Hi Libby!
So lovely of you to invite me here today! And so fabulous to have actually met you. In Person. In Anaheim! What a total thrill!
Anyway, on to the blog…
INNER CONFLICT
So, I think I left my muse in the bar in
Anaheim. She was being entertained by a mojito cocktail and a lovely waiter
called Jason. I’d really like to have her home now, so please send her back if
you see her! I’m stuck and I need her help.
So what to do in times like these? When the
story has hit a wall and your brain is out to lunch? Sometimes you write
yourself into a corner and it seems as if there’s no way out.
What works for me- what ALWAYS works, is
going back to the core conflict. Not the silly argument the hero and heroine
had in chapter two which meant they had to kiss and make up, or the misunderstanding
they had in that last scene about the woman she saw him
with who wasn’t his wife but was really his sister…but the CORE CONFLICT of the
story.
What is preventing the hero and heroine
getting together? It isn’t the visible obstacle, although an axe-wielding
murderer is pretty important, but deal with him and you’ve still got to have
some kind of roadblock to the romance. You need an emotional obstacle.
The emotional/inner conflict comes from
some sort of belief your hero/heroine holds that prevents them from achieving
their goal. In a romance it prevents them from finding love.
This conflict stems from something that has
happened to them in the past that has formed this belief – usually crystallised
by thoughts such as – love hurts/ love can’t last/ you can’t trust a charming
man / I am worthless. They are unhealed wounds that shape the character’s way
of thinking about the world and their place in it.
So, after the kiss, or after their first
night of wild love-making the thing that holds the tension and the pacing of
the story is how the character sees the relationship IN LIGHT OF THE
CONFLICT. This is why so many
romances have a dark scene after a love-making scene- the hero/heroine cannot
believe they are lovable /or that they can trust someone else so they shrug on
their emotional armour and put up barriers again. Thus we have the lovely
push/pull and will they/won’t they? of the romance journey.
This inner conflict is the key to story
because it is key to character. And character is what makes readers invest
their emotions in our books.
So, when the chips are down and you can’t
see a way forward in your plot, always look to your characters’ inner journey
to find your answer.
In my current release, Waking Up With His Runaway Bride heroine Mim strives to keep her
independence after a childhood dominated by controlling men and her mother’s
addiction. So when ex fiancé Connor turns up to decide her business’s future
she fights tooth and nail to retain control of both her emotions and her
medical centre.
Blurb:
Their
make-or-break reunion...
Mim McCarthy needs to focus on saving her clinic—not her insufferable yet outrageously
sexy ex Dr Connor Wiseman. He might have grown into those cheekbones, but she
knows he won’t have forgiven his runaway fiancée so easily! Yet it’s impossible
to deny the sparks between them – their fights used to be legendary,
but their making up might be even more momentous…
I’m
happy to give away one copy – all you have to do is leave a comment!
Waking Up With His Runaway Bride is available in ebook from:
And in paperback (free postage worldwide!)
from:
Visit me at www.louisageorge.com
