A general writing rule of thumb states that every page of your story should contain conflict. But sometimes it can be difficult to think up enough conflict to fill the nooks and crannies.
After all, your hero can’t be battling it out with the villain on every single page.
So what to do?
The secret of successful stories is the combination of the external conflict with the hero’s internal conflict. Doing so offers several benefits, including adding variety to the conflict, heightening the stakes, and, often, and contributing to a more enduring Resolution.
Creating Character Arcs (affiliate link)
The most powerful stories bring the external and internal conflicts to a climax at the same time.
The 2003 film adaptation of Peter Pan
Peter Pan (2003), Universal Pictures.
In itself, the external conflict offers viewers all kinds of enjoyable tension and its incumbent payoff. But if the movie stopped at that—if it failed to bring Pan’s internal conflict into play as well—it would ultimately have fallen flat.
Instead, the film used the frame of physical conflict to force Pan to face his inner demons, walk with them to the brink of destruction, and then rise up to conquer both them and, as a result, Captain Hook and the pirates as well.
It was able to use both the outer and inner conflicts to strengthen each other and to present viewers with a solid and resonant finale. The external conflict provided the internal conflict an exciting and dangerous setting, while the internal conflict imbued the external conflict with deeper meaning. Working hand in hand, they present an unstoppable force of storytelling.
