prillalar | Please help.

Please help.

I'm working on a story that's giving me trouble. It's meant to be long-ish -- by my standards, anyhow, which means around 5000 words -- and I'm writing from the POV of a character who is a bit hard to really figure out. So I thought that was my problem.

But I just realised that the real issue is that the main conflict in this story is internal to the POV character, not between him and someone else. And that's not something I can recall tackling before at any real length.

It makes me wonder if I can sustain an interesting story. Certainly, there's not nearly so much chance for dialogue that advances the story, which is what I usually do. I find that I'm writing dialogue just to have some, not because it's strictly necessary.

Add to that that I don't think my POV character is really all that reflective and I'm wondering if this will really fly. I do have something of a plot planned out -- this isn't 5000 words of angsty instrospective soliloquizing (is that a word?). I just have to figure out how to keep things interesting while I move the plot along.

Have you been in a similar situation? How did you make the story effective? Any tips for me?

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Um. *thinks* Maybe if the character *acts* in ways the are inconsistent and has to explain, at various turns, to someone else? That probably conflicts with your plot, but it makes for a reason for dialogue and also a way for the debate to be voiced rather than introspective?

That's off the top of my head, and may be crap. :D

Hmm, interesting thoughts. I wonder if just not worrying too much about the lack of dialogue would be a viable option as well. I tend to dislike stories without too much dialogue, but often those are also angsty vignette where *nothing* is happening.

It can be hard to do without creating the appearance of contrivance, but I generally try to make the external action in some way reflect or otherwise comment on the internal conflict.

Yeah, pretty much. I tend to pick non-introspective characters too, and that's how I usually handle it.

Good idea -- thank you. :)

Oh! This is my favorite type of story to read and write...so I hope this is an HP story! ;) Since you didn't describe the character or situation much, it's going to be hard to give good, detailed advice, and forgive me if I go in a direction that isn't helpful.

It is easiest if you structure it like a standard desire story--only this time, what the character wants is actually within himself. Then you can approach it like ordinary short fiction with an external plot: e.g., you can raise the stakes and tension by having him take two steps toward his goal and one step back, etc etc. Can you make your story work like that? This is where I sort of need to know what the conflict is in order to be marginally helpful.

His non-reflectiveness can be worked around by manifesting his emotions physically and letting the audience infer. And I think it's important to trust that readers will pick up on these things and not try to spoonfeed them with something obvious like having an angry character slam the door. If it's too subtle, your beta will let you know. And depending on who he is, a character who is emotionally non-reflective may be more attuned to physical changes in his body, like clenching his teeth (to give a lame, cliched example). He might not even realize why he's done it, or may be surprised to find nail marks in his palms where he dug them (okay, all my examples are cliched tonight, but I'm sure you can do better), but readers will understand. This is the hard part, I guess, but I think a lot of the power in a story like this comes from the character not understanding what the audience can see.

And you know, I believe it's a good thing that your character is a bit tricky to get inside of. Who wants to read a story that deals with the mental struggles of someone whose motives and desires are patently obvious? Being inside someone unpredictable automatically raises the intrigue.

Also, no matter how powerful your story is, some people will say "but nothing happened!" Ignore them; they are Philistines. ;)

Whoops, I meant to go straight to bed, and instead I wrote you a book. :/ And now that I reread your post, I'm not sure it was quite what you were after. Well, dammit.

I confess -- it's not an HP story. Sorry! But your suggestions are good ones. Thank you!

This is the hard part, I guess, but I think a lot of the power in a story like this comes from the character not understanding what the audience can see.

Good point. This isn't a particularly serious story and so I think the voice I'm using is a little more obvious than it otherwise might be. And the conflict isn't entirely internal -- some of it is against the Forces of Fate. It's just not with another *person* and that's not something I've really dealt with much at any length.

I think, deep down, what I want to know is if it's possible to write a story like this without it being boring. :) Which I'm sure it is, I just have to struggle through it.

::pokes:: is it FMA?

Also, if you're dealing with someone who's not going to sit around actually spending word-time angsting, then have them run around and fuck something up because they're angsting... after all, that's what real people do, isn't it?

So the internal conflict causes or worsens some sort of external situation which may or may not have been a conflict to begin with... if that made any sense.

::pokes:: fma?fma?fma?

Sorry, not FMA. I just can't write FMA fic -- the show is too good! I don't really need anything else. Maybe when it's over I can get to some HughesxRoy. That's the thing that really interests me, but I have to wait to see if we find out more about Roy.

Yeah, and no sitting around angsting for this character. And he will run around, so hopefully everything will work out.

hughes/roy! yesyesyes, only made better with the addition of ed! ^^ I am a fandom slut and I know it.

Hope everything does work out for yer chara.

The only experience I've had with something like this was an X-Files M/K where I finally revealed what was wrong with "my" Mulder. He was acting out-of-character and strange, described through Alex's eyes. The only times I let Mulder tell what was really going on was in therapy sessions--the rest was all observation by "my" Alex, who loves him dearly, but could clearly see that something was wrong. (Okay--so mine was probably more cliched and obvious than the detailed subtlety you were going for, but since the affected character doesn't know what's going on, either, I felt it more freeing to tell the story from the POV of an outsider.)

Wondering if she's being helpful at all...

The third party POV is a good idea and one I'll keep in mind for future use. This particular story really isn't all that subtle, actually -- it's meant to be light and funny. I think part of it is that I'm also trying to find a voice for this character and it's sometimes easier to do that when you're bouncing him off of someone else -- be it metaphorically or literally!

I've seen that sort of character handled before by putting in a second POV character, and all the inappropriate introspection is actually exposited by the observer of the first character's actions. Although I don't think that works well in a really LONG story.

I don't think that would work here, but it's a good idea. I'm going to have to think about this some more. Sometimes I wonder why I write at all, it's such damned hard work!

Hmmm. The character's inner conflict is bound to have some effect on their goals and desires. You might try giving the character some choice of courses of action, and letting that choice stand in for the internal struggle.

That's a really interesting thought -- have other things in the story parallel the internal conflict. I've been struggling to think of a subplot anyhow, so that might fit in well. Thank you!

I posted something in my blog earlier, if you go back through the entries, it's one or two back. It's a Sara (CSI) thing, happens in her head, is an internal conflict as opposed to external.

How I usually handle this sort of thing (YMMVW) is to try and take it out of the character's thoughts. If you're dealing with a character who doesn't appear to be the introspective type, or you don't want to spend paragraphs on how terrible the decision is --

Try going cold. Look at what he does. What does he do when he walks in the room? What does he pick up, put down, eat, drink? Does he sit down or pace? And instead of things like "he felt awful", try something along the line of -- "his throat kept shutting up on him. He'd swallow and get the lump back down, but then it would leap back and stop his breath."

Hope that helps.

Thank you. :) I do generally do those things when I write and I'm trying to do them here, to some extent. But the tone of the piece is quite light and I find that means it also has to be more obvious. I'm still trying to find a good voice for this character as well. But I'll muddle through in the end, I'm sure.

To some degree, most of my stories deal with an internal struggle in the POV character, but that isn't always my central concern. It was, though, with Coming To Light -- on the surface, Ray and Fraser's relationship looks like it's going smoothly and making them both happy, but as the POV shifts back and forth, you learn that each is unhappy, and you see why.

I'm not that sophisticated a writer, so I fell back too often on long narrative passages where the character was Thinking About Things. Where I was successful, though, was in the dialogue. I think if you give a little bit of that Thinking About Things up front, so the reader has an idea of where the character is mentally/emotionally, it's possible then to craft some dialogue that helps clarify that and shows how that mental state affects and is affected by the other character(s). People who can do this in the dialogue alone are way ahead of me in the showing-not-telling department.

Also, if this is a story that has sex in it, you can definitely bring out the feelings or discoveries or ephiphanies of a POV character in the type of sex you write. I'm not talking about positions, here, necessarily, although they can imply things. I'm talking more about whether the experience is fast and brutal or slow and languorous or lazy and perfunctory or whathaveyou. The words you choose to describe or present the sexual activity give the reader clues about how the character is thinking about it.

Dialogue and actions are the key, I think.

You know, I think we spend too much time worrying about show-don't-tell, actually. Maybe I'll write an experimental story where I tell all and show nothing and see how it goes. *g*

With this particular story, I'm just having trouble finding places where dialogue would really advance the story. Maybe I have to stop stressing about that and try to make the story entertaining as it is, without a lot of dialogue. It's just that that's so foreign to the way I normally write!

I shall triumph eventually. I just wanted it to be easier than this. :)

I've always admired your writing because you've never fallen into the "all angst, no plot" pitfall common to a lot of fanfic.

In your XF vignette "I Am Not Your Mother..." (http://prillalar.com/fic/stories/000175.php) you used description of a character's surroundings to reflect internal conflict. The effect is a subtle, arid, and economical 350 words that convey the bleakness of Jeff's situation without spelling out vague, masturbatory crap such as "I open the book and feel all the desolation of an inchoate, impersonal universe summoned by the blankness of the unmarked flyleaf."

As a reader, I'd tolerate 5000 words of introspection if it were a parody of angst fic or if it were somehow driven by action. Even mundane events, such as everyday actions that go awry, can lend enough plot to hold my interest.

A word of warning: if there is no character development after 5000 words, there had better be a damned good reason!

Aw, thank you. :) Never fear -- there will not be 5000 words of introspection regardless.

I think that I'm just going to tackle this and write what feels right and if there's not much dialogue, so be it. My beta will tell me if it sucks and anyway, it's not like children will die. Probably.

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Well, I don't know that it was effective, but...

Re: Well, I don't know that it was effective, but...

the reason I love you

Re: the reason I love you