Internal antagonist kills story
Jack, as he tells his story, he’s outwardly a regular guy except consumed by a never-ending internal compulsion to dominate women. He blames his shielded bad habits on physical and mental abuse perpetrated on him by his mother. Her acts not mitigated by his attendance at a public grade school.
To the outside world, as an adult male, he projects a stoic mien when not cajoling sexual favors from subordinate females or while trolling boozy game rooms and cabarets.
His sole effort is to substitute each female conquest as revenge on his mother, a revenge he never attains. Thus, Jack bounds from one faceless, stereotypical woman to the next.
His sole antagonist is unending grief, remorse, or self-pity. He’s a victim. Only Jack knows of his inner turmoil. He tells no one outside the reader for page after page.
Then, on his forty-fourth birthday, he lifts his morning cup of coffee and has an epiphany.
He realizes his unhappiness relates to his inability to see that revenge is not a solution. Now that he’s enlightened, his story ends. While the reader has kept a scorecard of each humiliated conquest and Jack’s episodic journey, the result is a failed story for two reasons. One, it’s the same episode repeated, that is, his childhood abuse conflicts Jack and he seeks revenge on one woman after another. Two, his internal turmoil disappears without explanation.
While Jack’s scenario can be reproduced by giving him a different internal dilemma, the end result will be the same. In a nutshell, the scenario followed is a story killer.
How does one avoid this pitfall?
A solution is to give Jack an external antagonist. This external force can be a business competitor. Or, Jack can be a pool player and be challenged for the current year’s major championship.
If not an external antagonist, then a friend or catalyst can come forward to guide his life toward a fulfilling happiness. This all relates to there being an external force. All humans face external challenges and supporting colleagues or a mutual love interest where the overriding goal is not to humiliate or subjugate the other person.
Advice? Don’t murder your story with a 300-page journal filled by a deluge of agonizing and distressing internal thoughts relied on without an external antagonist, natural or human.
(Note: if you'd like further writing tips, check out other existing tips by Author Donan Berg at this website.)
However, if one writes a book about a serial killer, who after several killings that tend, because of the killer's inadequacy, to be similar, suddenly realizes from some outside source, his/her last kill is someone he/she dearly loves,, committed suicide. Is that a, murdered story?
Likewise, if the author is writing about a serial killer who is suddenly stopped and killed by the police. The story stops. If the killer is caught and goes to trial, the story is prolonged and maybe a boring long story like they become real life. Unless one likes long court battles and boring legal procedure.
I guess that's why I don't write psychological stories. I don't have psychological problems, so it is hard to relate without any experience of what it is like to have delusions, etc.
Ron