweb. #1: Their Greatest Fearįears are highly motivating. This primary inner conflict might be something you need a bit of help to brainstorm, so poke around the psychological side of them to see what shakes loose. Themselves conflict will create a war zone inside your character throughout the story, and they must resolve it successfully to achieve their goal. Where inner conflict really takes center stage is at the story level. At times it’s a heavy weight, other times, indecision over what to do, or deciding what’s better, option A or option B. Scene-to-scene, you’ll usually see inner conflict. Characters, like us, must do the same, and as they look within themselves for answers, they reveal their vulnerability and humanity to readers. To find a path forward, we must weigh and measure personal beliefs, ideas, and needs. Confusion over what to do, feel, and believe, can make us feel exposed. Internal conflict draws readers in because it’s a type of struggle common to us all. Grappling with an aspect of mental health.Conflicting duties and responsibilities.Suffering from indecision, insecurity, self-doubt, or another emotion that puts the character at odds with themselves.Opposing or competing wants, needs, or desires.The difference is that outer conflict is something external keeping the character from his goal, while inner conflict is a mental struggle over wanting things that are at odds or compete.
***** How to Find Your Character’s Inner Conflict By Angela AckermanĬonflict is a powerful element within the story and can be loosely categorized as either Outer (external) Conflict or Inner (internal) Conflict. How can we nail down our character’s inner conflict and incorporate it into our story? The fantastic Angela Ackerman-one half of the duo behind the popular writing Thesaurus collection, the Writers Helping Writers site, and the One Stop for Writers resource-is here to help us discover our character’s internal conflict. This internal conflict can seem nebulous and intangible, but it’s often how our character’s backstory wound affects the here-and-now of our story. Inner conflict can get far deeper into who our character is, with all their hope, fears, and false beliefs.
So if we’re writing a story with a character focus and/or an internal/emotional arc, we need some type of internal conflict. But it can also force the focus onto the plot and not our characters.
However, it’s often still easier for us to think of conflict in the context of villains or “bad guys,” as that type of conflict feels more immediate and tangible. The End.” Why does it take them pages and pages to reach their goals or fulfill their desires? (Assuming they do succeed and we’re not writing a tragedy.) Whatever those obstacles standing in the way of their goals are, that’s conflict. internal arcs.Ĭonflict is what creates the story and not just a tale of “she wanted X and she got it. We’ve talked many times about different styles of conflict, from antagonists vs. For new writers, that advice might bring to mind scenes of characters fighting, but the truth of what counts as conflict is much broader than that. A common piece of advice is to include some type of conflict on every page.