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7 Types of Internal Conflict for Your Protagonist

External conflict can always make readers more interested in a story. The fist fights, car chases, and fictional battles might make them hold their breath, but so can internal conflict. Check out the primary types of internal conflict your protagonist can experience to add more depth to your stories.

1. Morality Conflicts

Everyone eventually reaches a point where they question their morals. We have to believe in our morals as individuals to prioritize them. It’s not enough to have your parents or other leaders in your life tell you what’s right and wrong. You won’t hold the same morals until you choose them on your own.

Characters also reach these crucial points. It’s part of their character development like it’s part of our personal development. 

Your protagonist may only grapple with one question of morality in your story or they could encounter many. The morals will most likely align with your theme so they make sense within your plot.

Example: Your protagonist is a scientific researcher and leading a trial that could result in a cure for a new illness. They know they shouldn’t take bribes and wouldn’t compromise their career, but someone who nearly qualifies for their trial offers a life-changing amount of money to get included even though they’ve already been ruled out. The protagonist has to choose—do they stick with what they trust is morally correct or do they take the money and use it to help pay for a family member’s legal battle in criminal court? Do they view it as potentially saving two lives at once? Or do they reject the bribe and face whatever consequences could have possibly been avoided?

2. Self-Identity Conflicts

Your identity is something that morphs with time. People rarely settle on one version of themselves forever. Life makes us reconsider things from different perspectives as we go through periods of challenges and peace. Characters also grapple with their identities when faced with similar situations. It makes them take a stand, hold their ground, or chase new goals, which is much more interesting for readers.

Example: Your protagonist considers themselves an optimist because they’re a firefighter who has saved many lives. When they realize their chief has been starting all the fires their station ever fought, your protagonist begins to view people more pessimistically. It affects how quickly they’re willing to risk their life for others, which results in challenges and a character arc they wouldn’t have experienced without this fundamental change in their identity.

3. Religious Belief Conflicts

It’s much easier to stay firm in your religious beliefs if nothing challenges them. If a challenge or major question arises and your beliefs hold firm, that makes your identity stronger. It doesn’t always happen that way though.

When your protagonist faces this type of internal conflict and realizes their opinions or feelings contradict their religious beliefs, it can take them onto a path that shapes a new identity. These choices are hard but real. Readers who are going through the same experience or experienced the same questions before will get absorbed by your story because it’s relatable.

Example: Your protagonist attends a religious gathering every week. The group fundamentally believes their religion exists to help those in need. Prejudices begin to invade that group, so people start choosing their own well-being instead of helping others. Your protagonist watches their religious family pick sides and has to question if they really believe in helping others or if they choose the familiarity and safety that comes with the approval of their longtime religious family.

4. Societal Role Conflicts

Societies have predetermined roles or expectations for people based on factors like their gender, sex, and economic status (just to name a few). Sometimes these roles feel natural to people and other times they don’t. We all have to decide what feels best for us on an ongoing basis. Your protagonist may need to choose their societal role, reject it, or shape a new one to portray your theme in a relatable way.

Example: Your protagonist goes to a university for the first time. They’ve been encouraged by everyone they know to start forming a large friend group. That’s what people are supposed to do in college, their loved ones said. But your protagonist is an introvert and values only a few friendships at a time. They have to choose if they’ll push themselves to become a social butterfly or if they’re happier as the person they’ve always been.

5. Political Opinion Conflicts

Political opinions can create all types of internal conflict. You may believe in a certain candidate or party during one part of your life and support something completely different in another part. Those values change as we experience new things and meet new people. Characters can face the same internal struggles as they recognize changing values or reject opportunities for change.

Example: Your protagonist may have never formed strong political opinions. They meet a new person who becomes their best friend, but their government starts passing laws that make their best friend’s life much harder because they’re part of a marginalized community your protagonist hasn’t empathized with before. Your protagonist now cares for that community, so they have to decide if they’ll make different political choices that could ostracize them from the community they’ve been part of all their life. 

6. Love Conflicts

There are numerous types of love—self-love, your love for your family, and your love of a potential romantic interest or current partner. These come into conflicts in stories all the time because people experience them every day.

The conflicts result in choices—does your protagonist choose to continue loving a specific person or do they fall out of love? Do they fight for that love or realize it never actually existed? These are just a few ways this inner conflict can play out.

Example: Your protagonist has three siblings. They’d give their life for their siblings because they’ve lived in an emotional and physical home environment that’s been unsafe all of their lives. However, your protagonist is also the oldest child who has to leave home when they’re 18. They have to decide how to best love their siblings—do they leave them at home with a parent who is a threat to their safety so your protagonist can achieve an education or job that pays enough to create a new home for them? Do they get the legal system involved? Do they get their siblings and run away together since your protagonist is now old enough to lease an apartment, pay bills, etc?

7. Personal Journey Conflict

Existential crises make characters come to life by breaking their identity apart. These moments are unfortunately a real part of life, so readers want them in their books to help them cope, understand the changes, and generally feel not alone in their hardships.

This internal conflict happens when we question why we’re in this world or what we’re supposed to do with our lives. Sometimes there’s a clear answer after we start searching for it, but other times there isn’t. How your protagonist’s internal journey to a new purpose unfolds depends on your theme and plot.

Example: Your protagonist spent their life dreaming of becoming a politician. They wanted to help people and change the world, but they lost their first three attempts at running for local office. The third loss devastated them. If voters don’t want them as a leader, what’s their purpose? Who are they if they aren’t a leader who changes the world through effective policies? The answer may come through the plot events that follow. If they don’t get an answer, sometimes it means their purpose already exists in their life and they’re overlooking it.

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Reading through the basic types of internal conflict will help you shape your future protagonists. If you align your desired theme with an inner conflict, the external events in your plot will be much easier to choose. Your readers will also connect with your story better because they’ll see real problems reflected in your protagonist’s character arc.

ive been re-reading your fics for literal YEARS and the joy and disbelief i experienced when i saw a post of yours on my tumblr again was overwhelming

AHHH thank you i'm so happy to hear that :'D hoping to add to those fics...except now i have to edit my masterlist again T-T

*gets down on one knee* I want to make a shared oc universe with you

One piece of acting advice that has stayed with me for years in regards to both writing and drawing as well is: "Don't use the body to act what the character is saying. Act what the character is THINKING."

Like, as a very, very basic example: a character is apologizing by saying, "I'm sorry." But that line is going to look and sound different depending on what the character is thinking. Crossed arms and a sullen tone can mean that a character is actually thinking: "I don't mean it and also I hate you." A pleading tone and reaching out to take the other character's arm can mean: "Please don't leave me." A tired voice and slumped shoulders within context could mean: "I did what I had to do."

This is one way to begin to do "Show, Don't Tell" in storytelling. It is trusting your audience to see the depth and to catch on to the things you leave unsaid. It's fun to let the audience be observant and clever. It is also reflective of real life, where people are often scared of being vulnerable, or don't necessarily even understand their own emotions, or can't articulate their own thoughts, or have difficulty identifying the true feelings of the people around them, and so don't say very much.

There are exceptions to this advice, of course. In writing especially, rather than in a visual medium, some POV characters are very good at reading emotions from body language and others are not, and their observations in the narration may reflect this skill. Some characters will assume everyone around them is always angry with them or simply not pay attention to other people's moods at all, personalities which can also be subtly communicated to the audience and later used in the story in some interesting way.

Some characters have excellent control over their body language and tone of voice, because they are on-guard, highly trained in some fashion, or a very good liar. They will not easily communicate their true thoughts through their body language or their actions. Their lie can be so good that it can be slipped past the audience as nothing important to the plot until it comes back to bite. Their oddly perfect control over their body in a tense situation can instead maybe be used to indicate to the POV character and/or the audience: "Oh, there's something up with this person."

Body language will also change by culture and class and disability and so on. This clash can cause communication problems between characters, as a character's affectionate pat on the shoulder of another might be intended as casual comfort, but be received as overly intimate condescension. Different cultures / people can even have very different opinions on what level of eye contact and overlapping speech is rude.

This advice was originally given to me in the context of illustration and animation, in which it is very common for inexperienced artists to act out the words that the character is saying in mime-like gesture. In media for young children, we might choose to keep things very simple, as toddlers struggle to learn what it looks like and feels like to be angry or happy. But past that? People don't really behave this way. What we say and what we really mean are not always synchronized, and we can use the body to communicate this.

call. me crazy. i love my friends. i call them names. i bully them

with love

i really believe that discussing the character with someone who shares ur interpretation is the closest u can get to modern day philosophy. we are like plato and aristotle but talking about a fictional guys trauma

[WIP] Sonic Miku!

Funmaxing: How to Create a Character You'll Like Playing

Part One: Choosing a Role that Fits

I'm about to be a player in a full campaign for the first time in 5 years (I was lucky enough to play in a few oneshots and an 8-session mini-campaign during that time), and for the first time in a long time, I get to really think about being on the player's side of the table!

If you, like me, are about to embark on the journey of creating a D&D character, this one's for you.

If you've played D&D before, you've probably had the problem where you came up with an awesome character concept and started playing, only to realize you picked features that your character wouldn't use, or that didn't work with the way you like to play.

Some DMs may let you change it at some point, but the majority of the time, the only solution to being dissatisfied with the mechanical choices you made is to...retire the character. Make a new one. When you really enjoy roleplaying the character, it can feel like you're between a rock and a hard place: say goodbye to a character you love, or muddle through with mechanics you hate.

(this can happen the other way around as well! I'll be writing about that later)

So how do you get in front of this problem? How do you choose mechanics you actually like that also make sense for your character concept?

The advice below assumes that you have come up with a character that is willing and able to go adventuring.

The first step in designing a character's mechanics is to ask yourself:

What roles do you like playing in D&D, both in and out of combat?

There are many different roles in D&D. Some are pretty well-known: you have the tank, the DPS, the glass cannon, the healer. But you also have the support caster, battlefield manipulation, and more. At the same time, not all of D&D takes place in combat. Depending on the game, there are different ratios of combat:exploration:social interaction. If one of those 'pillars' of play doesn't interest you, that's okay, but there will likely be some elements of all three in every game, and it's helpful to have a character that is capable of interacting with all these pillars.

The lists below are not exhaustive. It's also typical to enjoy more than one role, and to take on more than one role at a time. As you review the lists, think about which roles you would most enjoy playing.

Combat Roles

Tank: soaks up attacks. If you like taking huge amounts of damage or making enemies waste attacks on you that never hit, this is a good role for you.

DPS: for the uninitiated, this stands for 'damage per second'. If you like doling out huge amounts of damage each round, this role is a good fit.

Glass Cannon: like DPS, this role deals out high damage but frequently has limited resources, like spells, and has a low defensive capability. If you like to feel powerful 'at a cost', this is a good role for you.

Healer: this role keeps allies standing and protected against danger with wards and restorative abilities. If you like to feel like a rescuer and pull your party out of bad situations with a clutch move, you may enjoy being a healer.

Support: this role focuses on making your allies stronger and your enemies weaker. If you like setting up your fellow players for extreme power without wanting it for yourself, or get satisfaction out of watching your enemies crumble, this is a good fit.

Battlefield manipulation: this role controls different elements of the encounter by moving allies and enemies around, taking control over enemies, and creating effects that change the physical landscape. If you like thinking tactically about placement on the board, affecting who can go where/do what, and turning enemies to your side, this is a good role for you.

Summoner: this role uses other creatures to fight on your behalf, not just summoned ones. If you like having animal companions, constructs, or summoned creatures take on the fights for or alongside you, you may like the summoner role.

Exploration Roles

The Trap-Wise: this role is on the lookout for unexpected dangers, like ambushes, pitfalls, and cursed treasures. If you like to stay on your toes, monitor what others are doing, and be a front-liner of exploration, this role is a good one for you.

The Looter: this role is looking for Stuff. You might be checking bodies, foraging for the party's dinner, or combing through bookcases for interesting tomes; if that sounds like your kind of fun, you might enjoy the Looter role.

The Puzzle-Solver: this role wants to gather and resolve information about the scenario, whether that's literally solving a puzzle or figuring out the BBEG's secret plans before she can put them into action. If you like thinking about how the scenario works and gathering intel, you might like being a Puzzle-Solver.

The Poker: this role sees something interesting and decides they're going to poke it. If you want to throw caution to the wind and just trigger the pressure plates already, this role could be a good fit.

The Mapper: this role is for figuring out where you are, where you're going, and how you're going to get there. You might be checking for secret rooms and hidden doors, or scouting ahead either on your own or with a familiar or divination ability. If you're always thinking about the next step forward, you could have fun as a Mapper.

The Prepper: this role is getting ready for the next threat. If you want to set up defenses for your camp, heal or empower your allies before you face danger, or divine the future, you might like the Prepper role.

Social Roles

The Friend: this role tries to get on others' good sides. You may deescalate a tense situation, convince an untrusting NPC to let down their guard, or earn the favor of a powerful creature. If you really did come here to make friends, this might be a good role for you.

The Powerhouse: this role uses skills, physical strength, or magical power as leverage. You might magically or physically force a confession, show off your competency to get an adventuring contract, and back up your allies' words with an intimidating presence. If you want to say more by saying less, you might like playing a Powerhouse.

The 'I Know a Guy' Guy: this role relies on interpersonal connections, linking the party to NPCs for resources, information, and new quests. If you like networking and building connections, you might enjoy playing this role.

The Information Broker: this role collects and exchanges information, from gossip to news to clues. If you like plying others for intelligence, you might have fun as an Information Broker.

The Trader: this role speaks the language of barter and coin, assessing others for their material worth and goals. If you like transactional roleplay encounters from haggling to bribery, the Trader could be a good fit.

The Influencer: this role distracts crowds, plants the seeds of gossip or discontent, and directs the favor and ire of the public. If you want to be at the heart of the crowd, you could enjoy the Influencer role.

The Cold Reader: this role assesses others for their motives, intentions, and feelings to gain a social advantage. If you like to understand what's happening at the heart of an NPC, you might like playing a Cold Reader.

Once you've identified the roles you enjoy, think about the group as a whole: will anyone else want these roles? It can be extremely frustrating to choose a glass cannon role, only to discover everyone else is playing glass cannons, too. Party composition doesn't need to matter to play a good game, but when you have the same role as another player, it can be easy to feel like you aren't adding anything new or interesting to the encounters.

Next, think about the game you're about to play: will these roles be useful in this game specifically? Some DMs might leave out the elements necessary for a given role to work, or the specific game you're playing won't give you many opportunities to use a certain role. You can always let the DM know what you want to see, so they can give you situations that play to your interests, but it's also fine to acknowledge that not every role will fit in every game.

Finally, consider your character concept: which roles fit with the character I've come up with? If you know things about your character's personality and background, you can compare them to the roles you're interested in and see where there are points of alignment. You don't need alignment between the combat, exploration, and social role, but some roles fit better together than others, like a DPS combat role being Trap-Wise in exploration and an 'I Know a Guy' Guy in social encounters -- that describes a very typical rogue archetype, and rogue abilities often serve these roles well.

Once you've assessed the roles you like in combat, exploration, and social encounters, you're ready to build your character's mechanics!

A short example: In the upcoming campaign I'm playing in, my character concept is a drow woman from a minor noble family who was disowned for improper behavior. She was previously trained in martial fighting, but has since become a pit fighter to help make ends meet. This character is going to be mostly battlefield manipulation with some tanking, because I love to play with combat tactics and soak up damage. In exploration, I'm not yet sure; I think she'd be a good Poker, but another player really gravitates toward that role, so my backup choice is the Looter. For social encounters, she'll be mostly Influencer, but since she'll be tactical in combat I think she'd also be a Cold Reader when it comes to assessing potential threats and their capabilities.

'part two: choosing your features' can be found here.

The only character questionnaire you'll ever need (works for all characters and genres)

Name:

Role: 

Physical description: 

Age:

Personality Type:

Distinctive skills and abilities:

Greatest fear:

Misbelief about the world:

What happened to make them believe this lie:

What do they criticize others for: 

Love Language: 

How do they respond to emotional pain:

Top 3 things they value (physical or abstract):

Is there an object they can’t bear to part with and why:

Typical outfit:

Method of manipulation:

How are they dissatisfied with life:

What do they think will bring them happiness:

What could they do to make that happen: 

How has their fear stopped them from taking this action:

How do they think they can get their goal without doing the thing that makes them afraid:

Answer for each character this character has a direct relationship with

Describe relationship briefly:

Points of conflict in relationship:

What do they agree on:

What do they disagree on:

Any secrets kept from each other and why:

How did they meet and how long did they know each other:

How will their relationship change over the course of the story:

when the sibling rivalry goes too far