WORK:How Important is Internal Conflict?

WorldCrafters:

Ed Wilson asks:
> Query on your reply: How vital is "Internal" conflict. I seem to
have read
> more than a little fiction with next to no "internal" conflict in
the
> characters, possibly because of all the external conflict the story
was
> already carrying.
>
> My first post is looking thin on internal at the moment (Rev. 0 is
finshed,
> but I don't post handscript to the web, Rev 1 is just getting
started, and
> may go handscript again! [This is a first, I've never done this
major a
> revision this early].
>
> Ed Wilson
>

Depends what you mean by "vital."

You can get published with ONLY internal conflict (most likely in the
Romance field or some avante garde ultra Literary academic field).

You can get published with ONLY external conflict -- lots of
"nutsnbolts sf" all "Men's Action" genre, much of what you see in the
movies today is all external conflict.

Now if you actually do leave OUT all internal conflict, you can get
away with only external conflict.

The readers/audience will make up what they think the internal
conflict is or should be. Thus the audience will argue over what the
story is really about and who the protagonist is. If you do that on
purpose, with discipline and control, and don't let your subconscious
telegraph a message different from your theme -- you can get away
with it and even win some big time awards doing it.

You can do that by leaving out all external conflict as well. If
there really is no external conflict telegraphed by your
subconscious, then you can get away with it because the reader will
supply the missing pieces.

But if you slip up, even once, in any tiny detail -- you blow the
reader right out of the story because you've contradicted the
reader's own fantasy about what the story is about.

Here's where you can really mess yourself up though. If you leave
our an internal or external conflict -- and then by some slip-up
subconsciously telegraph the missing conflict to be something OTHER
THAN the mirror image of the conflict level you are working with you
will produce a piece that is a total failure on all levels. It will
be incomprehensible and boring and most readers won't know why.

The reason I read, write and teach the internal/external conflict in
a mirror-image or projection relationship in fiction writing is that
I see the Universe and Life as constructed in that way.

That is not original or unique to me. You have heard the phrase, "He
is his own worst enemy." That is a statement of this principle.

"He goes around with a chip on his shoulder spoiling for a fight, so
no wonder he gets into fights."

All the effective schools of psychology that I know of show us how
the subconscious mind grabs hold of a conflict or fight in childhood
and has it flash-burned deep into the psyche by some traumatic
event -- and then relives that trauma over and over and over
disguised in every possible way.

Take revenge as an example. As a young child, the person was wronged
and flashed into a rage of bulldog stubborn need for revenge. The
person works at getting that revenge all their lives long -- until in
their 40's of 50's they finally achieve the revenge. But it doesn't
SATISFY. Either then end up in a "now what?" position, with an empty
life stretching ahead -- or they go out and subconsciously trigger
off that event again in order to get into that fight again in order
to have a revenge to pursue to fill their lives. Like a broken
record.

We ALL do this in one way or another -- until one day we wake up and
see ourselves doing it. The only way to stop -- really stop -- is to
SEE YOURSELF DOING IT.

Your "story" -- the novel about you -- is about how you come to see
yourself doing it. And what you choose to do about that.

Internal conflict -- that resides so deep in your subconscious you
don't know it's there -- that which happened in childhood that shaped
you is long forgotten without a trace -- THAT internal conflict is
what generates your LIFE.

That's why they say Maia is Illusion -- reality is illusion. What we
percieve as reality is only a projection of our internal conflicts.

And the life that your internal conflicts generate will be the IMAGE
of that internal conflict - all disguised by many decorations, but
still in essence that core.

Now, as an artist, I look at that reality -- that structure of
reality -- and I want to SHOW DON'T TELL that structure to my
readership.

You, as an artist may see a different reality -- to you there may in
fact be no such thing as internal conflict, and life is nothing but
objective reality.

If so, then you should write to SHOW DON'T TELL that image of
reality.

Art is the selective recreation of reality -- the higher and inner
reality that you as an artist see is the one that you must depict for
your customers. But to make clear what the pattern is that you
see -- you must cut away all the dross. All the noise, the
irrelevant and contradictory details must be cut away so that the
pristine PATTERN that you see beneath this illusory reality will
shine forth for you readers.

Write the way you see.

The most important tools for depicting this underlying conflict
structure of Reality are POINT OF VIEW and NARRATIVE VOICE.

Each of the various combinions of those two tools represents a
specific philosophical style (that's what I was just talking about
above -- the idea that internal and external conflicts are related
and what that relationship is, is a philosophy -- and as such this is
the sort of material we will discuss in our School of Philosophy).

You need to choose for each story you write the combination of POV
usage and Narrative Voice that bespeaks the philosophy you are
depicting.

These two tools let you SHOW DON'T TELL the ultra-dry philosophical
stance that nobody ever wants to talk about in a work of fiction.
These are the tools that bring philosophy alive in your hands.

But without knowing your own stand on conflict-structure underlying
Reality -- and without knowing how your protag's philosophy differs
from your own -- you can't make those artistic choices.

Does that answer your question? I think internal/external conflict
choices are the essence of Art and thus of the utmost importance --
but there are no WRONG choices -- just inept ways of handling those
choices.

LL&P
JL