In popular fiction, external conflict used to be the norm. However, as literary works matured, heroes began to change, grow, and question themselves more. Traditionally, heroes of fiction knew they were better people than the villains, hence they had no reason to question themselves. Tension in old stories was created by the thought of the final battle between the hero and villain so these stories had very shallow characters.

Modern writers put a lot more emotional depth into stories and give their characters external as well as internal conflict. Distinguishing between these two types of conflicts is usually easy but sometimes it can get a bit difficult. Here is some information about the two types of conflict.

External conflict

This type of conflict is tied to the story goal. According to popular dramatic theory, each story is about an effort to solve a problem and achieve a certain goal. Although most characters will be working to achieve the story goal, the main participants of the external conflict will be two characters. The protagonist will be working towards achieving the story goal, but the antagonist will work against him to make sure that the goal is not achieved.

High school literature teaches that external conflict comes in several forms:

1. Person vs. another person

2. Person vs. nature

3. Person vs. machine

4. Person vs. society

5. Person vs. supernatural entity

This description can further be simplified by saying that the antagonist can be presented in many guises. The antagonist can be a person, a force of nature, a monster, an institution, society, etc. The similarity between all these descriptions is that they are all unrelated to the protagonist and he has little or no control over them. All of them can prove to be significant forces against the protagonist.

In most stories, antagonists are usually human because they have similar capabilities as the protagonists. The reason is that it is more difficult to predict the outcome of a conflict between evenly matched opponents. When the odds are even, an author can create more tension in his story.

Internal conflict

As the name suggests, this type of conflict involves a character’s self-doubt and difficulties deciding the most effective way to achieve his goal. This is a situation wherein most of us sometimes find ourselves. It is a situation where the character is knocked out of his comfort zone and is unsure about how to proceed in his quest to achieve the story goal.

Readers respond to characters that have both internal and external conflict. Internal conflict is particularly appetizing because it creates more suspense. People tend to be more unpredictable when they are faced by internal conflict so readers are held in suspense until the character reaches his turning point. Readers frequently wonder if the main character will make the right choice. Some are even unsure what the right choice is. All these doubts help to increase the suspense.

Even though some schools of thought say that the main character should be changed by his conflict, this is not always the case. A character can solve his internal conflict by sticking to his own approach. Sometimes this doesn’t work and that is the reason why internal conflict is so enjoyable for the audience.