Emotional Baggage = Internal Conflict

Wrote another 811 words over the weekend when I edited the words I had written on Thurs and Fri, 23 pages worth.
Total Word count for DC= 7141 words, pg 24. 

Everyone has baggage. And everything we encounter can become potential baggage depending on who we are and what is going on with us at that particular time in our lives.

Baggage can be from our own internal fears (fear of the unknown, for example) or very real fears (fire, due to being in one, etc) or foisted on us by others (their fears affect how you act/react to them).

Baggage is a pain in the butt to deal with in real life.  For the most part, we work through our baggage issues and move one.  Our goal is not to let our baggage rule our lives.  We want to achieve equilibrium and, with that, happiness.

Baggage is conflict. 

When we write characters without baggage, we write boring stories.  No one wants to read about someone who has the perfect life, unless it's simply a facade to cover up something horrible (Stepford Wives, abuse, Mafia Princess type stories, etc.).  And if we write those 'perfect' characters we better be writing some narrative in their POV to show the conflict. 

Our characters need to have serious issues, issues they have to come to terms with and resolve throughout the story before they can grow.  I don't care what type of books you write, whether it is picture books, MG or YA, genre novels (romance, Sci-Fi, westerns, horror, etc.) or literary fiction, it is your characters and their trials that keep the reader reading.  Of course, plot has something to do with it, but internal conflict had better be present to show how the experience the character had changed them--for the better or the worse.

Good internal conflict doesn't tell the reader that the character had a horrible life, instead it shows the reader through the character's actions, reactions, and dialogue.

In other words, conflict drives the character who in turn drives the story forward.  That character's choices, whether the choice is good or bad doesn't really matter since the character will learn from that choice.

Conflict is inherent in your character. It is YOUR job as the writer to keep the character and reader guessing until the character is forced to face the facts of the conflict that has been repressed.

There's a reason your character is a loner (or whatever), but don't spill the beans in the first couple of pages as to WHY.

Until later. . .
Write on!