Tag: character goals

Categories
Romancing Your Story

What Do Your Characters Want and Why?

What drives your character? What is his or her motivation for pursuing their goals, whether it’s defusing an atomic bomb and saving the world or decorating cookies for a bridal shower?

There are lots of books and articles and blog posts about how to make character sketches and how to know your characters. Some writers advocate filling out spreadsheets with lots of details, including physical descriptions and where they lived in the fourth grade. Others journal in their character’s voices for pages and pages, getting to know them. Some take their characters for a metaphorical cup of coffee and chat with them.

I use a system that asks a series of “Whys” to drill down to a dark moment in their past that’s shaped who they are now. 

For example, we’d start with: Who are you? The answer starts with a noun plus an adjective. For this example, “I’m a prodigal fisherman.” 

Why? “Commercial fishing was a job I could get. Prodigal because I can’t go home.” 

Why can’t you go home? “I messed up.” 

How did you mess up? “I got into a fight at my sister’s wedding.” 

Why did you fight someone at your sister’s wedding? 

And so on. 

We’d continue until we learn he felt rejected by his family as a teenager when they allowed him to leave home to play ice hockey at an elite boarding school. 

This system of noun plus adjective and “Why?” questions is from The Story Equation by Susan May Warren and this character profile is Owen Christiansen from You’re the One I Want also by Ms. Warren.

There are often two sets of goals, internal and external, but the motivation is the same for both. The internal want drives the external goal.

Owen Christiansen wants to go home and feel welcomed by his family. That’s his internal desire. The internal meets the external when his brother finds him and brings him home. Of course, there’s a lot more to the story.

This next example is from my own work in progress. The heroine is Chloe:

Who are you? “I’m a driven widow.”

Why? “I have to open my bakery next month to honor my dead husband on the second anniversary of his death.”

Why? “He died in his sleep of an undiagnosed heart condition.”

Why? “I drove him to his death, nagging and pushing him to work harder.”

Chloe is determined to not fall in love again. Because her father also died at a fairly young age, after working extra hours to pay for a family vacation, she feels she’s toxic to men. (Of course, since this is a romance, she’s going to fail at her plan to not fall in love and will finally get her happily ever after.)

In The Story Equation, Susan May Warren outlines a method for diving into your character’s motivation. It involves digging deep and getting to what she calls their Dark Moment Story or DMS. This is a moment in their past that shaped them into the person they are at the beginning of the novel. For Chloe, it’s her husband’s death. The DMS also contributes to the Flaw, a Lie they believe, and several other factors. I highly recommend The Story Equation if this method of getting to know your characters appeals to you.

Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.

You can find her online at:

Categories
Talking Character

Which Comes First, Plot Or Character?

Plot and character. Two halves of any great story. Both are critical, whether you are telling a character-driven literary story or a plot-driven spy thriller.

Disagree? Consider this quote:

Plot and character are integral to one another. Remove either one from the equation (or even just try to approach them as if they were independent of one another), and you risk creating a story that may have awesome parts, but which will not be an awesome whole. K. M. Weiland in Creating Character Arcs.

Or, to put it differently, consider this statement from Lisa Cron in Wired for Story:

Myth: The plot is what the story is about.
Reality: A story is about how the plot affects the protagonist.

So then, a good story is one where the plot affects the main character. Does that mean plot comes first?

Not necessarily.

I don’t think it matters where a writer begins, so long as you remember that the two are intertwined.  The character must have goals and issues that are challenged by the plot. The plot is nothing but a series of unconnected events unless there is a character whose struggles give them meaning. A writer cannot get too far along in one before he needs to consider the other.

The big mistake is to forget they are two sides of the same whole. The great discovery is when you allow your developing character to spark plot ideas, or vice versa.

Where do you start?

 

Character first

If you are a character-first writer, you begin by crafting an intriguing character. But at some point the character will need a goal, and obstacles that stand in his way. Remember, it is a reader’s anticipation of what the character will do next that sucks them into the story. A protagonist without a clear goal gives a reader no reason to care—and thus no reason to keep reading.

Therefore a character-first writer will need to consider the complex, flawed character you have created and ask what climax moment will force the hero to face the strongest of his inner demons. Come up with a climax that forces the character to dig deep, to strive against the enemy with every fiber of his moral and physical being, and then work the plot backwards from that moment.

Plot first

If you are a plot-first writer, you start with an intriguing what-if or an awesome idea for an amazing climax scene. But at some point you will need to create a character worthy of your plot. One whose inner demons threaten to keep her from defeating the opposition.

The most powerful stories are built on a character whose exterior plot goal is in direct conflict with her inner story goal. This is true whether the story has a classic character arc or not. Even in stories where the character does not change (a flat arc) she still needs to overcome something beyond the antagonist’s evil plans. That something might be as simple as convincing everyone around her that the evil villain is truly an evil villain, but the plot must force her to dig deep inside herself to find the strength to keep fighting when no one else believes.

Therefore, plot-first writers need to stop and consider what conflict of inner need and outer goal will might work with the plot. Create a believable character that embodies those two things, (giving the character enough backstory to explain the why of it) and you are well on your way to a great story.

[bctt tweet=”The character drives the plot, and the plot molds the character’s arc. They cannot work independently. K. M. Weiland #quote #writer” username=””]

Lisa E. Betz is a Bible study leader, drama director, and aspiring novelist. She lives with her husband and a neurotic cat in a scenic corner of Pennsylvania. When not teaching or sorting books at the library, Lisa blogs about intentional living at www.lisaebetz.com.

Connect with her:

Website: www.lisaebetz.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LisaEBetzWriter/
Twitter: @LisaEBetz

Categories
Talking Character

Do You Know What Your Character Is Doing?

What is your main character’s goal? The thing that drives her through the story, no matter how many obstacles you throw at her. You know what it is, right?

And you also know your bad guy’s goal—the one that tries to thwart your heroine at every turn.

No?

If you can’t state your protagonists’ and antagonists’ goals in a few words, your story is probably floundering, because those goals are critical pieces of your plot’s foundation.

I recently watched an action movie. Big name actors. Good special effects. A bomb that was going to explode in Times Square unless the heroine stopped it. Should have been a good movie, but halfway through I grew bored, because: A) Nowhere in the movie was it made clear what the bad guys were trying to achieve, and B) I was never clear on what the heroine’s primary goal was. I didn’t know what was driving her, so eventually I stopped caring what happened.

Instead of her goal pushing the plot toward the final showdown where she faced her inner demons and succeeded (or failed), she was merely reacting to stuff that happened, racing from one high octane moment to the next.

Ho hum.

In a similar vein, you heroine’s goal is the reason your readers care about her and want to cheer her on to success.

To write a good story, you MUST know your character’s story goal. If you aren’t sure, try one of the following:

  • Sit down with your main character and ask hard questions about her relationships, her fears, her dreams, and her inner demons. Deep, deep down, what drives her? Her story goal should stem from some inner need. (Even if she’s not aware of it.)
  • Consider what your story is about—the Theme. What are the protagonistic and antagonistic ideals that will clash to portray this theme? What character goals might portray those ideals?
  • Start with the climax. What will happen in the final confrontation? What final obstacle must your hero overcome in order to finally defeat his nemesis? Now think back to who your hero was at the start of the story. What goal will bridge that gap, forcing the action and the change necessary to get him to the climax moment?

As you write and rewrite your story, you may tweak your goal as the plot and characters evolve, but never lose sight of it or your story will go astray. And don’t be afraid to remind your character’s if they show signs of getting off track. If they yearn for another goal, tell them it will have to wait until the next story. Stay on track.

[bctt tweet=”If you don’t know what your character is doing, neither will the reader. #goals #writetip” username=””]

Categories
Talking Character

How Selfish Is Your Protagonist?

We writers love our protagonists. We give them a few flaws and quirks, but we know that underneath their mistakes and faulty thinking beats a heart that is kind and good. The kind of heart that will ultimately lead them to Do The Right Thing.

We want our hero to show his noble heart by getting involved with the local homeless shelter and our heroine to display her fine character by fundraising to provide wells to villagers who need fresh water. Those are excellent goals, so long as you show the reader why your character cares.

Authors must not only figure out what goals our character strives for, but also why those goals matter to that particular character. And the reasons must be specific and selfish.

Yes, selfish. As in, what’s in it for him?

Because your hero does not volunteer at the shelter once a week just because it’s a nice thing to do. He does it because:

  • He can no longer ignore God’s urging to serve in this area (despite the fact he hates talking to strangers.)
  • The cute girl from World History class works there those same days.
  • He thinks it will atone for the hit and run accident he caused.
  • He discovered one of guys he plays pick-up basketball games with spent most of last year living in a shelter.

Each one of these options will lead to a very different story, won’t it?

The specific and selfish reasons you give your character must also serve to deepen his character arc and illustrate the underlying theme of your story. If the story is about stepping out in faith despite our fears then option one or four might make sense, while option three would suit a theme like understanding God’s mercy or learning to own up to our mistakes. And that cute girl from history class? She has all kinds of thematic options, depending on her motivations for working at the shelter.

Because every character needs specific and selfish reasons for their actions. Even cute girls.

So…

If your answer to the question, “Why does your protagonist care about his story goal?” isn’t specific, personal, and driven by some need or desire the character has, maybe it’s time to dig deeper.

You readers will be glad you did.