Got 3000 more words today. And I’m tossing in a bit I wrote on Internal Conflict for everyone to peek at. All the snippet copyright and no-quote rules apply.

Internal Conflict

Now we’re showing more, hiding less. Internal conflict is the character’s fight with himself over something he wants but can’t have, has but doesn’t want, or needs in spite of the fact that he cannot or will not or fears to get it. It can be done through description, internal or external dialogue, or action. The reader sees the moment of change, as well as the struggle leading up to it, and has some clue (as much as you care to share) about why it’s important.

Showing internal conflict in a scene does not necessarily involve internal dialogue—that is, one character alone, sitting still, thinking about things. Internal dialogue is what many writers first think of when they think of internal conflict, though. Unfortunately, writing a character sitting still and thinking and making this interesting is one of the hardest things to do well when writing, so a lot of bad scenes happen when inexperienced writers collide with internal conflict.

• CRITICAL POINT: Remember that Internal Conflict and Internal Dialogue are NOT the same thing!

Here’s a little snippet from How to Write Page-Turning Scenes.

Here is an example of the simplest of all possible scenes. Omniscient narrator, no characters, no props, one change. (I have thrown in time, but could have done the scene without it and had the same result. I just happen to like light and dust motes.)

White wall, white ceiling, cold and stark and simple. And silence, nonbreathing silence, patient, without creaks or ticks or hums. Light, morning light came through that far window and cast squares of whiter white high up, and dust motes sparkled. And then a stain on the white ceiling, first pale, and then dark red like old roses, red that grew glossy, a little mar in the perfection. And then a drop. Red. Slid from the ceiling down the wall, a single jagged line that traced itself over textured paint, dancing, dancing, while the dust motes sparkled and the bright white squares of the morning sun tracked down the wall ahead of it.

It doesn’t take a lot to build a compelling scene, to catch the attention, to make the reader shiver just a little and picture not just a corner of a wall with squares of light on it, but a body lying dead and still and punctured somewhere up above.