This morning I realized that my entire story so far, the one I'm working on, is an externalization of the the protagonist's internal conflict. I.e., the whole story is shockingly personal. It might as well all be in his head. (and the main foil, and the hero... the other two big characters)
This works. For starters, it pushes this entire story BEYOND formula. I couldn't just keep writing stories about these people, endless sequels; they grow. They change. As I wrote, eventually they would change so much that they would be unrecognizable. Besides that, there's a clear beginning and end to their lives.
Because the conflict is an externalized form of their internal conflicts, the entire book obviously centers around the demons that haunt them, and their worst enemy remains themselves. I have no big, over-arching villain in my books; my heroes are the villains. They are a world unto themselves.
It's all rather awesome, actually.
I realized a while back that the first novel I ever finished was trash. The reason? The action was fake and artificial, just things happening to the main characters. It had nothing to do with their internal conflicts, if they ever even had internal conflicts. I had one character morbidly obsessed with one thing suddenly turn and go a different way. I had a villainous character turn heroic.
Only one part of that book was any good, and it was a subplot I glossed over rather quickly.
If I go back and rewrite it, I'll change the action to mirror the internal conflict. I'll give the characters real growth, instead of focusing on how I need to set them up for the big finale and the sequel. That should make it a book worth reading.
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