On Motivation and Longing

External vs Internal Conflict

External vs Internal Conflicts

All stories must have conflict. That’s what makes them exciting. A person having a good day is not a good story. You have to have obstacles or you’ll lose the reader.

I once saw a statistic from an editor that 90% of his submissions were rejected because nothing happened in the story. Don’t be one of those people. Make something happen: Give your character lots of conflicts to overcome, both internal and external.

External Conflict: The Hero’s Journey Of Achievement

External conflicts are the obstacles that stand between your main character and their goals. To find the bad guy, to get the promotion, to get the girl, etc.

Made up of External Goal, Motivation and Conflict (see Debra Dixon’s book for a deep dive on GMC). The boon of this journey is achieving the goal (catching the bad guy, getting the job, killing the dragon to save the princess). Goal is a tangible outcome. Motivation is the reason they're pursuing it (usually it’s a surface reason that’s informed by a deeper cause—we’ll discuss this below). Conflicts are the tangible external obstacles that stand between them and their goals.

So your protagonist pursues a goal and the antagonist will try to stop them. This is external conflict aka The Plot. It’s also what makes a book marketable.

These external conflicts aren’t always an antagonist or person. We all learned in high school about Man vs man, Man vs society, Man vs nature, Man vs machine, Man vs. supernatural agency (gods, monsters, etc) But usually an antagonist will personify these conflicts, i.e. the head of a corporation, a representative from the oppressive societal structure. Or it might be a literal machine or a storm or a god or monster.  

External conflicts tend to be focused on more in popular fiction. A focus on this type of conflict results in plot-driven fiction, which is the focus of most popular genres. However, a focus solely on external conflicts can lead to two-dimensional and even formulaic stories, which is where Internal conflict comes in.

Internal Conflict: The Hero’s Journey of Fulfillment 

Internal conflict relates to your protagonists internal obstacles—doubts, fears, morals, etc. It’s a self-limiting story they tell themselves about who they are and their place in the world. Stories often begin with the protagonist in their normal world but they are quickly thrust out of their comfort zones once they set out to reach their story goals. This brings up all sorts of internal emotions that drive the Character Arc.

Instead of GMC, for Internal Conflict we have what I call the WBL- Wounds in the character's past create false or limiting Beliefs about themselves or their life that create Longings--note these longings are usually wants, not needs.

For example, a kid who grows up in an abusive home has a fundamental wound regarding feeling safe. Their false belief is that they have to be perfect in order to not get in trouble, i.e. stay safe. This creates a longing for control and order. This sort of longing will always inform the character’s external goals because they have a fundamental belief that without order they’re not safe.

In a lot of good stories, these false beliefs and longings need to be faced and overcome in order to achieve their external goals. Growth toward this being possible is the job of the external plot that forces the character out of their comfort zone. As they struggle against these external things and learn new information about the world and themselves, they’re able to grow and change (although one would also expect backtracking and failure because none of this should be easy).

The boon in our internal journey of fulfillment is becoming authentically oneself—the self that would have existed without the wounds. In The Anatomy of Story John Truby calls this the journey from slavery to freedom. By this, he means slavery to an identity imposed by one’s world to the freedom to be authentic. Because even if someone isn’t wounded by their family, society will do it because of a myriad of issues: racism, sexism, Patriarchy, fat shaming, homophobia, or just plain ignorance.

Now, wounds are created as our needs are not met. See Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. 

The more primal the character’s wound (lower levels on the pyramid) the deeper the belief is held and the more desperate the longing becomes. For example, a character who experienced extreme poverty as a child may always have a longing for financial security as an adult that colors all of their decisions. Ironically, trying to fulfill this longing prevents that person from transcending up the need pyramid to self-actualize.

An aside: Think about how having a wound at a basic level of the pyramid prevents a person from understanding those who have a life that’s included more levels of the pyramid from birth. Some people are so busy surviving they can’t begin to worry about more abstract needs or concerns that occupy the privileged.

If external conflict makes a book marketable, internal conflict makes stories memorable because it is through these conflicts that we create empathy for our characters.

A character arc is an internal plot. It charts a character’s growth as the story progresses—as they overcome their doubts and fears as they pursue their outward story goals.

The internal conflict is also the source of motivation for the story goal. This is the emotional reason the character cares about their quest. It’s also the source of conflict when characters are faced with making choices for external actions.

Internal conflicts help create empathy for your protagonist (and villain even) and helps the reader have an emotional investment in the character’s internal and external journeys.

Example: Our hero has a deep longing for respect. Why? When he was a child his father lost his job and had to get a job as the school janitor. One day the class bully found out and made fun of dad and son in front of entire class. This deep wound created his need for respect and success and drives his external goals. His liming belief is that if he can win everyone’s respect he will be happy. But he has a lesson to learn in the story to truly learn how to be happy—he has to learn to respect himself. 

Internal conflict is usually more focused on in literary fiction. This creates less action-packed stories in favor of more character-driven ones. But again, the best stories balance the two to create emotional depth as well as action. IN genre fiction, internal journeys are often found in romance novels. Characters must overcome their self-limiting beliefs about love in order to find it.

Quick note: Usually a character will change during the course of the story—this is what we call their “arc”—but sometimes the character’s arc is simply to learn to stick to their guns. Not every story is about a reversal of belief or finding out they were going after the wrong goal. But something must change. Even if it’s how they view their place in the world or how they view the world as a whole.

Putting It All Together

External and internal conflicts often converge in the story’s climax—where in order to reach their external goal they must finally overcome their final internal limitations. Or they finally see clearly that their original goal was created from that self-limiting belief and that actually what they need is this other goal.

The moment just before they manage this is called the black moment—where the character believes they will not be able to accomplish the goal because of an internal limitation, i.e. they aren’t strong enough to defeat the Big Bad.

Overcoming their internal conflicts is usually required to succeed in the external ones. Weaving all of this together makes your story feel both complex and satisfying.

Later this week, I’ll talk about one of my favorite examples of a character with a really cool internal conflict/external conflict structure: Circe Lannister.

But for now, bring me your questions!