I once answered a call for submissions based on ghost stories of my local area. Now, the funny thing with Caithness is: most people seem to believe in - and many people will share stories about how they've witnessed - supernatural happenings around the county. However, there aren't many well-known stories. Of course, there's the standard young-maiden-falling-out-of-castle-window story for at least two of the castles up here, and there's the eerie story of the man whose brother locked him up in Castle Sinclair Girnigoe with no food. Both characters feature in Caithness ghost stories. But it's high time someone actually explored the individual's ghost stories. In fact, that's something I might do, if I ever actually get sufficient time on my hands! Where are the stories which are connected to the "ordinary" buildings? We've been sharing our Stempster Spectres in our monthly newsletters and, believe me, there are plenty of those! A little further...
Saturday 23rd November - Characters - Part Four – Conflicts
On Scrivener – my writing programme of choice – two of the headings on the character sketch pages is for internal and external conflicts. This is so important and will tell your readers all they need to know about the defining behaviours of your characters. You can take this as literally as you like.
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| Smiling on the outside, what conflicts are on the inside? |
Back when Facebook was still young (and I was much younger!), all those quizzes to find which character in X series you were most
like were about the coolest thing you could do, they could have been summed up
in two questions. What are your internal
conflicts? and What are your external conflicts? If you could match these two questions to a character,
you were definitely the most like them, never mind your eye colour or favourite
animal.
In writing, outward conflicts are the easiest to convey. Character A dislikes B because of C. These show clear signs to the reader through
the POV narrator, by their actions or words. It’s harder with internal conflicts. After all, all of your characters have them but, mostly, we don’t write
from all points of view...
So here are a few things to think about in securing your
characters’ conflicts:
- Only certain people say what they think – while this is the easiest way to disclose to your reader what inner conflicts your character is suffering, there are better, and more believable, ways to demonstrate this. Someone who is chronically shy is not going to announce to a full room that they’re feeling nervous!
- Conflicts are the gears of your character – every crucial moment in any story comes from a personal conflict of one of the characters coming to light. Your story grows in pace and involvement every time you use them.
- No one likes an infallible hero – you may think you do, but actually true heroics come from conquering conflicts rather than having none in the first place.
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