[...] Finally, if anything is to come of the initial situation and characterization, the matter presented in the exposition, the situation must be somehow unstable: The character must for some reason feel compelled to act, effecting some change, and he must be shown to be a character capable of action.

This means, in effect, that in the relationship between character and situation there must be some conflict: Certain forces, within and outside the character, must press him toward a certain course of action, while other forces, both within and outside, must exert strong pressure against that course of action. Both pressures must come not only from outside the character but also from within him, because otherwise the conflict involves no doubt, no moral choice, and as a result can have no profound meaning. (All meaning, in the best fiction, comes from—as Faulkner said—the heart in conflict with itself. All true suspense, we have said, is a dramatic representation of the anguish of moral choice.) [...]