The “I Want”

io9 has a post by Ria Misra on Disney’s use of the “I want” song, the point in their animated musicals when the protagonist opens her mouth and sings, “I want this, I need this, I’m gonna get this,” the first one being Ariel’s “Part of Your World.” The post acknowledges the formula even as it defends it for its clarity: don’t make your viewer guess what your protagonist wants, just lay it out there.

I’m torn. On the one hand, the idea of a doing fictional “I want” conversation makes me cringe. On the other hand, if I don’t know my heroine well enough that I could write a scene where she articulates her positive goal, then I really don’t know my story at all. The “I Want” is a damn good litmus test for how much of a grip I have on my book even I never write that scene.

The “I Want” is also a good touchstone for my biggest recurring mistake: the protagonist with a negative goal. Imagine Ariel singing, “I don’t want the sea anymore” and you can instantly see the problem with negative goals: They’re whiny and static because they don’t move a character toward anything, they just trap her in one place, bitching. But “I want to be where the people are” gives her movement toward a goal.

Another good thing about the “I Want” song? There’s no tortured back story, no wound, no motivation from twenty years ago that the protagonist hasn’t done anything about. “I want this because of where I an right now and because of what’s happening right now.”

Of course, it’s not always that easy. I’ve got Cat who wants to keep the neighborhood she’s lived in all her life safe. That’s a negative goal: don’t change my world. But her world is already changing, the crime boss who keeps order is distracted, bad things are happening without consequences to the evildoers, good people are going missing. So Cat’s goal, very broadly stated, is to restore order to her neighborhood. That’s a positive, active goal with a time lock. That’s an “I Want.”

I’m still not crazy about the formulaic nature of the “I Want,” but that doesn’t mean I can’t see how useful it is as story test.