Internal Conflict

Inside my body a war rages on.


Between good and evil
Between darkness and light
Between antibodies and the flu


It's a bloody mess inside my arteries, hemoglobin scattered everywhere, poor little parentless platelets running scared. It's chaos. But let's get straight to the heart of the matter with one question. Is this struggle against a foreign body all in vein?


I'm sorry. I should be locked up in a cell for my careless use of puns.


Anyway, I'm planning on keeping this short so I can get lots of rest tonight. I just wanted to say how this cold reminded me of what a realistic character always needs. External, and Internal conflict.


External


My external conflict in this case is my battle against a cold. I know, that sounds like it's going on inside my body, but it's something that manifests itself in a physical, visible way, so I count it as external. If others can see it, then I think it's external. Also, external means it's against something other than yourself.


Characters that are never conflicting with anything around them are boring, uninteresting, and very unrealistic. Most people don't have too much difficulty with this one. You need to have something opposing your hero, or else nothing will happen. There won't be any action.


Internal

This is the one that gets people sometimes. For example, you probably didn't guess just by what I said here that I had some internal conflict going on where part of me actually wanted to be sick did you?

It's true! Part of me was saying last night "I actually kinda hope I am really sick tomorrow. Because then I'd take the day off work." Now, don't get me wrong, I love my job, it's a great place to work. However, I'm leaving in a little over a week, and with all the stuff that I have on my plate right now, a day off right now would be really nice.

Having said that, I probably would have just slept the whole day if I had been really sick. That's fine for the most part, except for the whole being sick part.

The reason why I had this conflict, was because of my opposing values.

1. I love being healthy.
2. I love having days of rest.

Last night, these two values were at odds with each other, because I knew that I could only really have one thing. Either I'll be healthy(ish) tomorrow, and work and get really tired, or I'll be sick enough to take the day off to rest. In this particular case, I didn't actually have a choice in the matter, but that's really moot at this point.

What's important is that this conflict changed everything. This conflict was what made my thoughts even slightly interesting to listen to. If you're inside a character's head for any length of time, it better have some wicked stuff going on in there, or else you're gonna put me to sleep. If all he's thinking is Oh no, I better beat this cold! Then woop-dee-do, wow, he doesn't want to get sick.

If the princess is in a tower, and Prince Charming wants to kill the dragon to rescue her, then that's great. But if he's only rescuing her to appease his controlling mother who wants him to marry the enchanted princess instead of his little village sweetheart, it's suddenly more interesting. Why is he doing it? Does he actually care about this princess' fate? What is it about the village girl that's so appealing? And why is he so concerned about what his mother thinks?


Clearly Mr. Charming has a lot to think about besides fighting dragons. And that makes you want to read about him. At least that's the kind of thing I'm looking for.


There it is! Short and sweet. Now I'm going to fight this monster for all I'm worth, because as much as I hate working while under the weather, I hate letting people (including co-workers) down more.

Life of a Story Addict

No matter how many stories I read/hear/watch/tell, it will never be enough for me. I can say that to you with complete certainty. I'm a story addict through and through.

But what does that really mean?

It means that I'm a voracious reader, and listener of audio books, I can talk with someone for hours about our lives and the things we've seen and done, and movies/video games have always been a love of mine. When I was little, one of my favourite things to do was play pretend. I'd run through the woods in my backyard being chased by a minotaur, or hide top-secret information on CD's in my high-security tree fort.

In a way, I never grew out of playing pretend, it just transferred from acting out these stories to acting in school plays/musicals, and writing stories of my own. I'm quite certain many if not all of the people still reading this post up to this point can relate with me here. When I'm engaged in a story, I'm completely immersed in that world. I often find myself actually portraying on my face the different emotions an author expresses in words on a page. Sometimes when a storyteller is vivid enough with their explanations, even when it's a friend telling me of their adventures, I feel like it was actually me who experienced all these things, and my friend is simply the narrator explaining it all.

For me, where it seems to become a bit different than most people I know, is I'm almost never actually content with just finishing a book. There are times when I'll get a chapter or two away from the end and I start to slow down to a glacial pace because I know I'll go through withdrawals if I stop reading at that point. Sometimes even if it was a very good ending, I'll be really depressed because the book's over, and I have to go find something else to read.

With that in mind, add the fact that I'm extremely picky about what I read. Unless I'm thoroughly convinced I'll enjoy the book, I won't read the first chapter, and if I don't get sucked in within a couple pages I'm done. It's back on the shelf, and I have to find something else.

It really is like I'm some kind of drug addict who can't get a buzz off the weaker stuff anymore. I've been taking it too long, and now my body's immune to it. I have to have really good stories to fuel me. Anything sub-par just won't cut it anymore.

This goes for movies and video games too. If I'm watching a movie, and it has incredible special effects and flashy, attractive A-list stars but no real substance, I'm gone. If I'm playing a role playing game where there is absolutely no attempt made at constructing an interesting, or even logical plot, it's very hard to engage me.

All these things make up my profile as a story addict. One who needs stories all the time, but also can't stand mediocrity. I love to be in the midst of reading a book, but I hate hate hate ending one. Especially a series. One series in particular, The Circle Series, by Ted Dekker, was a series that I grew up reading, and was essentially what made me love books so much that it got me to start writing. The first three books came out in 2005, but the last book came out in 2009. At this point I thought the story was over, but to my everlasting joy and excitement the story could continue! With this book, I limited myself to a chapter a day, no matter what. It was excruciating. Every day I would battle with myself to either not read anything so that there would be more to read later, or to read as much as possible because I loved it all so much. This was the book where the tug-of-war inside me was most evident. I wanted so badly to finish it all, but I wanted desperately for it to never end.

Since this book came out in 2009, I've made it a tradition of mine to re-read the entire series every summer. And it still hasn't gotten old for me.

The thing that really sucks about this set of attributes, is that I'm someone who absolutely loves to write, but at the same time I'm my own worst critic. I'm super critical of what everyone else writes, and this criticism inevitably bleeds into my own writing. My inner editor is very loud and annoying. I want to tell stories, but I basically want them to be perfect before I share them with anyone. This is obviously not going to happen anytime soon.

So my dilemma is knowing how much critique is too much. Where do you draw the line? I have to revise my books of course, but how many times will be 'enough'? When will I be satisfied with my work?

With my current work in progress, it's gone through one revision, and will go through a second set of revisions once my friend is done reading it and giving me their thoughts on it. I feel like I simultaneously love and hate this book right now.

It's my baby that has spent two years as an infant. Everybody loves kids, but eventually, they have to grow up. Right now, I just really want this baby to go through publication puberty. It's gonna be nasty, there will be lots of changes it won't understand. But it has to happen.

My goal is to start looking for agents by the end of June... scary. Final edits, here I come!

Any other story addicts out there? Do you have a story burning inside you?

Just get it over with!

Isn't it funny how often the fear of something happening is more terrible than the actual thing itself? It's an interesting fact of life that I've seen come up in my own experience over and over again. I've also seen the idea approached in many interesting ways.

My favourite example of this is from a cartoon I used to watch occasionally when I was in Junior High. I say occasionally because honestly, it wasn't all that great, but sometimes it would have an episode that was just golden. This one was just such an episode.

The basic premise was that in this kingdom, there was a monster that had come up from out of the sea and was approaching the town these characters lived in. This monster was very large, formidable, and dangerously powerful. That made the situation bad. What made it much worse, was the fact that this monster had the peculiar attribute of taking ever shorter steps. Each step it made toward the kingdom was half the length of the last step, and according to the calculations of a robot in the city, the monster would never stop approaching the city, but it would also never reach it.

The king thought this was excellent news, but the townspeople were nearly driven mad by this revelation, because they were in constant expectation of an attack. They were so fearful of what would happen that they eventually convinced the king to send people out to figure out a way to get the monster to actually get it to them right away and attack the kingdom! That's how desperate they were. So in the end, they succeeded, and the monster ran into the kingdom, destroyed a bunch of stuff, and ran off. When it was all over, the people celebrated in the streets because they could finally move on with their lives and stop living in fear!

These last few days I've been plagued with a certain decision I had to make, and now that I've made it, it's like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Honestly, this afternoon I didn't care what the outcome was anymore, I just wanted to be DONE. I was so sick of trying to decide and worrying about the consequences of the decision. No matter what the outcome was, I just wanted it to come so that I could deal with it and get it over with.


It's amazing to me how often this can be applied to novels. How much better is it to have the constant fear of death hanging over a character rather than just killing them outright? How much more intense is it to watch a character trying to figure out how something is going to happen rather than just finding out right away?

I see this as another thing that can kind of go hand in hand with the idea that the journey can oftentimes be more important than the destination. When I was building my tree-fort, I enjoyed the act of building just as much, if not more than just having it there in the woods. In the same way, I think that we can sometimes learn a lot more about ourselves, and about patience and confronting fear by going through these times of uncertainty. It forces us to really take a look at what we're doing and make tough choices. I feel like this has been a sucky couple of days to slog through, but in the end, I'm glad to have had them, because they've made me a better decision maker, and have challenged me in new, important ways.


How often do you wish you could skip the waiting and get straight to the outcome, be it good or bad?

You're Just Not Worth It.

I've been debating whether or not to post this for a while, and I've finally just decided to go for it. This is a poem I wrote a few weeks ago, written from a girl's perspective. That may sound weird, but it'll make sense at the end of the poem.

You're just not worth it.

It's just not going to work out

between you and I.

So I have to end this.

No hard feelings, I just can't afford this relationship.

A woman's got to have the right to choose

who she lets into her life.

If only these were different circumstances

I might have been able to cope.

But I never expected to see you - not now. You just weren't

part of my plans.

I'm sure you'll understand one day.

You're just not worth it.

Don't you see how much pain you'll cause me?

Don't you understand what I'd have to go through

to make this work?

Do you realize how terrible it was for me

when I found out about you?

You were supposed to be something great

for me.

But you're really just an

inconvenience.

I'm sorry, but you have to go.

You're just not worth it.

I've thought this through a million times,

and everyone I've talked to agrees.

You wouldn't be good for me.

Just not right now. I have to do

the responsible thing.

I have to do what's right

for me.

My future is riding on this,

I can't let you jeopardize everything.

You're just not worth it.

Some might argue with me.

They say I'm not being fair, and

I know it's not your fault.

But at this point, that's not the issue.

Who's to blame doesn't matter,

what matters is you're here

and you shouldn't be.

You're just not worth it.

I'm not heartless.

I'm making the best decision I know how to make.

I've done my research on your kind, and

I know what could happen,

so I'm not going to take any risks.

I'm taking you out of my life

before you can cause me any pain.

You're just not worth it.

Once you're gone

I'll move on with my life.

I won't regret it for a moment.

It will be like you never even

existed.

I won't remember you.

You're just not worth it.

One moment is all it takes.

One moment, and you're gone.

Like the flip of a switch, the

blowing out of a candle.

I'll let you go like the sand in my fingers.

You're just not worth it.

I'll admit though, the idea

of having you here with me

still clings to my mind even now.

But I'll shut you out. I must.

You're just not worth it.

Time is fleeting. Time to

decide.

Time to give you up.

You're just not worth it.

It's time to say goodbye, but I feel like

I never got the chance to get to know you.

You're just not worth it.

In the end, you were never worth the trouble, because

you're just not worth it.

My baby.

This poem was my reaction to an article I read on abortion. A lot of the lines are actually almost exact quotes from women who have had abortions. This poem sums up basically the way I see most women thinking through this situation. You have no idea how much it saddens me to know that there are millions of people who have been told this, whether while they were still in the womb, during middle school, or in the adult world. So many people have been told that they're just not worth someone's time, respect, or love.

It doesn't matter who you're talking to, you don't have the right to tell someone they don't deserve to live because they're an inconvenience to you. Killing a child is never the responsible thing to do. I realize this is a very controversial issue, and there are many aspects to this debate. Do not read into this and assume that I hate women who have had abortions. I'm grieved by their decisions, but that doesn't mean that I hate who they are or something like that. My feelings about this issue stem entirely from my desire for everyone to have a chance to come into this world and live their own life.


I think one of my all-time favourite heroes from my childhood said it best, when he declared that "A person's a person, no matter how small." I'm not trying to put words into the author's mouth here, I'm just saying what I've always taken out of that story. And that is simply that it doesn't matter how insignificant someone may seem, they matter to God, and therefore they matter to me.


I don't think I need to ask any questions to get people commenting on this one, but I would like to just request that we all remain civil in our discussion of this issue. Just think about what you say before commenting. That is all.

Consistency is Key

So, I'm going to be totally honest here, and admit that I don't really have much of an idea of what to write for this post. It's pretty much totally on the fly. Most nights I get to my laptop and I've already had a few days to ruminate over what I want to say, but tonight, my muse seems to have taken a vacation. (As a side note, there's something that sparked my interest for a post about Korean Pop Music, but that's a whole other story involving in-depth analysis of culture and the value of art and such. Stuff that I need to research a bit more before posting about.)

So what will this post be about? Consistency. In the end, the reason why I'm posting right now, and not when I'm feeling "more inspired" is because it's Wednesday, and I need to have this post ready for tomorrow. Because I always have two posts a week. For those of you on the East Coast, I update it early Monday and Thursday morning. For those on the West Coast, I update late Sunday and Wednesday night. Even when I have some really awesome idea in between those times, I save it for one of those dates. Why? Because I want you guys to be able to anticipate when I post here. If I'm not consistent in when I post, then people are going to lose interest. It's a simple fact of blogging. But how true it is of so many other things in life!

Something that a lot of writers don't like to talk about is author branding. Not the kind that involves hot poking sticks, but the kind that defines what kind of author you are. For example, Stephen King is a writer of horror. If for some reason he wanted to write a romantic comedy for his next big hit, there would be a lot of confused fans. They'd say, "You can't write that! You write horror!" to which he may reply, "Too bad! I like rom-coms, and I'm going to write them if I feel like it! So there!" This obviously sounds ridiculous, but so many amateur novelists (me included), feel like we have the right to demand this!

We often say that we aren't a one trick pony, and that "of course, that's not the only side of me! I'm also a fantastic comedian! And you should read my non-fiction book on cooking with blubber, and my western/alien YA novellas, they're a huge hit. Almost as big as my legal thrillers from last year..."

Need I go on?

The point isn't that no one thinks you can do a good job of these books. That may or may not be an issue at this stage in the game. What's important is that you start gaining your fan's trust. You need them to see that you care about what they like and what they don't like, and that you're willing to give them that despite being able to write other stuff. Devoted fans will not keep coming to the same author if they don't reproduce the same kinds of books the reader fell in love with.

This isn't to say that an author can't possibly write in more than one genre, but I think it does mean that an author needs to be aware of who they're affecting, and how much influence they want to keep. Do you want lots of fans who kind/sorta know you a little bit? Or do you want substantially fewer people to know about you, and have them be the most devoted fans you'll ever see?


Bottom line is that you really can write whatever you want, but is that going to get you the readers that you want? When it comes to bringing people back for more, consistency is key. That means consistency in things as small as blog posts, and as big as the genre of your next novel.

How high up on your list of priorities is consistency? How have you been affected by inconsistent, or consistent people around you?

That's Love

She came in for books
to aid as she taught.
The ones that I showed her
were just what she sought.

Her student had trouble;
she couldn't remember.
The fires of learning
in her were an ember.

I looked on in wonder
"This teacher's a hero."
Her patience was boundless,
complaints numbered zero.

She never once told me
her life was so tough.
She didn't break down
or say she'd had enough.

She just had compassion.
A desire to teach
that mind that she found
was so hard to reach.

I'm sure that she'd say
that it's really no bother
who else, if not she,
would help her sick mother?



I wrote this poem shortly after helping a woman who had come in with her mother looking for some resources to help her recover from dementia. It was such an inspiring moment for me. The love that this woman had for her mom was incredible. She kept thanking me for helping her find the books she needed, and the whole time all I could think was "Are you kidding me? You're the one who's doing all the work here! You're the one who's standing by your mother through thick and thin!"

The truth is, she could have let her mother sit alone in a nursing home for the rest of her life. Lots of people do it, it really wouldn't have been a huge deal to most people. But from what I've seen of her, it looks like she's made the choice to be an active part in her mother's recovery. Granted I don't know all the details, I honestly just know the little that she told me while I was helping her find books, but that doesn't really matter all that much to me. Because I saw in her eyes, and heard in her voice all I needed to hear to know her motives in this.

This was a woman determined to make her mother well again. She loved her mom so much, and it showed in the way she spoke about her, to her, her attitude, and her spirit. She told me of the improvements they'd had already with the nurse/aide they'd been working with. She had such devotion, and tenderness toward her mother. It was awe-inspiring. I only hope that under similar circumstances I could act in a similar fashion.

How often do we look at people around us as less than deserving of our love? How often do we just walk by random people on the street without thinking twice about who they are, and what their life has been like? Had I not been told this lady's story, I most likely would have seen her as just another elderly lady like many I used to see during my visits with my great-grandmother when she was still alive.

So I guess what I'm saying is, caring about others might not always be easy, but when it's genuine, it can really make an impact. I know that the small glimpse I saw of the love of this daughter to her mother profoundly affected me. And I only saw them for 15 minutes. How will you make yourself known to the people you meet in your everyday life? How do you want to be known by strangers?

I thought this post was especially appropriate coming off the heels of mother's day. So here's to you Mom. Thanks for everything.

There's just something about a great -

cliffhanger.

The other day at work, we were discussing ways of helping kids learn to read. Since I work at a bookstore that sells homeschooling resources, we often get to talk to parents about teaching methods. Eventually we got to the topic of how to get a kid interested in reading on his own. One suggestion seemed really good to me. It was from a mom who had tried this, and found it worked really well.

When she read with her kids, she would always make sure she had 'something pressing' that she had to do as soon as the book got to a really exciting moment. She would have to go make dinner, or call a friend or something, and then leave the book on a coffee table, or somewhere close by where the kids could reach it.

Pure genius.

It may not have happened the first time, but eventually those kids started going to the books themselves because the cliffhangers proved to be just too much for them. It instilled in them an actual desire to read.

And it's pretty obvious why. No one needs to be taught how to be curious. No one needs to be told to expect conflict to be resolved at the end of the story. We all yearn for the satisfaction of closure. We want to see exciting things happen, and experience incredible twists, and then we want to see how it will all end.

I should be clear on one thing though, I don't see cliffhangers as something that can only come at the end of a novel. I see cliffhangers as something that can potentially come at the end of a chapter, or the end of a scene even. I define it as a moment that is so filled with suspense, shock, or intensity that to stop at that point would be impossible. It's a moment that demands a resolution. Fast.

Cliffhangers can prove to be incredibly powerful devices. When used properly, they can totally absorb a reader into reading well past their intended bedtime, or force a reader to break down and buy the book they're holding in the bookstore.

When you're writing, you always need to keep in mind how you're going to keep your reader's attention. You can't have exciting things happening on every page, or else it gets monotonous, and you'll lose your reader. You always need to be asking the question "Why are they still reading right now?"

If you can't answer that as a writer, then something serious is wrong with your book.

This goes beyond cliffhangers, and more into just what makes something worth reading. The 'so what' factor. Why are you reading this book? Because you want to see how it will end. Because you care. You need some underlying questions to keep the reader interested, and cliffhangers are basically as close as you can get to knowing the answers without being told. Or, they're the bomb that an author lets go at the very last page of a chapter that takes the reader's breath away, gives them new questions to ask, and makes them say "What just happened?! What's going to happen next?"

I remember one novel in a series ending with the lead character asleep in his bed while an assassin points a gun to his head and is about to pull the trigger. I didn't have the next book with me at the time, so I had to wait about a month before I knew what happened next.

That month was agonizing.

Cliffhangers truly are powerful things. But they are two-edged swords. When a book ends every chapter with a cliffhanger, it's much like when there's something exciting happening every page. It gets boring, and cliche. When your reader feels bored, they stop caring. And that's exactly the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish with your cliffhanger. You want them to care more about what's going to happen. So what's a writer to do?

I was going to say cliffhangers are like salt, a little goes a long way, but really, they're not needed as often as salt, so the metaphor doesn't really fit. What fits better is cinnamon. It can pack a punch when used well, but if you use too much it just overpowers the whole dish. I put too much cinnamon in my coffee the other day, and it ended up messing up the whole cup.

So at least for me, if you want me to enjoy your story, give me cliffhangers. But make them good, and make them rare. That's the kind of thing I'm going to tell my friends about. That's what's going to leave a good taste in my mouth.

Do you have a love/hate relationship with cliffhangers? Or just hate? What was the best cliffhanger you've ever seen/read?