A Book(ish) Life: Venita Bonds
Writing Advice: Crash into Conflict
Happy Saturday! Today’s guest is author Venita Bonds, who is both a registered nurse and the author of short stories, southern gothic fiction, mysteries, and historical romance. She’s stopping by Book(ish) today to share some of her wisdom about writing internal character conflict, and I found her advice so helpful! Thank you, Venita!
Crash Into Conflict
Nobody likes having a car crash, but let’s face it, we all like to rubberneck at somebody else’s wreck. The same morbid curiosity applies to writing conflict. While writers avoid conflict in our own lives, we heap it on our hapless characters. Why? Because conflict drives action.
Conflict can be external, internal, or a combo pack like Crackerjacks. Let’s zero in on three types of internal conflict: 1) imperfections and inner scars, 2) self-defense mechanisms, and 3) false beliefs.
Imperfections and inner scars
Stephen Hawking said that if everything were perfect, there would be no need for humans. I would amend this to “no need for writers.” Readers dislike perfect characters, because perfection equals inaction. To build a believable, sympathetic character, make him battle his own demons while fighting external impediments.
In this example, a character wrestles with her internal conflict. “Common sense tells me to kick her to the curb, but my steel magnolia complex compels me to stick by a friend even if it kills me.” (It nearly does.)
Self-defense mechanisms
These mechanisms protect the character from anxious feelings, threats to his self-esteem, and issues he wants to ignore. Common self-defense responses are denial, repressing or suppressing painful memories, projecting problems onto Mama, rationalizing behavior, and displacing emotions by kicking the cat.
False beliefs
A flat-Earther might see satellite images and yet insist that our planet is flat. Her false belief shapes her perception of reality. More serious false beliefs can harm others. For example, a professor flunked nearly every male in her 1981 nursing school class due to her belief that men are bad nurses.
Characters protect false beliefs through a variety of mechanisms. Among them are:
1. Motivated reasoning. My neighbor dropped out of eighth grade, yet believes she’s qualified to become an “outer space astronaut dentist” or a “pediatric veterinarian” (yes, you read that correctly). Hanging onto her false belief protects her from facing facts about herself.
2. Confirmation bias. A character supports a false belief by seeking confirmatory information. When my neighbor determined that public education is a government conspiracy, she went to social media. Her belief confirmed, she pulled her children out of elementary school and “taught” them using only her daddy’s 1962 Colliers Encyclopedia.
3. Cognitive dissonance. Because admitting the truth can lead to painful self-examination and behavioral changes, a character doubles down on her false belief when faced with contradictory evidence.
4. False memories and distortions. As time passes, a character forgets details. Her brain reassembles data, distorting facts and creating false memories. She becomes an “unreliable narrator”— a useful literary device in building a conflicted character.
The positive side of the negative
A character’s internal conflict should force her to act. As she struggles to resolve her problems, she should innovate, grow as a person, and gain insight into other people and her own motivations.
For example, “I knew the difficulty of smiling and pretending the world isn’t ready to crush you. Was Mattie secretly as anxious as I was? Could I help her if I pulled off my own mask?”
The takeaway
Crash your characters into conflict. Your readers will rubberneck when they see the wreck!
About Venita:
Venita Bonds is a Registered Nurse and author of four historical romance novels. A former Longridge Writers Group instructor and technical writer for an intelligence agency, she is a copy editor for The Astro Restoration Project and Killer Nashville Magazine. She pens health-related articles for The Lions Club News. Her Southern folk tales have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, The No Sleep Podcast, and The Huntsville Historical Review. Her short story, “Dead Man’s Reunion” will appear in the 2024 Guppies Anthology: Gone Fishin’: Crime Takes a Holiday. She currently writes paranormal mysteries set in Louisiana. Her “Southern Folks and Ghosts” blog can be found at http://www.venitabonds.com.