The Conflict and the Conflict
Internal Versus External Character Conflicts
Welcome back to Shelf Life. I am actually welcoming myself back to Shelf Life because I’ve been away for a bit. I had written several articles ahead so I took some time away to work on other stuff but now the queue is empty again so I’m back. You probably didn’t notice I was gone. That’s okay. No hard feelings. Anyhow, welcome to the first Shelf Life article of year three.
While I was away focusing on other stuff I wrote down all the ideas I had for Shelf Life articles during that time and so, coming back, I had a lot to choose from. There were eight good ideas sitting in the in-progress folder and it was hard to know where to begin. I found myself . . . conflicted. That is how I ended up writing none of those eight good ideas and writing this one instead. Don’t worry! All the ideas will be written eventually.
A fun Shelf Life fact is, before I started writing it, I had a friend look at a list of topics and flag the ones they were most keen to read. The idea was to help me figure out which ones to write first. Some of the ones they flagged are still on the to-be-written list, and as I mentioned above—it’s been two years. I’ll get to them someday.
On a long enough timeline, every topic’s chance of not being written drops to zero.
Conflict is essential to plot in western storytelling. Without conflict, you’ve got no plot. Without plot, you’ve just got characters sitting around not doing anything and that’s not what anybody wants to read.
First: Plot requires conflict. Second: One conflict is not enough. You’re going to need more than that to get the job done.
I’ll expand on something I spoke about briefly in June’s Thirty-Second Rule, which is that most types of conflict found in storytelling can be sorted into a few catchall categories, which I was taught in elementary school if I remember correctly. They are:
Person versus person, wherein the protagonist and the antagonist are both people who find themselves in conflict.
Some famous examples of person-versus-person conflicts include The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, which pits Special Agent Clarice Starling up against serial killer Buffalo Bill; and Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov, which chronicles the relationship between villain-protagonist Humbert Humbert and hero-antagonist Dolores Haze.
Person versus nature, wherein the protagonist is pitted against some force of nature such as an animal, the weather or climate, a disease or medical condition, or another natural phenomenon.
Note that “natural phenomenon” can mean things not technically found in nature, as long as they exist in nature in the context of the story—such as the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. Examples of person-versus-nature conflicts include The Martian by Andy Weir, “To Build a Fire,” by Jack London, or Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Person versus nature also includes much of apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and zombie stories.
Person versus society, in which the protagonist is at odds with or up against the society in which they live.
For instance, Nineteen-Eighty Four by George Orwell, in which Winston Smith attempts to subvert a totalitarian government; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which sees Atticus Finch take on racism via the legal system; or The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, which Katniss Everdeen spends trying to overthrow an unjust, reality-TV-obsessed society.
Person versus themself, in which the protagonist’s greatest challenge is overcoming their own shortcomings or limitations.
This may mean a person has a moral, ethical, or religious conflict they are dealing with—the classic example of this is obviously Shakespeare’s Hamlet—or the character may be facing a romantic quandary (“which suitor should I marry?!”) or an existential conflict. Person-versus-self conflict has been explored in some fascinating ways, perhaps most famously in Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, but also in titles like Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.
Anyone or anything your character is struggling against during the course of the plot—that’s a conflict. Anything that is standing between your protagonist and the thing they want to get, or achieve, or preserve, or rescue—that’s the conflict.
I’m sure, though, as you look at the examples above, your mind probably supplied some objections. In Lolita, for instance, there’s an external conflict between Humbert and Lolita as I described, but isn’t Humbert also in conflict with himself and with the society around him that, you know, frowns on his predilection for twelve-year-old girls? Or what about Nineteen Eighty-Four? Winston is in conflict with The Party, but he’s also in conflict with himself due to his relationship with Julia that disgusts, frightens, and excites him, and then he’s also got a person-versus-person conflict going with O’Brien?
For a story to have depth, it’s got to have at minimum an external conflict and an internal conflict (for the main character). That is, there must be an external goal the character is pursuing as well as an internal goal the character is pursuing whether they realize it or not. All round, interesting characters must have some internal conflict they overcome during the course of the story in addition to the external conflict, or conflicts, they overcome.
Characters develop by facing and resolving their internal conflicts. This means that however many prominent characters you have—they’re all going to need an internal conflict. This means your protagonist, your antagonist, and your major supporting characters. In a book with a large number of critical characters, that’s a lot of internal conflicts. Six of Crows, with its crew of six main characters, is a masterwork in this sense: There’s a guy with a religious conflict; two guys trying to come to terms with their disabilities; a gal struggling with feelings of worthlessness; a gal dealing with crushing guilt over choices she was forced to make in the past; and a guy who spends every waking moment hiding what he is. Like, I’m amazed they were able to get anything done with all that baggage.
Katniss Everdeen doesn’t only need to overthrow the government of Panem, she also must overcome her reluctance to take a leadership role (and, along the way, conquer her pathological desire to give up on everything and disappear into the woods). And in fact, her reluctance to lead people—her internal conflict—is part of what’s holding her back from resolving her external conflicts, as well.
Whatever a character’s internal conflict is, it ought to have some relationship to the external conflict they are facing or the way they are going to resolve it. Perhaps the most obvious, hit-you-over-the-head example is from The Lord of the Rings, in which Aragorn doesn’t want to be King of Gondor, he’s spent like eighty years doing everything he can to avoid this responsibility, but only the King of Gondor had the authority to summon the Dead Men of Dunharrow, without whose help they could not have prevailed at the Battle of Pelargir.
Before I go on to teasing out your story’s conflicts, I think it’s important to note that a character can be in conflict with something tangible or something intangible. “Society” is intangible. “His arch nemesis, Pyro Pepperjacket, who is standing right over there,” is tangible.
You’re almost always going to need at least one tangible antagonist for your protagonist—a character who puts a face on the vague concept of whatever you’re character’s fighting. In The Hunger Games, this was President Snow who represented the Panem Government. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, O’Brien represents The Party. It’s incredibly difficult to tell a story where a character is in conflict with no other characters and all the conflict comes from self, nature, society, et cetera. The Martian by Andy Weir is one example, and the movie Cast Away (2000) is another. It can be done, but it’s rarely done well and requires a very high degree of skill. If your character isn’t in conflict with anything tangible, look into adding a character for them to clash with.
To figure out your story’s critical conflicts, first ask yourself what is your main character’s external goal: What is it they are trying to accomplish? For instance:
An exiled prince wants to overthrow the usurper and reclaim his throne.
A journalist wants to find her sister’s murderer and bring them to justice.
Two siblings want to win a space race to be the first settlers on a newly discovered planet.
Next, ask yourself what external obstacles stand between your character and their goal: Outside of their own limitations or shortcomings, what’s stopping them from getting what they want?
But can’t prove he’s the legitimate heir.
But the police have closed her sister’s case and refuse to investigate further.
But they have no money to outfit a ship for the journey.
There are three examples of conflicts. The protagonist(s) wants something and there is an obstacle(s) in their way. Before we go back to examine the internal conflict, let’s take one more step forward. What will these protagonists do to thwart their obstacle? (The first thing—there are likely to be many obstacles and many solutions on their way to the end.)
So he must seek out the only person who can positively verify his identity.
So she must use her investigative journalism skills to undertake the investigation herself.
So they must grudgingly find and bring along a financier.
Now we have ample information to figure out the characters’ internal conflicts and how they relate to or support the external conflict. Whatever their internal conflict might be, whatever they are dealing with inside their own skull, the story is enriched if that complicates the situation with the external conflict. For instance:
But deep down, he doubts he could rule his ancestral kingdom better than the usurper is doing. How can he convince another to vouch for him as the rightful king when he doesn't even believe in himself?
But all the clues point to an old flame for whom she still has feelings, and who insists he’s being framed. Can she manage her feelings in order to bring this man to justice, or else work with him to find the real killer?
But they were brought up to be highly suspicious of anyone from offworld, and the financier is not only an offworlder, but a member of an alien species. Can the siblings overcome their prejudice quick enough to win the space race?
There’s no limit to the conflicts you can put in your story, as long as you don’t let the text run on longer than the reader is willing to keep reading. Why not include all four types of conflict in one story? If you’re not sure whether that could work or not, go watch my favorite movie—Aliens (1986)—in which the protagonist (Ripley) matches wits with the antagonist (a person), a colony of alien creatures (nature), the military and the corporation for which she works (society), and her own debilitating PTSD from the last time around (self). That’s a masterclass in conflict if there ever was one.
If you have questions that you'd like to see answered in Shelf Life, ideas for topics that you'd like to explore, or feedback on the newsletter, please feel free to contact me. I would love to hear from you.
For more information about who I am, what I do, and, most important, what my dog looks like, please visit my website.
After you have read a few posts, if you find that you're enjoying Shelf Life, please recommend it to your word-oriented friends.