We always want what we can’t have

Rule #1 for compelling characters is that they have to want something, right? They’re supposed to have a goal or a desire that they’re working towards, and that allows us to sympathize with them and root for them. But the thing that is always my crack with characters is when what they can never, ever have. Like, at a certain point, Buffy knows that she and Angel can NEVER be together, but she still wants him. I always try to figure out what my characters really, really want – but what I really want to know is, what impossible thing do they want?

In the case of All the Birds in the Sky, both Patricia and Laurence have some goals that are totally realistic – she wants to be a real witch and learn to use her powers, he wants to be able to use his science skills to make the world a better place. I spent a lot of time, while working on this book, trying to make their goals feel like burning desires. And even at the 11th hour, doing revisions on this book, I was trying to find a way to make their personal desires feel intense and gut-wrenching.

But it was super, super important to me for Patricia and Laurence to want things that are harder to define, and probably impossible to get. Patricia will always want her parents’ approval, because they were so hard on her when she was a kid, and her parents just aren’t going to be able to give it to her. Laurence is always going to dream of just up and escaping from all the ugliness of this world, and he wants to see himself as this idealized heroic explorer. I guess part of it is that you can’t fully torture your characters unless they have some desires that will always be beyond their grasp. Plus, it’s realistic, because that’s real life. We always want things that we can never, ever have.

This is something I’m struggling with in my new novel, too – not just how to give my characters desires, but how to give them desires that are at the very least unrealistic.