Earlier this month, I wrote about the importance of putting opposition in your hero’s way. I undersold the importance of opposition by saying that it gives your story flavor.
It actually does way more than that.
Obstacles create conflict. Conflict is the engine of plot. Plot creates the crucible in which your hero is squeezed into confronting the inner demons they don’t want to face. And that internal confrontation is what makes a story.
As a less experienced writer, I understood that conflict was an important part of plot. So, whenever I got stuck, I made some random and exciting thing happen. There’s an assassination attempt on my hero! Now there’s a fire that she’ll be blamed for! Her sister is caught in the crossfire and badly injured!
These events made for exciting scenes, but my stories never held together because the conflicts I introduced were random. I didn’t understand that compelling conflict comes NOT from exciting external events, but rather by creating a conflict tailored to uniquely challenge the hero and push her to change in the way she has been resisting her entire life.
In other words, the conflict has to be relevant to the internal struggle your hero is facing. It needs to apply pressure to their inner demons in the worst possible way.
Let’s say your book is about a teenager who has to present a speech to their English class. You can put all kinds of external obstacles in their way:
They don’t know what their speech should be about.
Their nemesis/ bully/ crush is in the class.
Their grandmother is dying and they don’t have time to work on the speech.
You can introduce stakes:
The person who has the best speech in the class gets to give the graduation commencement speech and/or gets a huge cash prize.
The speech is worth an enormous percentage of the hero’s grade. They have a really low grade and need this class to graduate.
Any of these external obstacles or stakes will make it more exciting to watch our hero struggle to write and present their speech. But the conflict and plot may still fall flat without one very special ingredient.
An Internal Obstacle
If your main character is affable, outgoing, and already a good public speaker who isn’t afraid to put themselves out there, then reading a story about how they give a speech to their English class probably isn’t going to be that interesting, no matter how many external obstacles you put in their way, and no matter how much prize money is on the line.
But, what if the main character is terrified of public speaking? What if they have spent their entire life trying to avoid being noticed? What if your hero is terrified of rejection and has avoided any situation that puts them in danger of rejection? What if they think they have nothing important to say, that no one will ever care what they think, that they are better off going through life invisible? And yet…they really need that money or that grade.
Now things have gotten more interesting, because now your conflict is pressing on your hero where it will really hurt. And, if you play your cards right, you can get your hero to confront their biggest antagonist: themselves.
Journal Time: How do you create internal opposition?
If you’re a plot first person:
If you’re like me, you probably start your stories with a plot or world idea.
Here are some questions to help you figure out internal obstacles:
What point would you like to make with this story? How can your character change to reflect that story point? What kinds of flawed beliefs does your character have to have at the start of the story in order to have that transformation? (The below posts can help with these questions.)
What kind of person would be uniquely challenged by your plot/ world idea? What strengths make your hero uniquely suited to rise to the challenge presented by this plot idea? Consider Katniss Everdeen. Anyone would be challenged by the existence of The Hunger Games, but Katniss’ specific obsession with survival and protecting her sister makes the games especially a problem for her. And yet, her obsession with survival has also given her all the skills she needs to get through the games.
If you start with character:
If you start with character, you likely have already thought about your story point, and their character arc, and their flawed belief, and so you might be struggling to figure out what external obstacles to put in your hero’s way.
Of course, you still need external obstacles.
We’ll stay on this focus of creating conflict for the next few weeks by exploring some of the arenas where you can create external conflict such as:
Conflict with the world or situation
Conflict with an antagonist
Conflict with love interests, allies, and friends
The key in each of these sources of conflict is to ensure you are applying pressure to your protagonist’s internal struggle so they have no choice but to confront their demons.