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Fiction 101: Internal conflict
Having a unique protagonist that is a real person is the best avenue to publication. Your protagonist not only has to face the external conflict of complications, but must have internal conflict as well.
The protagonist must have something inside of him that stands in the way and acts as a complication to him getting what he wants. This should be deeply important to him, something that shapes who he is. Internal conflict will give your story purpose.
Internal conflict is shown in fiction through the protagonist’s thoughts and only the protagonist thinks in the story. Italic without quotes, which is brief, is used for internal conflict. It is usually incorporated into a paragraph but can stand on its own as dialogue does. After the thought in italic use a comma and then the tag line in regular text: he thought or he figured.
My protagonist Jake in my novel Lots rigged by a phantom once beat a man to death and thus is afraid of the rage that dwells inside of him and is also frightened of death itself. This conflict leads him to do all sorts of things that he ordinarily wouldn’t do. You can see this at: www.tomarbino.com/lotsint.doc The internal conflict becomes part of the external conflict when he gets into a fight and feels that murderous rage inside of him once again.
You can use internal conflict as a form of rebirth for your protagonist. Though my protagonist Jake never overcame his rage, I have written a sword and sorcery short story entitled The power of the sword in which my protagonist does overcome the internal conflict. Myrrdin is a knight who has an internal conflict about killing and drawing blood that stems from hunting and gutting an animal at an early age. As a knight, he encounters wicked creatures in the forest that he must do battle with. It is when he faces his fear and uses his sword to kill and draw blood that he is reborn as the chief knight and the true leader of the Knights of the sword.
Real people have problems and internal blocks that prevent them from going forth and ones that make them act in a certain way. NFL commentator John Madden is so afraid of flying that he travels in a bus. He won’t even go to the airport to pick up his wife. If he were a character in a novel, his fear of flying would make for good internal conflict. Any fear or phobia is good ground for internal conflict as is something traumatic that happened early in life.
Only a protagonist that is fully human will be the one that is published. Incorporating internal conflict into your story will change the mind of an editor who had once rejected you.
More fiction 101 articles can be found at: www.tomarbino.com/AA7.html
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