On writing: Desire line #1

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Do you have a killer concept, a promising premise, and a protagonist worth a damn? Then you should determine the goal that your characters will pursue, and that will result in the plot of your story.

-Plot, in its simplest manifestation, is all about the protagonist’s thwarted goal. He wants something, and he can’t have it, so he keeps right on trying.
-You need to give your character a quest, a journey to take, a problem to solve, a goal to strive for. In other words, a plot. Something that presents risk, has options, has opposition and stakes hanging in the balance.
-What is the single, overarching question the story would answer? For example, “Will the good guys manage to reach Mordor and destroy the One Ring?”
-Can it be one of these five basic types of goals?
--The need to win (competition, the love of another)
--The need to stop (someone, something bad from happening)
--The need to escape
--The need to deliver (a message, one’s self, an item)
--The need to retrieve (a magic ring, a hidden or lost treasure, a lost love)
-How strong could you make the goal, based on the following Maslow-like hierarchy of needs?
--Survive (escape)
--Take revenge
--Win the battle
--Achieve something
--Explore a world
--Catch a criminal
--Find the truth
--Gain love
--Bring justice and freedom
--Save the nation
--Save the world
-What kind of goal can I give my main character that will seem impossible to reach?
-Every story is defined by what the protagonist wants. This external goal (the Thing He Wants Most) starts out as the story’s manifestation of ultimate pleasure (even if the story’s true source of “pleasure” is really the Thing He Needs Most). Naturally, the character is headed straight toward this font of bliss.
-The protagonist must have a worthy goal (what he needs to accomplish during the story). The goal must be concrete and measurable. He must have a believable motivation to want to carry out his goal (along with a personal need behind the external motivation).
-Do you know what your protagonist’s external goal is, the thing he’s trying to get? What specific goal does his desire catapult him toward? Beware of simply shoving him into a generic “bad situation” just to see what he will do. Remember, achieving his goal must fulfill a longstanding need or desire –and force him to face a deep-seated fear in the process.
-Does your protagonist’s goal force her to face a specific longstanding problem or fear? What secret terror must she face to get there? What deeply held belief will she have to question? What has she spent her whole life avoiding that she now must either look straight in the eye or wave the white flag of defeat?
-It always come back to: what do these events mean to the protagonist? What is her true goal? Knowing this will allow you to make her goal specific to her, rather than leaving it as a surface (read: generic) goal that we all have.
-Is her goal tired up with a core need, a passion, a dream? Is it something she must get, have, stop, reach? Is her emotional nature and spirituality tied to that goal?
-Goals aren’t necessarily straightforward. The ones that matter aren’t so much related to the events of the story, as they are related to the reasons why your protagonist participates in these events. The true objectives of your protagonists are based on their flaws and the things they need to overcome those flaws.
-Is the problem capable of forcing the protagonist to make the inner change that your novel is actually about?
-How will it make things happen that will force the protagonist to make his internal change, or fail at it?
-To intertwine with the character arc, this goal needs to be an extension or reflection of something that matters to the character on a deeper level. How is the lie/flaw at the root of that soul-deep reason?
-How does it bring the protagonist face to face with their worst fear, the force that is going to force them to face up their underlying flaw?
-How does the lie/flaw play out in the character’s life, and the story, through the conflict between the Thing He Needs (the Truth) and the Thing He Wants (the perceived cure for the symptoms of the Lie).
-How is he pursuing a goal or goals that are furthering their enslavement to their lies/flaws? They’re not pursuing happiness and fulfillment holistically by addressing the lie. Rather, they’re trying to get what they want in spite of their refusal to buck up and look deep into the darkness of their own souls.
-Does the protagonist go on this journey to solve the desire line to recognize that what he wants stands in direct opposition to what they need?
-What is the organic, escalating scenario that forces the protagonist to confront her inner issue? How does everything the protagonist faces, beginning on page one, spring specifically from the problem she needs to solve, both internally and externally?
-How does the protagonist think that if he can just have what he wants, all will be well?
-How does the protagonist want to fulfill the goal real bad?
-How could that goal mean everything to the protagonist?
-Does this challenge represent the hero’s greatest hope and/or greatest fear and/or an ironic answer to the hero’s question?
-How does this challenge tell who the protagonist really is?