Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Plutchik & Plotting The Emotions of Inner Conflicts


If you've ever felt a little verklempt, you too have internal conflicts. Jeffe and James gave great guidance for finding internal conflict in the real world that easily translates into characters' internal conflicts.

Now that you know what the internal conflicts are, how do you Show (not Tell) them to your reader? Navel Gazing? No.

Ever hear of Plutchik's Wheel of Emotion?  Plutchik was a psychologist (among other things) who said all emotions and motivations evolve from eight primary and contrasting emotions. You can learn more about it from The Education Portal.

The thing I like most about the layout of Plutchik's Wheel is that it acts as a plotter's map for internal conflict.
  • Arc 1: spiraling out of control or repressing/tightening the coil
  • Arc 2: hitting the low point and/or exploding in the emotional root
  • Arc 3: embracing the initiator of change, which shifts "spokes" on the wheel and causes the rewinding/unwinding of a changed character
Oh! And next week's blog topic is...Flash Fiction Ad Libs. Help me out, dear readers, and leave a few words in the Comments that you'd like to see me incorporate into a work of super-short fiction.

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