Desire.
From the desk of our tutor, Tim Lott.
The protagonist of a story almost always has a desire they wish to fulfil and will be proactive - sooner or later - in trying to achieve it.
This is particularly the case in single-protagonist stories, less so in multiple protagonist ones. Lizzy Bennett does not start Pride and Prejudice with any particular desire for anything, neither does the 'Inciting Incident' of Charles Bingley's arrival at Netherfield spark one. It is her mother’s desire, to see her daughters married, that drives the narrative - along with Darcy's desire for Elizabeth.
It’s not so much that a character has to have a desire, more that desire has to govern the narrative.
But ensuring your protagonist has a practical want or need, does make a story easier to tell.
This desire cannot be too general – like ‘to be happy’ or ‘to find love’. It has to be the concrete goal that the protagonist thinks will achieve those more general ends. To be King. To get out of the hole. To get the girl back. To get rich. To eliminate a rival. To get my daughters married off.
As David Mamet puts it, “In the perfect play we find nothing extraneous to his or her single desire. Every incident either impedes or aids the hero in the quest for the single goal.”
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman: ‘Every single moment, every single person wants something. He is a wanting machine, ever wanting. Often many things, often conflicting things. Understand this about your characters and yourself.’
There are apparent exceptions to this. There are always exceptions, but they are usually only 'apparent', that is to say unfounded, or ungrounded.
In Anne Tyler’s ‘The Accidental Tourist’, Macon Leary, broken by the murder of his son, seems to want nothing at all, and be entirely passive. He wants to stay numb, which is the death of his soul. But what he really wants is ... to want something.
Blanche Dubois in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ seems mainly passive. But what she wants is to escape reality – a desire she finally achieves when she goes insane.
Nick Carraway is the passive narrator the Great Gatsby – but he isn’t the protagonist. He simply acts as witness to the real protagonist – Jay Gatsby, whose obsessive desire for Daisy drives the whole book.
There are doubtless other exceptions. Perhaps some of them even real, rather than apparent, exceptions, which serve as the engine for good stories. All I can say is that, as a writing mentor who is constantly reading individual manuscripts from would-be writers, one of the most common flaws I experience is that the central character is passive throughout. This makes for dull reading because they are missing the most essential part of what it is to be human – desire. Furthermore, lacking that desire, there is nothing for the storyteller to hang the action on, so the narrative tends to meander. The word ‘drama’ means ‘a thing done’ – not something happening to you. From Greek drama, from dran ‘do, act’.
At the beginning of any drama, the central question I pose for the protagonist is ‘what do they want and how are they going to try and get it?’ This is known as the ‘Superobjective’ or 'Overarching Goal'. It is the spine of the story, the formula that drives the story forward. Either the character is moving closer, or further away, from their goal.
Characters may not know their own desires ( although they usually do) - but the writer must. Likewise, the audience has to have a sense of the protagonist’s desire, or they are unlikely to be interested in the outcome.
Desire doesn't just govern the story, it should appear in each scene.
What does a character want when they go into a scene? What obstructs them ( usually another character)? In other words, what is their motivation?
As the playwright, Leo Butler remarks, "You’ll have a much better time writing if you let at least one of your characters enter the scene with a motivation."
Tim Lott.
You'll find in the video Kurt Vonnegut's 'Rules for Writing A Short Story', not a novel, but to my mind they apply to a scene or a chapter very nicely, thank you!
