Bumped across this twitter thread from Kat Jo Lewis
External conflict does not work without internal conflict. And for the literary fiction writers out there like myself: internal conflict ABSOLUTELY does not work w/o external conflict. How do you write a story with both external and internal conflict?
Ask yourself two questions: Q1: What concrete thing does my character want? To test that their goal is concrete, it should fall into one of four categories: win, stop, escape, or retrieve. If it doesn’t, it’s not concrete enough and your external conflict will likely be too weak.
Q2: What is my character’s core misbelief? This will point to their internal need and works best if it drives their external goal. E.g. AJ wants to rob a bank (a retrieve goal) because his misbelief is that money will give him freedom.
An effective story would show how AJ’s misbelief is false (internal conflict) as he progresses toward his concrete goal (external conflict).
2. Theme is key. You might be asking, “How do I find my character’s misbelief?” Misbelief is tied to theme. Before writing game narratives, I thought theme was something that naturally manifested in a story. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Theme drives the story’s tone, pitch, and audience. Theme is only effective if it drives your characters too. To find the misbelief, find your theme first. What lesson does the protagonist need to learn? Write down your theme, then write down the opposite. That’s the misbelief.
Let’s continue with the bank robbery example: Theme: Greed is a prison. Misbelief: Money gives you freedom.
3. Outlines improve pacing and save time in revision. If you’re a discovery writer and your process is working, feel free to keep scrolling. I used to be a discovery writer, but it did not work for me for three reasons:
(1) throwing out countless pages in revision felt like a waste of time, (2) that feeling made me hostile toward the revision process, and (3) improving the pacing of my novel felt tedious because I was constantly going down the wrong path before I found the right one.
Writing video games taught me that finding a story structure that resonated with how I understand narrative was not a useless constraint. Instead, structure gave me the freedom to be more creative and enjoy the writing process because I had a framework to make sure that:
(1) the story finds an effective pacing in earlier drafts and (2) the protagonist is constantly making progress toward their concrete goal (external conflict) while battling their misbelief (internal conflict).
There are a lot of different story structures out there to explore. I personally use the 3-Act Structure as described in Save the Cat (check out the novel version if you write prose) and the Hero Goal Sequences Paradigm from Eric Edson’s The Story Solution. Links below.
