As happens often when authors gather, I fell into a discussion on GMC last week – for those who haven’t heard this term, it stands for Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, which collectively form the basis of all successful storytelling. The discussion was timely since I’m again wrestling with the conflict in my own story.

My characters’ internal conflicts usually involve trust issues. This tendency is so ubiquitous that you can define the theme of my entire body of work as trust. I’ve always believed that a successful relationship between any two people – parent/child, siblings, friends, lovers, spouses – has to be based on trust. Distrust makes one or both parties secretive, jealous, and aloof as each hides his/her real self behind thick walls, fearing to reveal vulnerability and open their cores to pain.

Which is why resolving a conflict based on a lack of trust is so tricky. How does one prove that he/she is trustworthy? How does a lifelong rake convince a heroine that he will remain a monogamous, supportive spouse who harbors no remorse over the loss of his former activities? Our culture is full of sayings like leopards don’t change their spots. How does the character who disappeared without a word, leaving his/her betrothed standing alone at the altar, prove that he/she won’t do it again? After all, there was no hint of impending doom the first time around. How can the unrestrained gamester convince anyone he has changed? Or the drunkard, addict, abuser, or any other character with a serious flaw?

Yet authors are expected to create characters with just such flaws, then help those characters resolve their problems over the course of the book. The other characters must ultimately accept that these changes are real and permanent, letting them lock the former bad behavior into the past, never to be remembered again. The author’s problem is finding a way to make this believable to readers because, frankly, few of us would accept such changes as more than an act if we faced them in real life. How many times does the abuser apologize, cry, and swear it will never happen again? How many times does the shopaholic vow to adhere to a budget? Most people who live in the modern world are cynical about the ability of people to actually follow through on such resolutions. Anyone intimate with the ones who try remains constantly alert for any sign of backsliding. In other words, trust doesn’t return easily. Promises mean nothing unless trust already exists.

I’ve done the impossible before, of course. To get 28 titles in print, I’ve had to. I even had one book in which I deliberately set out to see how bad I could make the hero and still redeem him. Devall’s Angel was lauded in many quarters, winning several awards. But I admit that I cheated just a bit. Once the heroine dug through the thick screen of social ostracism and lurid rumor, Devall’s goals were laudable and his motivation heroic, so she only had to divert his execution onto more acceptable paths.

My current dilemma is not so easy, though the hero’s public image is nowhere near as bad as Devall’s was. But the current hero broke trust with the heroine by disappearing without a trace, leaving her in an untenable position. She has come about in the intervening decade, rebuilding her life and developing new goals and motivations. His sudden reappearance is thus a problem on many levels. His presence resurrects feelings she no longer wants. His disappearance might be understandable in lieu of new information, but the callous way he handled that old situation remains unacceptable. So why should she trust him? It isn’t only herself that she must worry about this time around. She has two young children who depend on her to protect and support them. How can she expose them to potential harm by allowing the hero back into her heart? It is easier to take chances when the only potential victim is oneself, but a heroine mother must always put her children’s interests first.

Which brings me back to MY dilemma – how can he prove that he is trustworthy? What test must he pass before she can tear down the wall surrounding her heart? So far, all my ideas are clichéd or trite, which I refuse to consider. Eventually she will tell me how to resolve this dilemma. I just wish she’d get on with it…