Internal conflict is the most important part of any story and it is often the most easily overlooked by beginning writers. External conflict is easy to brainstorm, easy to see and most premises (except for literary fiction) revolve around the external conflict rather than the internal conflict. When you hear the advice, “story is all about the characters” this is what it’s talking about. There has to be internal conflict, or the story lacks meaning and it doesn’t impact the reader.
The Internal Conflict Triangle
All writers have heard the term “character sketch” but rarely have I heard anyone talk about “character structure”. Character’s wants, needs, strengths and weaknesses are all familiar enough, but they don’t imply any intrinsic structure on their own. How do these pieces come together to form a character?
Two books I read really brought the skeleton of my first Internal Conflict Triangle together. The first one was Take Your Pants Off by Libby Hawker (no need for offense! This is a pun referring to writers who are pantsers rather than plotters) and Writing the Heart of Your Story by C.S. Lakin.
Libby Hawker talks about basing a character on a Flaw, one that will need to be addressed if the character is to grow and solve the conflict. This hurdle creates the character arc of journeying from the “flawed” state into the “true self”, which is all about the Need to learn a lesson. C.S. Lakin talks about a character suffering a Wound which causes a Fear and the belief in a Lie which become obstacles to achieving a core Need. The Need and Fear are linked. Fear is that Need won’t be realized and Need is to overcome Fear. She also talks about the character’s journey from “persona” to “true essence” (which is the way to look at character arc from the point of view of the Enneagram as well).
So at this point, we have these two templates:
- A Flaw gives rise to a character’s Need to overcome that Flaw and achieve a better self.
- A Wound causes a Fear that Need will not be met and a belief in a Lie that Need cannot be met
Each of these formalize what makes up the inside of a character, but I thought each method was not quite as universal as it could be. Then I realized the two could be very easily combined to make an even more complete picture. These points were all just different ways of looking at the same roots of character and in every character, all of them are present to some extent.
Wound
This is the true start of your character’s story. If the antagonist’s actions are the Inciting Incident of the External Conflict (or Plot), then so the Wound is for the Internal Conflict. This event may happen at the beginning of your narrative, but more than likely it’s in the backstory and the audience will have to learn of it in bits and pieces. Or it could be shown through a prologue as often happens in movies where we are shown the protagonist surviving some traumatic event which explains their unique motivation throughout the story.
It’s worth considering which came first: the Wound or the Fear? Could definitely be a bit of both, but I would argue that at the very root, Fear has to come first. Two characters could share the exact same backstory but, because of their own unique Fears, come away from it with different Wounds. Each of them would have been wounded wherever the event hit their Fear. Fear is the weakness, and without it the character would have been immune to such Wounds. The “weapon” that caused the Wound isn’t so important as how the character has taken the injury and let it scar over.
Depending on the severity of the Wound, the Fear will be even more deeply entrenched. It’s ironic, considering the Fear was the weakness that allowed the Wound to happen in the first place. Think of this law of physics: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The character’s Fear will become more “irrational” and motivating depending on how severely the Wound event evoked this Fear. This force will carry on even further into the expression of the Flaw.
Don’t get the idea that every character must have survived some spectacular trauma. The Wound event could have been something that no one else even noticed but meant a great deal to the character. Or even something that can’t be defined by a single event, like an upbringing. If this is the case, there should still be some specific moment for the character that can be used to represent this past as a whole
Fear
Even though the story starts out with the Wound, the character started with the Fear. Very early on in life, the character felt something lacking inside which led to a Fear that the true self did not possess inner strength in this area. Since this hole could not be filled, it was quickly covered over with a protective mask of persona.
The character’s Driving Force is a two-sided coin with Want on one side and Fear on the other. Fear is much more powerful and provides the negative Motivation as opposed to the somewhat weaker positive Incentive of the Want. At the beginning of your story, your character will probably be more aware of their Want than their Fear, but each time the stakes are raised, they’ll find themselves running from their Fear much more than running towards their Want.
It’s important that the Fear be unique to this character (with the possible exception of the antagonist), even if it is something that anyone might try to avoid, to this character it may as well be a matter of life and death. That sort of Fear always revolves around some form of “death”, as James Scott Bell has said, either physical, professional or psychological death. Fear of real death is understandable, but what about the other two? It comes down to a Death of Identity. Whatever the character has been before the story started is at stake but also must change in order for the character to survive. This creates the conflict: The character must face the Death of Identity they Fear in order to survive and achieve their Need.
As I mentioned above, the Fear unique to your character will essentially act like an “irrational” fear. The idea of this thing happening is so unthinkable that the character will be in danger of responding completely irrationally in order to avoid it. This leads to the very common horror of characters, through their own Flaw which was developed as a defensive mechanism, causing their own Fear to become a reality. Realizing this contradiction is nearly unbearable in any internal conflict and is the make or break point in the character arc.
Lie
Many parts of the Triangle come into play here. The Lie is the justification of the Flaw, the belief that Fear is worth avoiding at all costs, that Wound cannot be healed or lived with or that Want will solve all problems. This self-message can make it easier to pursue Want as an excuse for avoiding Need. The character may tell themselves they’re not happy about having this Flaw, but for the moment they have no choice! Once they’ve achieved their Want, then they can let go of Flaw because they will be protected from their Fear. Depending on the story you’re writing, the specific Lie may take many of these forms or it might take just one.
Psychologically, Lies are not only believed because of past “evidence” from the Wound to support them, but because they subconsciously provide an excuse to avoid the real problem. Solving life problems requires painful self-examination, forgiveness and sacrifice. It’s hard. But believing the Lie does not really make life easier, it comes with a price. “It’s not your fault, it’s their fault” is a Lie that allows you to deny you can solve the problem and therefore absolves you of responsibility, but it also leaves you hopeless. This is the part that’s self-destructive. If there’s nothing you can do, you’re trapped to live out your life this way. This creates inner turmoil and the irrational response to Fear I mentioned earlier.
This “Master Lie” can also bring about smaller lies throughout the story. Whenever your character justifies some action, it could be a baby lie based on the Lie
Flaw
The Flaw is most tightly tied to Fear and Lie. Lie is the justification and Fear is the motivation. It’s used to pursue the Want (compare with Hornevian styles of Enneagram theory), and before the story began, it had been effective in protecting the character from Fear and obtaining wants. This was perhaps the worst thing that ever happened to the character. The more this Flaw has worked in the past, the harder it will be for your character to let it go and face the Fear without it. Instead the character may try harder to use it, only to push his Want further away. If your character can’t come to terms with this, he will end up destroying himself.
When faced with the antagonist, this Flaw will be ineffective and perhaps even revealed to be the self-destructive behavior that it is. The antagonist and protagonist need to have something in common in their Triangles (apart from the Want, which is a tie in External Conflict) and this very often is the Flaw. The antagonist can exploit it in the protagonist, and the protagonist might see this Flaw for what it is when reflected in the antagonist. Such a moment is a slap of reality for your character that can never be undone.
After this point, Flaw can truly be addressed and real strength will be allowed to take its place. A Flaw can also be seen as a sort of weakness and like any character weakness, it’s very satisfying when it can be turned around to serve as a strength. This also comes back to the idea of the character journeying from a “flawed” state to a “healed” state in Enneagram theory.
Want
A character has a Want. This is always the start of every story and the thing that hooks us at the beginning. We wonder, will the character obtain this Want? Reasons for the Want should be a mix of logical and emotional. Logical motives could be those anyone might use or relate to. Wanting money, fame, respect or love don’t really need explanation, but the unique emotional motives of this character is what really makes the story. What is this character missing that makes them want this thing?
This feeling of lack deep in the character, protected by Flaw and all other elements of the persona, is what subconsciously drives the Want. It also is what Needs to be filled with true inner strength, not simply patched with the Want. All the same, the Want can still be a reward for achieving the Need of inner growth once the emotional motives have been challenged.
The strongest emotional motive will be the Fear, but this might not be obvious to the audience or even the character at first. Learning why the character has this Want allows us to understand him and share the emotional stake in the story’s outcome. If there are no emotional motives for the Want, it’s too easy to ask why the character doesn’t turn back when the stakes get too high. There may also be logical reasons why the character is trapped in the conflict, but if there are no emotional motives as well, there is no internal conflict and this character is not central to this story.
We don’t realize at the beginning that the Want is a way of avoiding the Need. The character’s Need must be met if he is to achieve the Want or if he does achieve the Want first, he will realize that it is no help to his deep inner lack after all and must instead turn to his Need.
Need
All the points of the Triangle come together here. The character Needs to face his Fear, overcome his Flaw, realize his Lies for what they are, and heal the reopened Wound. This is the most thematic point of the Triangle. It will come down to not only healing the Wound, but realizing inner growth that will make the character immune to future such wounds. The character will let go of past identity and realize the true self. Whether the Want was achieved or not, the Need is a must for a happy ending and might turn out to bring greater rewards than the sought after Want ever could.
The Development of the Triangle
My Internal Conflict Triangle has gone through a few revisions, and I don’t doubt it might go through a few more in the future. The elements have never changed but their relationships have shifted. For one thing, you might be wondering why I call it a Triangle when it technically has six points, even though they are arranged in pairs. Well, originally I was viewing these pairs as two sides of the same coin, especially Fear and Flaw. To Fear is a Flaw, and a Flaw is a manifestation of a deeply rooted Fear. Wound is the event and Lie is the rationalization of that event, the false lesson learned from it. Need and Want are still in the same pair for obvious reasons. They are both goals, one the character goes after, the other is the true reward in a happy ending.
The most important change, I think, is the movement of Fear further and further back into the roots of the Triangle. At first, Fear shared a point with Flaw as I saw them as both problems of the present the character has to deal with. But then I realized the Lie is more on the same level with Flaw than Fear. Flaw and Lie are both set ways of being that evolve from a past. Lie is the thought and Flaw is the action. Fear on the other hand, is much more closely linked to Wound, either it is caused by the Wound, or as I think now, it is the very root of every character that needs to grow. Character arc is about realizing the Fear holds no true power, and that you always had it within to become immune to the Wound.
The importance of the order of events occurred to me when I made these changes. It matters what comes first because it shows what is at the core of character. Over the course of a story, the shells of protection need to be peeled off in the order in which they were established to get to this raw nerve where the Wound remains unhealed. Though the Wound is not the true core, it is the way we can see the effects of the Fear. This is the essence of Show don’t Tell. When we can see the character has come to terms with the past and is no longer troubled by the Wound, we know the Fear is conquered because it was only Fear that allowed the Wound to occur in the first place.
It’s not unlike the idea in mystery writing that every story actually has two stories: the true order of events in backstory, and the order in which we experience them in the narrative itself. The journey of Internal Conflict can be thought of as sleuthing out the true source of problems in the character’s life
Other Ways of Viewing the Triangle
This somewhat free-floating form of character structure can also be viewed in a more linear way. If you broke the line of the Triangle between Wound and Need and stretched it out into a line, you would have a linear representation of story arc, a Character Timeline. Wound and Fear are Backstory, in the past, Flaw and Lie are the character’s present state, and the Want and Need are the goals for the future. (The label of “motivation” for the present worked better before I switched Lie and Fear around in the Triangle.)
Ignoring the lines and looking at the Triangle as a circle or a wheel, you can see how the points directly across from each other are related. The Fear and Want are the Driving Force of the story, the Motivation and Incentive. The Lie and Need bring in the Theme, the Lie being a sort of anti-theme and the Need the realization of the theme’s lessons. Finally the Wound and Flaw have to do with the reader’s perception of the character. The Flaw can make the character unlikable yet relatable and the Wound gives us sympathy and deeper understanding. We’re no longer so quick to judge and we wonder what we ourselves might do in the same circumstances.
This Internal Conflict Triangle is certainly not the only way to look at the makeup of characters or character arcs, but I hope it is as universal as any such sketch could be. Try it out and don’t be afraid to explore any changes that could more closely apply to your own characters. I’d love to hear what you think!
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