Internal Conflict: The Inner World of Characters

M.L. Bull
Sep 26
6 min read

Updated: Oct 2

In previous blog posts, I've discussed the four operations in characters, and the generic and complex emotions characters feel when dealing with internal conflict. Now we get to the "meat and potatoes" of internal conflict...the inner world of characters. This is the entire essence of characters writers introduce to readers whenever they crack open their fictional books or novels, giving a strong purpose for the story and intriguing readers to want to know more about them. Whenever people read fictional books, they're discovering two different worlds, which include the inner world of characters and the external story world. Let's deep dive into the components that make up characters' inner worlds and how they contribute to the plotlines of stories in books.

A teenage girl reading a book and sitting on planet earth.

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THE INNER WORLD OF CHARACTERS

In the diagram below are the most crucial elements of the inner world of characters, including backstory, insecurities, emotions, motivation and goals, internal monologue, and personality and worldviews. These items breathe life into characters and shape them into realistic, believable beings that pop off the pages of fictional stories and makes them memorable to readers well after they finish books.

A diagram showing the elements used to create the inner worlds of characters.

When writers write their stories, it's important to think of their characters as people. Honestly, I just see myself as telling the personal stories of real people whenever I write about my characters. It's just like what American writer Ernest Hemingway said 🗨️:

"When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature."

In other words, imagine your characters are real-like humans. Get to know your characters on a deeper emotional level so you can better write about them and how they would act and react in your story when faced with conflict, tension, and complications. As I mentioned in a past blog post of mine, creating backstories and character interviews is a great way to know your characters inside and out and their strengths and weaknesses. Creating inner worlds for characters combines character arcs and a collection of layers. Like we humans in real life, there are past memories and experiences that contribute to how and why we think and behave the ways we do. Our characters should also be the same way.

Hence, this is where the main component of backstory comes into play.

💡Tip: WRITE BACKSTORIES IN ADVANCE. Writers can write detailed summaries of their characters' pasts before they write the main story of their book, and then gradually weave this character information into the story narrative to add significance and explanation to the cause of characters' current actions and reactions in the external story world.

BACKSTORY & EMOTIONAL WOUNDS

A scared young woman with her hand over her heart.

Backstory is the past history and information about characters before the present story and includes emotional wounds from past traumas, hardships, or other vulnerabilities. All of these cause characters to form a particular lie they believe, which influences them to use some kind of emotional shielding, protections meant to keep the character safe from harm and from going through the same past experiences again. Maybe a character was shot and robbed at gunpoint. Their lie could be the false belief that they can never be safe outside of their home again. From this incident they've developed anxiety and agoraphobia, a fear of being in outdoors. Therefore, they've become a recluse and never leave their home. This reaction to their trauma would be their emotional shielding. Hence, the character's desperate efforts to protect themselves and keep from confronting or facing their fears and insecurities.

FEARS & INSECURITIES

An African American man wearing pajamas terrified in bed.

Fears and insecurities are roadblocks that affect how characters function and the choices they make when faced with challenging situations. But primarily, characters should have a dominant flaw that hinders them from progressing forward in the story based on the false belief that they believe about themselves. Going back to the example of a character robbed at gunpoint, this character's flaw could be being paranoid about other people or having panic attacks whenever they answer a stranger at their front door. Get creative about this and think of what dysfunctional habits or negative behaviors you could give your characters as a result of their fears and insecurities. Maybe a character was bullied relentlessly, which caused him to have a bad temper whenever someone makes lighthearted jokes about him. Or maybe a character grew up with an alcoholic father and therefore has a bad drinking problem. These are just some examples of how a character's past can contribute to a character flaw. Overall, these fears, flaws, and insecurities are all things characters must work to overcome during their inner journey. This leads us to the next components: character motivation and goals.

CHARACTER MOTIVATION & GOALS

Character motivation is the driving force and reason characters do what they do in the story. This component of the inner world of characters gets the "wheels turning" in the plot and helps to keep the story moving forward. Goals are also important and create purpose for characters taking certain actions while faced with conflict and obstacles. Ask yourself: what does your characters want to accomplish? What are their needs and desires, and what's the stakes if they aren't able to reach their goals? This allows writers to create tension and suspense when throwing complications in the way of their characters during interactions and their inner journey through the external story world. Based on however they handle these situations will be dependent on their emotional responses. Hence, their emotions or feelings.

EMOTIONS & FEELINGS

A sad young woman wearing a sweater and drinking tea near a rainy window.

Emotions or feelings as mentioned before are the main ways writers connect readers to their characters and their experiences. It's important that writers create an emotional landscape. How are the characters interacting with their story environment? What moods can be set in scenes to add emphasis and show your characters' emotional states to readers? Does any sights, sounds, smells, or textures evoke flashbacks or memories in your characters? What is their level of emotional intelligence? How does your characters' emotions change over time? Think about how the story environment emotionally affects your characters and their physical reactions. Maybe a bakery makes a character nostalgic for childhood memories of baking cookies with their grandmother, or maybe a dark thunderstorm sparks fear in a character of a traumatic event that also happened during a rainy night. Use your settings to your advantage to create mood and from their motivation show your characters emotional responses. The same can be applied to the next component: internal monologue or character thoughts.

INTERNAL MONOLOGUE & THOUGHTS

An African American man thinking about a red dream car.

Internal monologue are the internal subconscious thoughts of characters, but it can also be considered inner dialogue characters have with themselves. Maybe a character is trying to make a difficult decision and they're pondering over their alternatives. Or perhaps a character is giving himself a pep talk before a job interview or thinking about his dream car. These thoughts have effects upon characters and like their emotions can alter or direct how characters behave and react when dealing with difficult conflict or other story situations. Just like us, however your characters think will affect how they feel about different things. But thoughts and emotions aren't the only things that determine how your characters behave and operate in their inner worlds. Personalities and their worldviews are also big contributors.

PERSONALTY & WORLDVIEWS

Giving your characters distinctive personalities and traits makes them more lifelike, creates contrast among them, and allow readers to be able to distinguish them from one another. One smart and easy way of doing this, is using the Myers and Briggs Personality Indicator. According to psychology, there are sixteen different personality types, and each one has four dominant cognitive functions that effect how different people think, perceive, and behave. It's also a good idea to give characters positive and negative traits and to outline their strengths and weaknesses. For example, a character could have a positive trait of selflessness, but a negative trait of naivety. Their worldviews include their core beliefs, interests, and their outlooks on life. For example, the previous character robbed at gunpoint may perceive the world as solely a dangerous place where no one can be trusted, forgetting the natural beauty and the good, kindhearted people that also exists in the world.

CLOSING REMARKS:

Crafting the rich, inner worlds of characters takes strategic planning and critical thinking, but the elements listed and mentioned from the diagram are essentially what will help writers in creating them. When outlining your story information of your characters, be inspired while using your imagination to conjure up a combination of a cast of distinguished characters and make sure they stand out to readers like real people. Make characters unique individuals with different quirks, personalities, backgrounds, and mannerisms. Your readers will appreciate you for it and be that much more intrigued in your stories or books. For more writing videos or tutorials, subscribe to my channel Journey of a Christian Writer series. That's it for this post. If you liked it and found it helpful, please, give it a (heart❤️), take part in the poll 🤔, and share your thoughts or comments 💬 below.)