Baker's Dozen for Structuring Conflict
First posted May 2005
- What is the premise of your story?
- Premise: a condition or situation that provides the substructure for your story.
- Are there any external conflicts in your story?
If so, list.
- What are the individual emotional goals of you hero and heroine at the beginning of your story?
- How does your heroine perceive herself? How does your hero?
- Remember that every person's mission in life is the preservation and enhancement of his concept of himself. Have each of your characters write their own "self-concept" statement, first superficially, then with in-depth honesty. Explore the "wounded child" within.
- How does your heroine guard or protect her inner self?
- How does your hero?
- What has been a major motivating factor in each of their lives and why?
- Challenging the self-concept of your characters is one way of creating internal conflict. When you confront a character with proof that he or she is no longer what she thinks she is, you have a source of tremendous internal conflict.
- What is the crisis of self-concept for:
- Your heroine?
- Your hero?
- What is the conflict that keeps your hero and heroine apart?
- What keeps them together?
- What new insights do each of your main characters discover about themselves and about each other?
- What is the climax (or emotional crisis) of your story?
- What is the critical revelation?