Hi Everyone!
So today you're in for a treat, Gillian Adams is doing a blog post. She was kind enough to cover the major topic of conflict, so this post is going to be a bit longer than usual. That's enough from me, I'm going to turn it over to Gillian!
Conflict in the Story World
By Gillian Adams
When you
hear the word conflict, what do you think of?
An argument? Smoldering glares
and hazy silence? A high action chase
involving villains, crocodiles, and cliffs?
In the
story world, conflict means far more than that.
Simply put, conflict is anything
that interferes with your character achieving his/her goal.
Now,
wait a minute, you say. What’s this
about goals? Isn’t that an entirely
different subject? I thought we were
talking about conflict.
In order to fully understand
conflict, you have to understand goals. We’re going back to the basics
here, but in order to have a novel that works, your main character needs a
goal. This goal should drive your
character’s every deed and decision.
Having a goal enables your character to progress from a passive victim
of circumstance to an active participant in the plot.
There
are two main types of goals and they often work hand in hand – external goals
and internal goals. (This subject
deserves its own blog post, so I’ll try to keep it brief.) An external goal is something physical,
easily measurable. Your hero/heroine
accomplishes it and everyone sees that it’s done. Examples – Mary wants to win the marathon, John
wants to slay his enemy, Sally wants to open a coffee shop.
The
internal goal is invisible to others but it is often tied with the external
goal. Example – Mary is tired of being
“no one,” she wants to be accepted, John wants to be free of the guilt of his
parents’ deaths, Sally wants to prove her independence.
You get
the picture? Enough about goals, back to
conflict.
Conflict is Two Pronged
As I
said before, the simple definition of conflict is anything that interferes with
the character achieving his/her goals. If
there is no conflict, then there is no story, because the main character can achieve
his/her goals instantly.
Like
goals, conflict is two pronged and can be both external and internal.
External conflict arises when any exterior force
interferes with the character’s goals.
This can be any animate or inanimate object, an intentional or
unintentional interference, the product of nature or connivance.
It can
be anything from a forbidding mountain pass that your character has to cross,
to a hurricane that threatens to wreck the ship, to that deadly arch villain.
Pretty
simply, right? You probably naturally
include this in your story, because without it, you wouldn’t have a story! J
Internal conflict arises when the character is
confronted with two competing and equally powerful choices. For example, in Les
Miserables by Victor Hugo, when Inspector Javert is faced with the mercy and nobility
of Jean Valjean (an ex-convict), he is forced to decide between rigid adherence
to duty (his own internal goal) and showing mercy in return. Javert chooses mercy and, in so doing,
destroys everything he has ever lived for.
He winds up shooting himself. The
internal conflict proved too much for a man who would have withstood any
external conflict you threw his way.
Both
external and internal conflict are necessary in a good story. But internal conflict is far more powerful
that external conflict. While external
conflict allows the readers to sympathize with the main character’s difficulties
and feel his/her pain, internal conflict lays bare the character’s very
soul. It brings the story to a whole new
level, thereby allowing readers to connect with the characters in a deeper way.
Internal conflict can be purely
internal. Consider the example of Javert
that I mentioned above. Conflict caused wholly by self, where the only
obstacles to the character’s internal goal are the ones he/she raises. For example, this is useful if you have a
character who is trying to make a new start after a bad past. He’s stuck in a rut of his own making, trying
to reach that internal goal, but every time, his own habits/desires/memories
arise to prevent him.
Or, internal
conflict can be tied with external conflict.
Internal
conflict can be the work of an enemy. In
Spider Man 1, the Green Goblin offers Spider Man a “sadistic choice” between
saving the girl he loves and abandoning a bus load of children to die, OR, rescuing
the children and watching MJ fall to her death.
“Now choose.”
Internal
conflict can also be caused by a friend.
In my current WIP Song of Leira, Birdie meets external conflict in the form of her enemy Carhartan, but the internal conflict is provided by her
best friend and protector/guardian Amos.
Amos wants Birdie to forget about the mysterious Song she hears and
refuses to allow her to speak to the one person who could explain it. Birdie is caught between wanting to honor her
old friend for everything he has done for her and her desire to follow the call
of the Song. Internal conflict.
Conflict
caused by a close friend is much more personal and devastating for the
character, and thereby evokes a more emotional response in the readers.
How to add conflict to the story:
Alright,
you say. We’ve got all that. Now what?
I’m glad you asked. Here are some
steps for you.
1)
The
first thing to do is figure out what your character’s goals are – both external
and internal. The concept of internal
goals really confused me when I first sat down and thought about it. I brainstormed for hours and tried to
introduce more concrete goals into my book but they really just didn’t fit into
the story. Then I realized that my main
character already had an internal goal, I just hadn’t developed it enough. Sometimes, your character’s goals can be
right beneath your nose! It just takes a
little “thinking outside the box.”
2)
After
you’ve pinpointed those goals, a great question to ask yourself is “but
what?” Example: Mary wants to win that
marathon, but… what? Mary wants to feel
accepted, but… what?
This
is where you get to brainstorm for the unique conflict you want to include in
the book! You ready? Go, have fun.
Dream up every little obstacle you can to keep your characters from
achieving their goals…
3)
But,
wait, there’s one last thing. You also
have to figure out a logical way to resolve the conflict. Conflict doesn’t just disappear on its own. In a cause and effect world, there will
always be effects. Be sure to consider
that in your planning.
Do you
have any thoughts about conflict in the story world? What are some ways you have used internal and
external conflict in your own writing?
Feel free to share in the comments.