|
|
Joined: 3/3/2011
Posts: 21
|
So many times I read people's stories and wonder what the main character really wants (My own included).
Which got me to thinking about what my protagonist wants. What does he or she really really want?
Typically we worry more about what the antagonist wants (because it is supposed to put him or her into direct conflict with what the protagonist wants) but often, people just say, "My villain wants power, or money, or dominion."
But what do they really want?
I am having trouble identifying this is in a few of my new stories. I have actually stopped writing one until I have this nailed down. I need to know what her basic needs, desires, and what she wants out of life, before continuing on, since that will both help drive the story and her.
Identifying a characters basic desires is a tough one.
|
|
Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 412
|
Most of my characters just want a normal plain life.
|
|
Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
|
Everyone wants something, most people have wants that are layered like an onion. With most of my characters they don't even know what they really want because there are so many variables. It drives every major decision we make and if you pay attention you can figure out what people want.
With my characters I create a history. Your past, especially your childhood, are the building blocks of what you want in life. If you want to figure out what your character wants, you need to build their life.
I'll use one of my characters from Bon Voyage as an example.
Gwen
Grew up in a divorced family, mother cheated on dad and took off with her lover when Gwen was 6. Her father loved her but was distracted by work. At this point she has started to form an opinion that relationships are temporary and people you love can be unreliable. Her father is happy in his career, doesn't marry again. He dies suddenly when she is in college.
In college she looks for and finds a man she thinks of as 'safe'. Plain, ordinary and boring, someone she thinks won't leave/hurt her. She subliminally is trying to avoid the situation her father was in.
Bad decision. Safe guy cheats on her.
Now her wants in life are fully realized. She doesn't want to be hurt. Gwen surrounds herself with people she feels are safe but the relationships are superficial. She makes the decision to live on board cruises to further seclude herself from the real world, a wall to protect herself from getting hurt.
Every step she takes from this point on is influenced by that want. If you were to ask my character what she wants out of life she would tell you adventure, travel and career success. All three of those wants are coincidental to her real one.
|
|
Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
|
Here's another 'case study', this is my opinion by the way...this may or may not be true.
Voldemort from the Harry Potter series, main bad guy.
What does he want? Most people are going to say power but it's a lot more complicated than that.
He's raised in an orphanage by people who don't particularly care for him. His father abandoned his mother when she was pregnant, she dies after his birth. He has no real faith in an adult to protect/care for him, he's alone.
Dumbledore arrives and he goes to Hogwarts. For the first time he belongs and he begins to thrive. As Voldemort ages he gathers a 'family' around him of people who seem to be missing the empathy switch in their heads. These people don't think it's strange that he doesn't care about anyone else. It's warped and twisted but he finally has a 'family' where he belongs.
After he leaves Hogwarts he begins delving into the dark arts and rises to true evil but under all that most of what he does is centered around Hogwarts. He wanted to be a teacher there after he finished schooling, he wanted to stay at the only place he felt accepted.
Some people will argue this opinion but I think Voldemort's journey to become immortal and quest for power was deeply rooted in wanting to be accepted/to belong/to be a part of a family. Anyone who rejected him was forced to pay.
|
|
Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
|
@Alexander - even 'plain, normal' people have wants and needs. Those may be as simple as job security, no leaks in the plubming and Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, but they're *there*. Characters who are in constant strife who want 'normality' often want the trappings of normality, but those things are different for each person, and people who really *want* normality can often get it if they just, y'know, go get a job, an apartment, and a TV.
@void - nice character studies. I think the Voldemort one is more in depth and realistic than what was actually done, but I don't disagree with it. I tend to not go into that much depth, but I do include one thing you didn't, which is what a character avoids, which can be described as 'does NOT want'.
Best example of that latter that I've got is Mary from Crowbar Girl - she's been surrounded by dangerous secrets since she was young, and she doesn't want any of them to become public knowledge.
It's a good idea to do a history and base the wants on that, though. Wants can be simple or complex, but unless you're Buddha, you has them.
|
|
Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 412
|
Robert.. thats... a good point (that by normal, they want particular trappings of normality. ) I'll keep that in mind!
|
|
Joined: 3/3/2011
Posts: 21
|
@Ivoidwarrenties
That's exsactly what I do too.
|
|
|
|
There was a good article posted on io9 recently about characters that want nothing and how to build up character motivation - http://io9.com/#!5790987
|
|
Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 214
|
@Ivoidwarrenties
My MC is very similar to yours in some ways, although she’s got a little more damage going on internally. She had a halcyon childhood. It seemed as though nothing was wrong between her parents, because they never fought. Then during her twelfth birthday – a slumber party with all of her friends – her dad got a call from his long-time mistress telling him about the birth of their child (Sabrina’s half-brother). Dad leaves for a whole life “do over,” and her mom, Nola, a pampered SAHM, is left to flounder because she’s made her marriage and raising Sabrina her entire life.
So learning from Mom’s mistakes, Sabrina focuses on her career. A very powerful career that she worked hard to earn. Because men aren’t to be trusted. Case and point, she tried the marriage deal only to find that her ex-husband wanted her to give up her dreams to run for public office and turn into a clone of her mother. No way!
But she’s a deeply-closeted romantic. She desperately wants to believe that there’s a man out there who’ll hang around for the long haul. She just can’t find someone with that kind of integrity. Of course, oftentimes just who you need often doesn’t come in the “right” package. I’m sending Sabrina on a little journey to find out that she’s been overlooking the diamond that only looks like it’s in the rough. ☺
|
|
Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 222
|
I'm writing a fantasy, if that matters to those reading this.
My character wants to survive, go home, maybe become a hermit if he survives (he feels he has earned the sacred right to go live a hermit!!) -- maybe settle down and have kids.
'Normal' things he now views out of reach to him. He has a girl he likes, kids he's adopted along the way (He'll have fun explaining that one to his father...)
But, he has the classic Miss USA answer... world peace. Heh.
|
|
Joined: 4/3/2011
Posts: 22
|
@Robert - Figuring out what my character avoids helps me a lot too.
On the surface, my main character, Cross wants to completely forget his past. He's haunted by his past mistakes and losing the people he cared most about.
In the abstract, Cross wants to be able to trust people again, but it's kinda hard to do that when there's a bounty on your head. The person you finally place your trust in could be after the hefty reward for turning you in. That's why Cross appreciates the company of animals most. He always knows where he stands with them.
But he desperately wants friendship and companionship, to talk to someone who can talk back and make a connection with them. He's very much alone, but is also stubborn enough to never admit that to anyone. He'll push you away before he lets you in. You might be after his head.
|
|
Joined: 4/6/2011
Posts: 29
|
I am a big fan of doing character background writeups. Sometimes I get very detailed (there's a bunch of questionnaires floating around the web, some of them cribbed from role-playing games), sometimes it's more free-form, but I find they help with "what will X do?" moments.
I agree that since the protagonist is usually playing defense  it can be difficult to figure out this dimension. One way around it is to think less in terms of goals and more in terms of values. What do they love, what do they hate, what do they fight for. Most normal people living a normal life have fairly small goals, after all; its when those are denied them that they end up having to be heroes and such.
In my fantasy, there are pro and antagonist brothers. Both of them have hatred of their father as a major motivator, but the feeling expresses itself very differently in each. Two other major characters are motivated in large part by fear of death; one of them allows his fear to turn him monstrous, while the other learns to cope with it.
Nothing makes me crazier than reading a book and not being able to figure out *why* the characters are behaving the way they do.
|
|
Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
|
@Rebecca - I enjoy it sometimes, figuring out the *why*. It's an even toss up which I like more; when the character is deliberately obscuring their own actions, or when they honestly don't understand themselves.
|
|
Joined: 5/2/2011
Posts: 3
|
For my characters it's not so much about what they want as what they fail to understand, the failures this leads to, and how they try to deal with the consequences. The main premise of the book is the characters failure to understand the layers and implications of their world and actions. The male mc wants glory and believes bravery, skill and honour will see him right. Despite warnings he fails to see that life cannot be that simple. The female mc wants revenge, but completely loses sight of what is important in pursuit of her revenge.
|
|
Joined: 5/2/2011
Posts: 59
|
The main conflict of my story is arguably the protagonist trying to decide what, exactly, he wants. There isn't an antagonist, just two very different choices, both with clear benefits and downsides, and the protagonist needs to find a compromise between the two options.
|
|
Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
|
Once I was doing a ten-hour drive and really wishing I could be writing instead and so I "interviewed" three of the most important characters in the novel I was working on in my head. (The passengers in my car were sleeping, fortunately!)
I learned a heck of a lot--I even interrupted my characters' answers occasionally to call BS when I thought maybe they were hedging the truth and saying what I--or a reader--might want them to say.
Yea, perhaps I'm just insane, but this little non-writing exercise really helped me dig into my characters' motivations much deeper.
What I have up here now (I only have one wip here) is a short story which forced me to figure this stuff out and communicate it quickly and effectively. I don't write many short stories, and this has been a good exercise that I will take into future writing.
|
|
Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
|
By the way, in this short story I've written, both main characters want impossible things. One wants the Earth back after it was utterly destroyed. The other wants to utterly destroy the aliens she believes destroyed the Earth and she never, ever will.
The impossible desire thing was also interesting to write, because in all my prior fiction, the MCs get their desire--or get something good that they didn't know they wanted. Having MCs with hopeless desires was freeing in an interesting way--I didn't have to figure out how to give them what they wanted. I just had to portray their longing and coping without it.
|
|
Joined: 5/8/2011
Posts: 30
|
My character wants world peace and a rewarding job working with children.
Oh. No. Wait. She wants revenge and lots of it.
|
|
Joined: 3/3/2011
Posts: 21
|
Bob Mayer said in his workshop that character needs can't be "World Peace" or something as over-arching, because it's too generic. He stated the character can want world peace, but they also need to want something more particular to them. As in, if you put something vague as a want or a desire for your character, you as the writer are not working hard enough to dig into your character's head.
For instance, if your character wants world peace, why does she want world peace? Then you start your digging. Perhaps she was raised in a violent home. He said you have to keep digging until you get to the characters root needs, then you can truly understand them and can flesh them out better. Revenge is a good thing for a character to want, but they need more wants than that.
In the movie zombieland, a zombie/comedy movie, the character Tallahassee wanted twinkies. That wasn't his root desire, but it was indicative of his deeper needs.
|
|
Joined: 5/5/2011
Posts: 37
|
I have read so many books that point towards having a character sheet or outline and honestly I have only been able to make one scene out of the story this way. I have a character in my mind and just start writing finding out more about them as I write them ( I end up being just as suprised by their actions as the reader is) and yes this method does involve a lot of revisions but what method doesnt? Something about an outline just feels like a limitation in my mind that I cant seem to get over. lol
But I do agree it is important to know right away what the character wants whether that is the protag or antag.
Personally in the story I am working on now I only know a peice of their goals and as the story goes on I will flush out more. The main character's goal is to understand herself and who she is and what she is feeling all the while being compelled to sacrifice herself to save the world and it is her goal to have both of course save the world and find herself.
As for the antag, his goal is to satisfy his urge to have her at all costs because a moment of peace may make the misery seem worse but there is that moment and the hope of the moment is enough to drive people forward.
I still have some goals and under layers of the characters to hash out but reading your post has me thinking about it again and rethinking the next steps in the story.
Sometimes all you need is a reminding question to set your wheels a turning again!
|
|
Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
|
Y'know, I don't think I ever did post a 'wants' for my characters (except a short blurb on Mary, but...)
Lane wants to finish her Jeep and graduate High School. After that she's got a vague idea about going to muscle beach and maybe getting a job as a mechanic.
Gwen wants to go to college and get a couple advanced degrees in computers and science. She wants to leave a positive mark on the world before she dies, to get her name into history books somehow.
Mary's whole list of wants are privative - she doesn't want her secrets spilling out.
From XLI -
Tram wants to protect his people from invaders. More generally, he wants to live up to the example his father set for him. He's unwittingly inflated that example to superhuman proportions, but it's still what he's striving for.
Tenly wants to find surcrease from the voices in her head. She also wants to fulfill the mission she was born to: to ensure a lasting peace between two nations. The fact that both nations were destroyed in a global apocalypse makes that... difficult. So she's looking for a way to make that happen by proxy.
|
|
|
|