Oh, The Pain...Characters and Conflict

I haven't skinned a character alive, as Cindy notes in her recent blog entry but as she also notes, it's not just the physical pain we authors put our characters through that creates workable story conflict. It's not the car going over the cliff, the "Die Hard" style big rig being chased by a jet fighter, the super heroine leaping tall buildings in a single bound. If that's all conflict was, then most novels would be comic books.

Conflict is both external and internal. And quite honestly, the internal is the more powerful. Because two people must care, think and feel this external conflict or it's useless: the character and the reader.

Let's take the example of the car going over a cliff. Your character, Mortimer, is in the car. But Mortimer is an immortal alien being incapable of dying. Mortimer knows this so he has no fear, no worries. Okay, he'll need to find a new car--and his insurance rates will likely go up--but he'll walk away unscathed.

If your reader knows Mortimer can't die, then s/he, too, walks away unscathed.

If your reader knows nothing about Mortimer--ie: you introduce this scene on page one--s/he doesn't care enough about the character to give a fig if Mort lives or dies.

See, there's no internal connection. If there's no internal connection, there's no internal conflict. External conflict--without a matching internal conflict--falls flat.

Cindy/Colby wrote: "Star Shadows is the story of Elle and Boone but it also introduces Zander who loses his memory in the first half of the book and then becomes an assasin. He has no recall of learned boundaries from his youth so therefore he does not know why or how he has become a killer. All he knows is kill or be killed. "

Ah, see? We're introduced to Zander as a character. Then he loses his memory. We have an experience of him, we get into his skin, we feel his loss, we feel his confusion. Now, put him in that vehicle hurtling over a cliff just as he's on his way to the clinic where his memory will be restored, and he'll be made whole--and we care. (And that's not what happens in Colby's book but I'm hijacking her character to make a point.)

Yes, it will hurt when he dies or is injured or in some way prevented from reaching his "goal" of memory restoration, but the physical pain is only powerful because of his internal pain of failure. Of loss. Of "I almost had it. I coulda been a contender. I shoulda had a V-8..."

Cindy asked about Branden Kel-Paten. For those of you who've been on sabbatical to the outer reaches of the Gensiira System and have no idea who he is, he's one of the male protagonists in Games of Command. He's also a biocybe: half human, half android. Not his choice, mind you, and we learn this and we learn about his fears and his feelings of inadequacy and his hatred of being a "freak" in the early chapters of the book. It's all internal conflict for Branden. Which was fun because physically he's incredibly powerful. He is half machine and as such, runs faster, jumps higher and does all that kind of top notch "Keds' sneakers" kind of stuff. He's one tough dude. He's also a total softie underneath.

Branden as a character is a poster boy for external/internal conflict. His outside is the invincible military officer. His inside is a mass of self-doubt and loathing because of what his outside is.

There's a universality in this and Cindy touches on that point as well in her blog. All of us differ in physical strength, depending on our height, age, weight, training, etc.. Rowena towers over me. Cindy and I are about the same height but she's much younger than I am. These are physical differences that make us unlike. But inside Rowena, Cindy and Linnea may well live very similar internal feelings. Self-doubt pretty much only comes in one size and flavor, and it doesn't really change with age or location. So while we as readers may not always understand what it's like to be in a car hurtling over a cliff, we all understand what it's like to feel ashamed.

There's a universality in internal conflict. It's a one size fits all set of feelings. It's a genderless, timeless, applicable-to-all-ethnicities experience.

That's why you can't have true workable conflict in a novel without it. ~Linnea

Craft, Torturing your characters or developing inner conflcit

It has been pointed out to me in several recent talks I've given that I have built a reputaion for torturing my characters. When someone comments upon it I pause and think. "Well I did skin Zane alive in Whirlwind. And he deserved it too. He's been nothing but a trouble maker for six books." When writing that I had to think long and hard about acutally doing it. I knew it was graphic and would be a horrible experience for anyone to go through. Then I decided yep, just go for it. You can do it. He's your character. You can do what ever you want.

My editor said that I gave her nightmares while she was reading Rising Wind. There were some graphic examples of torture used by the Shawnee in the book taken straight from acutal accounts. My hero, Connor, in Rising Wind did not get tortured. I even had a chance to give him a lashing and I rescinded it. I figured Connor was torturing himself enough. Or I was torturing him.

The method of torture I used on Connor was self doubt. Through out the entire story his biggest fear was he would be captured and tortured. And when it happen he would show fear. I also set the story up so that in the prologue (see last weeks post) it showed Connor's father dying bravely at Culloden. In the first chapter he talks about his mother also dying bravely when hung by English soldiers for wearing the plaid. Thus I've set up Connor's internal conflict. His own form of self torture.

Star Shadows is the story of Elle and Boone but it also introduces Zander who loses his memory in the first half of the book and then becomes an assasin. He has no recall of learned boundaries from his youth so therefore he does not know why or how he has become a killer. All he knows is kill or be killed. He knows he hates what he is but it is also impossible for him to die. Plenty of self loathing and internal conflict going on in his mind. I also added a torture scene where he is tied down and raped by a woman that he later kills. Zander is set up to torture himself with all he has done when he finally regains his memory. I know this is why every one who has read Star Shadows is asking for Zander's book.

Its not about the torture. Its not about the internal conflict. Its about experiencing the journey as the characters examine themselves as they come up against their greatest fears and how they conquer those fears.

Character is what rises to the top when put under extreme pressure. We all would like to think that we would react "heroically" when we are put into life or death situations. But until we acutally experience it we do not know how we will act.

I guess you can say that is our own form of self toture. Our own self doubt.

Linnea? I loved to hear what you have to say about Kel-Patten and his interal conflict.