How to Instantly Give Your Characters Internal Conflict
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- čas přidán 9. 04. 2023
- If you've ever read through a manuscript and worried that the internal conflict of your characters is just missing something but you can't quite put your finger on what... this episode is for you. Today, Abbie and I are discussing how to instantly take your character's internal conflict to the next level - without rewriting or heavy edits. So if you're ready, grab a notebook, and let's dive in!
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04:30 Internal conflict = desire, fear, misbelief
Doesn't have to be clear to the protagonist at first
Put spotlight on the emotional side
Insert short thoughts, worries, doubts, hesitations; here and there
Find small ways, little windows into the internal conflict, draw it to the surface
09:00 Explore character's thoughts going into a scene or before they take action
Thinking about possible outcomes, best case, worse case
Their decision-making process
Leverage their voice to show thoughts
12:22 Find a balance between showing and telling
Over write the internal conflict
You can dial it back later in editing, make it less on-the-nose
Write it out first, don't interrupt your flow
Don't get hung up comparing your writing with other people's
17:45 Find moments in action and dialogue where you can bring that internal conflict to the surface, see into their heart
How they react to what someone said
How they make a decision
Someone they are avoiding
Someone they get defensive with
Feelings, fears, misconceptions about life
18:25 Use backstory and flashbacks
Can be short, a few sentences
A quick jump back to something that shaped their conflict, belief about the world, relationships
Can add a few paragraphs during rewrites
Can be narration or internal dialogue
22:16 A bit goes a long way to add layers to your story, a new dimension to see your story through
No need for a major rewrite
Be proud of your small edits
24:00 Write down the internal conflict - desire, fear, misbelief - on a card
Place it near your computer
To remind yourself to find opportunities to bring internal conflict to the surface
25:08 Use the Enneagram to come up with conflicts
Also study stories and characters that you love
26:55 Recap
Internal conflict = desire, fear, misbelief
Make characters active, not passive punching bags for the plot
What are they trying to accomplish, what is standing in their way (their fatal flaw)
Find places to sprinkle this in - flashbacks, dialogue, internal dialogue, decision making
Thanks friend!
I don't know how I can thank you
Thank you for these summary notes
Love this summary. Thank you!!!!
This video is cringe, so I thank you for saving me a watch.
Your comment about expressions caught my attention. I worry a lot that I’m choreographing facial expressions and body language too much. Too much grinning, smiling, wincing, grimacing, shrugging, sighing, etc.
same here.
You gals are more than sisters. You two are friggin legends. Wow, so much wisdom to be shared from your experiences. Thanks for everything.
00:29 📚 Internal conflict in characters is essential for a compelling story.
05:30 🤔 Emotional side of internal conflict is crucial, even if characters don't fully understand it themselves.
09:11 🤔 Characters' hesitations and doubts often revolve around imagining different scenarios.
12:26 📝 Show internal conflict through decision-making process, even in small actions and thoughts.
16:17 🎨 Embrace childlike creativity, avoid over-analysis and self-doubt during initial writing.
18:47 📖 Flashbacks and backstory can be powerful tools to reveal characters' internal conflict, even in small glimpses.
21:55 🗣️ Balance internal dialogue, narration, and flashbacks to add depth to characters' struggles without overwhelming the reader.
22:49 📝 Small changes in the story can create a new dimension and enhance internal conflict.
23:44 🎉 Celebrate even small additions of internal conflict as accomplishments in your writing.
24:10 🗣️ Enhance conflict through dialogue, internal thoughts, and flashbacks without overwhelming the reader.
25:18 🧠 Use the Enneagram as a tool to generate unique conflicts based on character personality types.
26:26 📚 Study other stories and characters to gain insight into creating compelling internal conflicts.
27:07 💡 Understand the basic recipe of internal conflict: desire, fear, and misbelief for creating active, relatable characters.
I love how your books, shown in the beginning, feel like the sun and moon to me. Thank you for doing all these wonderful videos! They help me so much with writing
Word! I do that all the time! "Don't do this, don't do that." You nailed it in the head Kate! Time to unblock the flow, get messy, and have some fun. Touching on that childlike innocence and creative flow, I realized a little while back that of coarse, The Imagination's greatest fuel is play time. This writers block I'm in is only my creative intuition gearing me up to pour out a powerful surge, It's actually very exciting. I'm unlocking tons of treasure in regards to understanding my process and my current WIP. Talk about solving a huge chunk of my own inner conflict lol
Yessss. It is so much easier to cut things/clarify things when you’ve added too much than it is to invent things whole cloth after the fact
Thank you both for this! I have so many notes of yours jotted down in a journal. That really helps when I'm in the middle of a chapter and a problem crops up I can just flip through the journal and find the resolve.
Amazing episode, but I feel like, in books, you tell a lot and I really feel like we need more of this in actual examples. Thanks!!
Y’all are so sweet I would never be where I am without you guys, I love your videos and subscribed after a single video, thank you❤❤❤
Good stuff, as always! Thank ou guys. A case study would have been a great way to give us a"how to do" the insertion of the internal conflict in a scene, or a dialogue. Maybe next time?
Yeah I think that was the only thing this otherwise great video was missing, it had no examples of what was being discussed!
same. i'm super concrete and can understand difficult things if you show me 3 different examples of it. the first as a template, the second sets the pattern, the third shows exceptions.
I love the point about letting yourself be messy. I can be prone to writing emotional scenes overly melodramatic, but trying to tone it down as I go can stop me from getting through an important scene. Now if I'm struggling I give myself permission to write the overwrought version first and just enjoy that then I go back and clean it up after. It helps to be able to look at all possible emotional points I might pick from and then choosing to keep only the ones that work best and tossing the weaker ones.
I'm doing a side project on a love story that was inspired by another story. I know writing from another person's work can be a challenge, but instead of focusing on a huge assortment of characters, my focus will be on the two characters that have a unique relationship. I had already done the first chapter, and in that chapter, I focused more on the male protagonist and built his side of the relationship. I'm working on the second chapter and this one focuses on the female protagonist and her relationship with the male protagonist.
For her chapter, I did include a flashback, but since I didn't focus on her side in the first chapter, this one will show a side of her that focused on the male protagonist that got into a relationship with another woman, how the female protagonist figures out how much her relationship with the male protagonist had changed from being friends and going into lovers territory. After the male protagonist gets rejected by the woman he was interested in, the female protagonist will console him and she will unintentionally make a move on him, but with surprising results between them. During their first date, they talk about what happened and become an official couple.
The flashback is long, but it gives me a proper chance to explore the female protagonist's feelings for the male protagonist and a budding romance from her perspective. I planned on what the main conflict will be between them, and it will involve a change in the female protagonist's life that makes the male protagonist feel self-conscious and doubt his worthiness for her.
You should make videos about your writing process for the Co write (like vlogs) and release them when the book is out. Like breaking down how you did everything.
Hey Kate. Hey Abbie. Your Awesome. You made me fall in love with Podcasts (I just listen to your Podcasts😅).
Thank you very much from Poland. This is a great material, which gave me some hope that I am able to write internal conflict. I took notes and put them in my writer’s helper. Dziękuję - thank you in Polish.
Most amazing topics EVER!! Thank you!!! ❤❤❤
Love this video and this podcast. Keep on doing what you guys are doing because it's great information to know in the future for me. In my current WIP there is a prologue where my MC tells it in dialogue however the rest of the story takes place four years ago and it will show her internal conflict through action.
So good, as always! I'm in the process of developing new characters, so this came at a great time!
Thank you both, that was helpful!
I love the Enneagram! So helpful!
The Conflict Thesarus book has so much helpful information too.
Thank you so much! Great info! You guys are amazing!
Good morning, Kate and Abbie and thanks for posting and sharing this video with us, as well as the advice you've given us towards our own writing projects. Have a wonderful day.
Thank you. Is this video meant to be unlisted for everyone who isn't subscribed? Ah, it's fixed now. This chat was great and goes perfectly with the dimensions of character I was reading about in Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. Love and light.
thank you two, so helpful ❤
Congratulations Kate!!!! 🥳
Great as always
So good, I need to insert a short flashback of why 2 characters became best friends. Loved this segment.
i have used flashbacks and inner dialogue to set up the reader for an internal conflict -but the story outline has to prep you for that.
your all videos are very focused on big picture. I have written my book and it has good internal conflict but I struggle to write good story on sentence level. make a video or could you do podcast about this topic?
Thank you. As someone who’s writing characters under eighteen, any tips on writing them as realistically as possible but not too cringey?
Thanks for good information. I will use what I learned from you in my story. The only negative i have is watching you too was really lacked emotion and your chemistry together seems to be off. I am still a fan.
Thank you so much for these videos! I just discovered them today and already binged a couple episodes. I feel like my writing processes improved so much.
I wanted to ask if theres a chance you can make an episode on how to write antagonists or unlikable character?
(In my case my main character is sort of a delinquent who goes around stealing and breaking stuff. But she’s really loyal to her loved ones and determined)
How do I go about writing character like her?
As I was listening to you, I thought of a passage in my novel I thought finished. I changed an entire (telling) descriptive paragraph of a dramatic moment into (showing) an anguished thought of the protagonist. And boom! it instanlty multiplied the tension in the scene and communicated the feel I was truly looking for in it. Took just one minute of work.
You're so much on point with this. Thank you for helping me being, so easily and effortlessly, a better writer.
May be a lot to ask, but it'd be really interesting and educational to see the before and after of that paragraph if you're happy to share!
@@LDillon I have to translate it ; I write in French ;).
Context: the mentor of the main protagonist is about to get struck by the main antagonist's instant death touch. Over thirty feet of uneven, broken ground separates them.
Original text:
Even with all his Xi, he could not run fast enough or jump far enough to push her out of the way; nor him; nor block the attack or take it himself. And by the time he could strike the ground and the shockwave would reach him, he would already be touching her. All this he calculated in the blink of a eye.
New text:
Even with all my Xi, I can't run fast enough or jump far enough to push her out of the way! Or him! Block his attack or take it myself! And by the time I could strike the ground and the shockwave would reach him, he would already be touching her!
All this he calculated in the blink of an eye.
As I said, I changed little; only he/his to I/me and writing it in italics to convey thinking instead of narration.(sorry, I don't know how to put a CZcams comment in italics). So there you go :)
@@odojang Thanks so much for sharing, and going to the effort of translating it!
@@LDillon _You mean like this?_ Yep, it works! Like the exclamation point!
Thanks for the tip. And glad you liked the excerpt.
Syd Fields Pradigm 'Pressure Points'
How timely! You mean I might not have to write the whole thing over again? -- Also, can't wait to learn the title of "The Lighthouse Book." ;)
Also: What is the bad habit or attitude your character is trying to overcome.
Because in moments of stress, it will come out.
Question: how do I show my reader multiple aspects of my characters world without it being chaotic or overwhelming? I have this very big world full of a great many conflicts that my boi has found himself in the middle of. This has been an ongoing daydream for about seven years and now I'm finally trying to write the book so there's a lot to unpack here.
@kaemmons can we have a paperback version of your new book please?
Abie I want to ask you that how can you find perfect words for our novel like for a fantasy novel that how can we write it's end I am just not able to write the end of my story like there is an internal conflict but when a Character change at the end point
This is all great. In theory. This is all discussion of theory. Can you follow up with practical examples (plural) of each point. Theoretical discussion is good, but it doesn't mean anything without knowing/seeing how to apply it.
Maybe this is just my taste, but I don't like too much internal conflict and monologue in the middle of action in a way that takes away from that tension. I wanted to say if possible, could you guys make a video with examples of such edits? How a sentence can be added in an existing scene to spruce it up.
So the debate phase. Or many mini debate phases?
I get confused by what you mean by lie or musbelief
Hi, you can't seek anything in books, that's give just basic and experience directions and experience you gain yourself
sorry but I don't thnk the topic above was addressed , why refer to other of your videos to get the answer? Perhaps you could have mentioned how to use descrptive words to show the behavior of the character to show inner turmoil . Flashbacks were the only idea here. This was very long and not as good as t could have been . I do appreciate the effort to help writers without confidence though for that ya'll get A+
I add internal conflicts to my own life, not my characters
I appreciate your insights but decreased my pattern support based on you spend a lot of time talking with a moderate amount of useful content. More specific examples from books with context would be helpful. Thank you!