Sharpen Your Writing Skills: Internal vs. External Conflict and 3 Tips For Adding Conflict to Your Writing

Conflict is a disagreement or clash of values, motivations, desires, or ideas. Conflict is what drives us humans to do great things in our lives, and it’s what propels our own stories forward. In writing, the presence of conflict creates narrative tension.

All literary conflicts can be categorized into two general categories: internal conflict and external conflict.

All conflict falls into two categories: internal and external.

• Internal conflict is when a character struggles with their own opposing desires or beliefs. It happens within them, and it drives their development as a character.
• External conflict sets a character against something or someone beyond their control. External forces stand in the way of a character’s motivations and create tension as the character tries to reach their goals.

Including both internal and external conflict is crucial for a good story, because life always includes both.

Also known as a “character vs. self” conflict, internal conflict involves a psychological struggle that takes place within a character, caused by their own emotions, fears, conflicting desires, or mental illnesses. Internal conflict tends to be a battle of reconciling two opposing forces within the same individual.

External conflict is a type of conflict that places characters at odds with forces outside themselves. These external forces stand in the way of a character’s motivations and create tension as the character tries to reach their goals.

There are three primary types of external conflict:

1. 1. Character vs. character. This type of conflict occurs when two characters with opposing viewpoints or needs are at odds with each other. Each of these characters is carefully developed through indirect and direct characterization, so that the reader understands the core of their disagreement (and in some cases, is able to empathize with both).
2. 2. Character vs. society. Unlike character vs. character, this type of conflict pits the protagonist against broader forces of society. These forces can involve everything from social mores and unspoken customs to government systems. While society may be personified in one or more specific characters, these people typically stand as symbols or representatives of a larger system. In this type of conflict, the judgment of society can feel collective and overwhelming, or entirely random, depending on the character’s perspective.
3. 3. Character vs. nature. In this type of conflict, characters are threatened or kept apart by a natural force. That force may be represented by a powerful animal, a storm, an infectious disease, or some other natural phenomenon. Because nature is a silent opponent, characters are forced to reflect on their lives and choices, often with the conclusion of accepting their mistakes, flaws, or mortality.

One famous example of internal conflict in literature is Hamlet by William Shakespeare, a classic example of a character fighting their internal demons.

In the play, the ghost of Hamlet’s father tells him that he was murdered, and that Hamlet must avenge him. Throughout the play, Hamlet feels conflicted about whether someone actually did murder his father, and how to seek revenge in a noble fashion. The play’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy has Hamlet struggling with this internal conflict and lamenting his self-doubt. Ultimately, this mental struggle results in Hamlet’s own downfall, as he does not take action until it is too late.

The character vs. character external conflict is on full display in the following famous literary examples:

1. 1. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter’s recurring conflict with Lord Voldemort pushes all seven novels toward the final, dramatic resolution. Within this conflict, we see characters align with either Harry or Lord Voldemort, who represent the forces of good and evil.
2. 2. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Protagonist Katniss Everdeen is forced to battle other characters during the Hunger Games, a ritual which involves a fight to the death. As the novels progress, her conflict shifts and transforms to a personal vendetta against the oppressive and sadistic leaders of her dystopian society.
3. 3. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Thrillers are driven almost entirely by external conflict, and this one is all about character versus character. Dan Brown throws a series of antagonists at his main and secondary characters, adding tension and danger to the story of a slow-developing romance intertwined with family secrets. Brown’s deft use of this external conflict formula earned him bestseller status.

A character battling the forces of society rejects norms and expectations, and takes up a hero’s cause to right perceived wrongs, as in the following famous examples:

1. 1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Gilead is an oppressive republic where fertile “handmaids” are sent to infertile couples to act as surrogate childbearers. The totalitarian state ascribes to xenophobia, protectivisim, and strict religious rules, until a bold handmaid named Offred threatens the status quo.
2. 2. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Winston, the novel’s main character, lives in a dystopian society with an all-powerful government that persecutes individualism and individual thought. While Winston is outwardly an upstanding member of the government party, he inwardly hates it which drives him to rebel against the party by entering into an illegal affair with a suspected informant named Julia. In “Big Brother,” we see a typical example of using a specific figure to represent the larger society.
3. 3. The Trial by Franz Kafka. Kafka introduces the core conflict of this classic in the first line: “Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.” The Trial is the story of a man’s struggle against a society that has inexplicably targeted him. Having been dropped into the middle of the conflict, the reader experiences the same sense of overwhelming confusion and ostracism as Josef K., the protagonist.

Some of the most famous antagonists in literature are forces of nature that threaten to stop a character from reaching their goals. Examples of stories with character vs. nature conflicts include:

1. 1. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. In this tale, an aging fisherman facing poverty struggles to pull in a huge marlin that could turn around his luck. As the old man comes into conflict with nature—not only the marlin, but sharks and storms—he must make peace with his past and a possible death at sea. Hemingway’s deft use of both internal and external conflict in this short novel revived his literary career.
2. 2. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe. One of the first English novels, Robinson Crusoe is a classic survival story of the titular character’s fight to survive when he’s washed up on a remote island. Deprived of modern technology and conveniences, Crusoe must build, hunt, and farm to survive his inhospitable surroundings.

While man vs. self, man vs. nature, and man vs. society are the three main buckets of external conflicts, there are a number of other types of conflict in literature. Depending on the genre, plot, or action, consider introducing the following elements as external forces:

1. 1. Character vs. supernatural. Pitting characters against phenomena like ghosts or monsters raises the stakes of a conflict by creating an unequal playing field. Supernatural conflict is usually reserved for genre writing, however these otherworldly characters are also memorable foils in literary fiction (think of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, or that famous ghost Marley from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol).
2. 2. Character vs. technology. Science fiction is the most common setting for this type of conflict, in which characters face threatening machines that are often cold and inhuman. But because all machines are created by people, technology serves as a foil to examine human behavior and the nature of existence.
3. 3. Character vs. God. God, or fate, is a prevailing force that shapes a character’s journey. Greek tragedies commonly exhibit this conflict; refer to the doomed characters who battle their destiny in such famous classics as Antigone by Sophocles or Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus.

Learn more about literary conflicts in our complete guide here.

Keep the following three tips in mind when introducing and enhancing conflicts into your novel or short story.

1. 1. Invent goals and obstacles. The first thing your character needs is a goal, desire, or need. A character’s goal can be an everyday concern, like getting to work on time, or something big and noble, like defeating the ultimate evil force in the universe. More than the actual goal, what matters is how badly your characters want or need to achieve it. Once you’ve made a list of goals, create a list of the things that could stand in between your character and those goals. If the character wants to get to work on time, what will stop her? It could be traffic, a sudden snowstorm, a monstrous creature, or an empty gas tank. If the character wants to defeat evil, what could stop her? Perhaps the evil forces reproduce, or they are immortal, or she’s riddled with self-doubt and needs to find her confidence first. Once you’re in the habit of creating goals and obstacles, you’ll find that plot points start falling into place and feeling more natural, or more real.
2. 2. Find the moral gray area. Look for complex arguments that will lead you to moral gray areas. A moral gray area presents your character with a choice or situation where right and wrong aren’t so clear cut. Consider, for example, the moral gray area of personal privacy: perhaps the government reads your personal emails without your permission. If this act has successfully thwarted terrorist attempts on American soil, is it wrong? Is the government justified in violating one citizen’s privacy to protect other citizens? A moral gray area like this one is perfect for generating conflict between characters throughout the course of your story. It will add richness to your hero and your villain, and it will engage your reader.
3. 3. Practice saying “no.” In writing, “yes” opens doors and “no” creates conflict. While you may want your characters to achieve their goals, it’s important that they struggle or even fail on their way to doing so. Stay open to possibilities to tell your characters “no.” Practice writing a scene in which two characters disagree at every turn. Can you get them to reach a solution while still expressing opposing viewpoints? This concept also applies to any type of antagonist: for example, a society that tries to keep a character down, a god that won’t let a character exert free will, or an animal that gets in a character’s way.

Whether you’re creating a story as an artistic exercise or trying to get the attention of publishing houses, mastering the art of fiction writing takes time and patience. No one knows this better than Margaret Atwood, who is one of the most influential literary voices of our generation. In Margaret Atwood’s MasterClass on the art of writing, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale provides insight into how she crafts compelling stories, from historical to speculative fiction.

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