What Does Your Character Want? This Is What Drives Story

What does your character want? It seems so simple and yet it is so indispensible to story. If you have not determined what your character wants throughout the course of the story – or in a particular scene, for that matter – then they are not going to come across with strong objectives – and therefore create drama. Even if your intention is to create a character who vacillates emotionally, perhaps this is only because what he really WANTS is to be loved and accepted, as this is often one of the ploys humans take to secure love – changing themselves to fit into someone else’s world instead of sticking to what they, as individuals, want.

An actor’s job, of course, is to interpret what a character’s objectives (wants) are. But it is the writer’s job, not the actor’s, to develop those wants in the story. If a writer has not done a good job of doing so, then the actor will not have much to go on.

But the real question is what the character actually NEEDS? The character may want something, which drives him, but at some point he will have to be pushed into figuring out what he needs. It is often good to heighten the stakes by creating a situation in which, if the character does not figure out and DO what he needs to do, instead of what he just wants, then bad things are going to happen (e.g., he is going to lose someone he loves or maybe even die). The act of the character figuring out what he needs to do is what lies on the other side of the arc from where his wants are. What we want to do and what we need to do are many times not the same, and are, in fact, often conflicting. But doing what we need to do is what gives resolution to a journey in which we have begun flawed – just surviving – instead of living it at its fullest.

When In Doubt: Write Your Ending First

I am currently writing a novel and am finding myself very lost. Sound familiar? I've written about 120 pages just for the first act! I'm well into the second act. I've got the third act mapped out. But I'm still losing steam as I become confused by all the plot twists and characters. So what am I doing? Writing my ending first. Sounds counter-intuitive, right? But it's not. See, if you know what is going to happen at the end of your story, then this helps you fill in all the blanks as to what should lead up to this.

Of course, I don't quite have as much "inspiration" as I did for the first act, when everything was new. I am worrying about whether the story is good enough, if the ending is weird (read: jarring). So instead of letting fear and writer's block bog me down, I doing something I did last night in the writer's group I attend: I am concentrating on writing just the setting, really fleshing out what the scenes look and feel like where my main character will be experiencing the last tense moments of her story.

So what did we learn here: If you get stuck, concentrate on writing your ending. And if you have trouble doing that, don't become stuck in the dynamics of the characters or even how the chapter should begin. (I for one know that I always want my chapters to begin with a bang!) Just write concentrate on setting, the description of what it looks and feels like in that/those scenes.

"Let the Right One In": An Indie Film With Great Structure

Now I watch a lot of movies. And I will periodically list some movies that I think make a great use of structure -- and a lot of these will hardly be the formulaic Hollywood movies that beginning screenwriters say they don't want to write, and therefore they avoid adding important structural elements to their scripts -- which is wrong!

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

This is a wonderful Swedish "horror" film (although it's neither suspenseful nor scary in the least) that does a great job of setting up what the adolescent main character, Oskar's, flaw is: weakness. He then meets his motivating/mentoring character, a young vampire named Eli. It's a love story, which is the motivating factor in helping Oskar get over his flaw. As Eli gives him more confidence through their interaction, Oskar stands up to his bullies. And as I teach in my story structure class (find out more at yourplotthickens.com), it's important to make the main character and the motivating character's relationship symbiotic. Oskar also helps Eli, who is a lonely misfit. In other words, she needs him as much as he needs her.

Even at the end of the film when there is the necessary "dynamic estrangement" (note: this is a term I learned during my two-year-stint at Writer's Boot Camp, a school that I recommend for those of you who want to take your professional training one step further), when Eli and Oskar become separated, and then Oskar reverts to his "fatal flaw" during the final confrontation when he is almost killed by the bullies and Eli ultimately saves him, I wasn't bothered. I say this, because it is often an important rule to make your main character dynamic, meaning that she should not be passive, especially during the last "battle" at the end of the film. It is at this time that many screenwriting sages, the likes of Christopher Vogel, teach that it's time for the "hero" to stand up and overcome her flaw, often through a hand-on-hand fight with her antagonist. But, for some reason, with "Let the Right One In" it worked for this rule to be broken. Perhaps this was because this film was ultimately a misfit love story, and that Oskar was in a sense "sacrificing" himself when he thought he has lost his love.

I'll have to think about it. Get back to you on that!