Did you know your protagonist isn’t as special as you think? Special means unusual or set apart. And amidst all the many awesome characters in your story, your protagonist may well be just one cool dude among many. So why is he the protagonist? Why not your gorgeous love interest? Why not your brainy sidekick? What one qualifier makes your protagonist the protagonist?
Your protagonist’s goal is what sets him apart. His story goal is what makes this story his. In practical terms, what this means is that your protag has something he wants and he’s going to move through the obstacles in every scene in an attempt to eventually reach that overall story goal. The only reason he engages in (and thus prolongs) the conflict is because he wants this pot of gold at the end of his rainbow. If he doesn’t want anything, then—at the very least—the conflict becomes yawningly impersonal.
We say no conflict=no story. But no goal=no conflict.
Here’s where it gets interesting. You may indeed have a story full of conflict—without even realizing your protagonist doesn’t have a goal.
And that’s not a good thing.
What that means is that some other character’s goal is driving the conflict. This other character becomes, in all practicality, your main character, while your ostensible protagonist is reduced to nothing more than an observatory role.
You may still get a rip-snorting story out of this setup. After all, you do have all the proper ingredients. But the incorrect focal point—your goal-less “protagonist”—will end up weakening your story. At best, he will simply detract from the optimal tightness of your story’s weave. At worst, you’ll end up mistakenly adding filler scenes that focus on your current protagonist’s non-goals instead of the true thrust of your plot, as powered by your story’s true goal-driven character.
Tell me your opinion: What goal is driving your story’s conflict? Does this goal belong to your protagonist?
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About K.M. Weiland | @KMWeiland
That was my problem with my last story. There was TONS of conflict, but my protagonist definitely didn’t have a goal, and I grew tired of writing her story. Disappointing, and I hope to get back to it, but I feel like I’m exhausted from writing circles, trying to make my characters do something.
There’s a certain amount of truth to the idea that we can’t “make” our characters do anything. If we don’t have important playing pieces – like the protagonist’s goal – set up from the start, the rest of the story won’t flow like it should.
That is so true. 🙂
My protagonist and my antagonist both have goals, but the pro’s is built on the fact that EVERYTHING has been set into motion by the ant’s.
Often, the protagonist’s goal will be set in motion as a reaction to the antagonist’s.
The main characters in my story share a specific goal and team up to get it. But in the course of the story, their goal changes completely because of the later revealed antagonist’s goal.
Overall story goals often evolve for characters as new information comes into play. Especially in change arcs, they sometimes have to switch focus from the Thing They Want to the Thing They Need.
I thought, every character should have a goal. A character without a goal, except for the real minor parts, shouldn’t be in the story. Or am I wrong? Should the protagonists goal be more important, than the goal of other characters?
It’s always handy to think of every character being the hero of his own story. So from that perspective, yes, every character needs to have his own agenda. But the protagonist’s goal is most important in the sense that the story is focused around it. It’s what drives the plot, especially when it comes into opposition with other characters’ goals.
My protagonist’s goal is to protect the two people he cares about most. His conflict is they each want something different from him and he doesn’t think he can have both. Then toss in the brother who abandoned him, who is now back in his life, and he’s even more confused. There is no way at all for him to have all three of them in his life the way he wants.
His love interest’s goal is to marry him and have a family with them, but to do that she has to give up living with the rest of her family (who she just got back after not seeing them for almost 15 years) and she’s not ready to do it. I write science fiction romance, and H&H live and have their core families on different planets.
Of course he has to choose between them at the end, and both will be threatened over the course of the story, and leave him feeling helpless and lost.
The best stories are usually the result of characters having to make decisions in which either outcome is equally good or bad. When the decisions aren’t clear-cut, the story gets delightfully deep and twisty.
I remember the discussion the other day with you…
The Representative is also set in outer space – and concerns a family at its heart.
The book I referenced the other day was number one in the series, and this one is number four. The first one will be out September 12th.
No matter what decision Taran makes, he’s going to lose someone he loves. And no matter what decision Ren makes, she’s going to lose someone she loves.
That was lovely symmetry. (The Representative’s already out – self-published, on Lulu).
Croyan’s decision’s already made:
Everything he’s set to lose, doesn’t matter – what he has to gain’s too insurmountably magnificent.
For a short post this is just so helpful, thank you…have been writing nonfiction for almost 15 years and making a transition to fiction…I think I have a good goal formulated for my protagonist but what I’m struggling with is what I think is a related matter: stakes. For example, in mysteries it seems the protagonist have an *inherent* goal that attends to the genre: solving a crime. But it’s his/her personal stakes that I struggle with – what happens to the protagonist if he *doesn’t* solve the crime? The story I’m working on is kind of an “Innocence Project” case but set in the 1870s…the stakes are obviously high for the wrongfully convicted man and I have a worthy goal for my protagonist (helping free the wrongfully convicted man) as well as some good antagonists, but I’m struggling with identifying the the personal stakes for the protagonist…I guess my question is: is the goal enough? Reading your “Structuring Your Novel” right now and really enjoying it! Thanks so much! Jim
Many mysteries have relatively low stakes for their characters–especially in a series. The character takes the case, solves it (or not), and moves onto the next one. Usually, the stakes are professional, with perhaps some survival stakes thrown in the mix if the hunt for the antagonist gets too personal. But you can up the ante by giving the protagonist a personal subplot, in which his pride, self-worth, optimism, faith, family, or livelihood all hinge upon the outcome of the case.
Or, you could make sure to give your protagonist a weakness- which most mysteries don’t do. Truby talks about giving a protagonist both a psychological weakness (something they’re doing that is hurting themselves), and a moral need (i.e. something that they are doing that is hurting other people).
Then, you tie the goal in by making it so that by solving their goal, the protagonist also solves their need.
For a mystery, he suggests that the MC should actually find out that he is responsible in some way for the crime he is investigating. That could mean literally, as in Vertigo, or through their own moral need, as in Les Miserables, with Inspector Javert.
Are you reading my mind, Katie? 🙂
I asked myself this same question last night. I realized her goal wasn’t linked to or a result of the conflicts in the story and even some of the scenes. YIKES! It explained my critique partner’s comments about the scenes of the story. Although well written, didn’t fit the character’s personal journey.
I got so caught up writing the scenes I forgot the most important thing.
Happens to the best of us! One of the toughest things about any story is keeping it focused.
As always, great advice!! Saving this for future reference.
Thanks for stopping by, Traci!
I would say this is true, but I guess I’m wondering what you think about traveling angel stories? Because in those the main character isn’t the one driving the action – it’s really the traveling angel.
I think that the only way it can work (in a novel at least – I imagine a movie would be different), is to give the protagonist and the antagonist a goal – and each one is dependent on the other.
Silver Linings Playbook is an excellent example of this, I think. Pat wants to get letters to his wife, and Tiffany agrees to do it – if he’s willing to do the dance contest with her. Of course her real goal is to get him to love her, so I think a bit of subterfuge on the part of the antagonist (who is the traveling angel) is necessary.
Me Before You is the same thing: she wants to convince him to not to kill himself, and he wants to show her a better world than than the one she’s trapped herself in. So here she does have strong desire line, even though he accomplishes his goal of making her more cultured and focused about her life.
In these instances, the traveling angel often *is* the protagonist, in a technical sense, even if he doesn’t have a POV. But it’s still important for the other character to have a strong goal–as you’ve demonstrated in your examples.
Okay, so this was pretty much perfection! A HUGE light bulb went off in my head as I read this, and it is still shining as bright as ever! How could I not think to give my protagonist(s) a goal?? I think subconsciously I have, but I have never really sat down and gave my protagonists personal goals! I am working on a novel right now that has been driving me absolutely bananas! My protagonist was just not strong enough. Now that I have read this post, I know exactly what I need to do!
Thank you for this excellent entry!
Amber
Often, the problem is that we come up with scenes in which interesting things are happening to our protagonists, rather than scenes in which things are happening as a result of the protagonists’ actions. Just that one little shift in perspective can transform a story.
Croyan’s is the most impressive, and grand of goals.
It’s also however one which is most ironic:
His enemy’s the one who gives him the opportunity to achieve it.
The antagonist always informs the goal. Sometimes the protagonist wouldn’t have come up with the goal *without* the antagonist’s pressure in his life. And sometimes the antagonist merely refines the goal through his opposition.
The goal, Croyan wants to achieve isn’t because of Krenok; as a problem, in need of a solution, it exists anyway.
It’s that by in Krenok permitting the choice of Croyan, he’s enabled him to inadvertently be the solution.
The goal, Katie – it’s greatness is beyond expression.
Whoa, bullseye! You diagnosed the problem with my story precisely. Time for an overhaul.
Have fun!
In my current YA wip, my character is a track star from a small high school. His goal is to gain a scholarship to college. A car accident at the beginning starts his troubles. Then I realized I needed more, so I dropped in an antagonist who is also a top runner in the same school. As unlikely as it is for a small high school to have two of the fastest boys in the state, it had to be done. His goal will change after the midpoint, but I needed to keep the tension going with the track competition. This is the challenge I’m finding with YA. Goals are often trivial to the reader–get the girl, be popular, etc.–so we have to find a greater need that the protag doesn’t realize until later. This was well done in The Fault in Our Stars. The protag’s goal to meet her writer hero changed after actually meeting him (and finding out he was a drunken louse). She didn’t really have a goal after that, but her need was to embrace what little life she had remaining–her “little infinity.” That’s the kind of story I shoot for in a YA.
Characters’ external goals often change over the course of story – especially in change arcs. They discover that what they thought they waned couldn’t fulfill them or fix their problems after all. But the overall underlying goal (to be whole, to find peace, etc.) doesn’t change.
When picking up a protagonist, sometimes I’m torn between one that has a bigger goal, and higher stakes that promising intense action, or the other that has a simpler goal but more personal which creates an interesting conflict ?
Why not both? You could feature both characters–or combine the stakes into one character.
Hi!
I just found your blog as I was trying to fix some things for my first script. In my story, I’ve set a goal that is pretty important for the two of my MCs, but to reach that goal, I need to set up some background first so the viewers would know them before having them encounter the ultimate goal that is the main plot of the story.
I just am afraid to write “too much” introduction for the MCs, and not knowing how to integrate gradually the apparition of the antagonist (sorry if it sounds weird, English it’s not my first language), that will reveal the real goal.
I don’t want the viewers to be bored, but I really do think that it’s important to develop my charas before presenting them the real danger. How much introduction is too much?
In essence, writing a book it’s the same as writing a script, so I would love to hear your pov about this. Thanks a lot.
Generally, a good rule of thumb is to structure the story as follows: First Act (first quarter of the story) is about setup. The inciting event (which sets the conflict in motion) should show up halfway through the First Act, with the key event (which draws the protagonist irrevocably into that conflict) being the First Plot Point at the end of the First Act. That gives you just the first 1/8 of the book to do straight character introductions (including their basic personal goals) before revving up to introduce the conflict.
Thank you so much!
I’ve done my research, character creation and planning, but when I started writing, the texts just went another way around and the scenes are getting longer than I thought. However, now that I read this, it’s just a matter of planning again, not the whole thing, but having in mind how many episodes I want to have, and place the events accordingly!
You’ve been a great help, count me in as an avid reader of your blog 😀
I often end up outlining not just my first drafts, but my rewrites as well. We have to give our creativity room to run wild on the page, but we also have to be able to corral it with logic.
Great post! This is something I see quite often in writers’ work I’ve reviewed. I think the biggest trap is starting with the protagonist essentially having achieved his goal and the story is basically about the antagonist trying to take it away. This renders the protagonist reactive and less interesting. After all, MACBETH would be far less compelling if it simply started with Macbeth as king of Scotland.
The other challenge is that many authors write stories where the protagonist is a substitute for themselves and is arguably only present in the story because they are telling it. It’s the first person trap, where the narrator has no arc but just happens to be along for the ride of a more interesting story,
This, I think, is the greatest feat in GATSBY: Nick is not just a passive observer. He has his own story that is taking place alongside Gatsby’s. (the recent film removes the Jordan/ Nick romance which removes arguably Nick’s key decision).
Thanks and glad I found this site.
GREAT point about the pitfall of stories in which the protagonist has already gained his goal. Also, I haven’t yet seen the recent Gatsby, but that’s disappoint about the Jordan character.
This was so helpful! Made me realize that my sci-fi story has NOT truly started yet.
Have fun brainstorming!
My protagonist has a negative goal, which is basically to avoid all her problems in life and be left alone. Obviously, the story comes out of her goal never being achieved and having to get involved in things. How should I work with a character who has a negative goal, specifically with her arc?
Turn into an active goal. What does she actively have to aim for in order to escape her problems?
Aah, that’s tricky. Usually her goal is to show everyone how cranky and prickly she is, so they avoid her and let her brood by herself. Sometimes she gets more active, such as sabotaging a ship so it can’t go on a dangerous trip. She lives on that ship to run away from her relationships back home. Her tactics vary, and almost always backfire, but I guess her overall goal is to keep her life as quiet and controlled as possible.
The goal seems passive, but she uses extreme means to try and achieve it. Can that work, or does the goal itself need more oomph to it?
All goals need to evolve over the course of the story, so what you’re describing here could definitely work in a segment of the story–as long as she’s progressing in her understanding of the the goal and her motivation and her techniques in trying to achieve it.
I agree with all this in spirit, especially for books with lots of action, conflict, crime, suspense, adventure. However there are many great books where the main character is carried along by the action, getting bounced around without a goal. This can be very funny, suspensful and tense for the reader. But in the very end you are right, no matter how aimless the character he or she must ultimately take action even if it is in the last act or final chapter. I am thinking about THE HOBBIT, ONE FLEW OVER THE COOKOO’S NEST, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, CATCH 22.
Good examples. What ultimately matters is that the character possess some kind of goal (whether it’s active or relatively inactive) that keeps him from being a truly passive character – however much he may seem to be controlled by outside events.
Actually in my current WIP, my story started with a goal of my protagonist. To never be hungry again in life, nor does she wants to ever bother again with the prize tag of anything she want.
This goal alone seems lousy, but with a backstory of alcoholic and abusive mother and extreme hunger in her life, her this kind of thinking gets justified.
I have been having a lot of trouble putting down my story. I started working on one story and then a prequel pushed it’s way into center stage. I thought I knew all there was to know about the characters in the first story but I just couldn’t get it on paper. My protagonist is fighting me every step of the way, while the protagonist from the afterthought prequel practically wrote her own story. This post helped me realize why. My original protagonist doesn’t have a focused goal. My second knows exactly what she wants and is willing to lose everything to get it.
Thank you so much!
Characters who know what they want are so much more fun to write – if only because they make it easier for us to know what kind of obstacles to put in front of them!
That speaks of Croyan, Julie. The reason for The Representative’s intense functionality is the same – knowing exactly the protagonists raison d’etre.
Hi 🙂 Thank you for the great post! Its really highlighted missing elements from my work. My current work features two protagonists with alternating POVs. One of the protagonists has a clear goal (to find someone and use them to solve a major problem that puts those he loves at risk). However, the other protagonist does not have a clear cut goal. Her aim is to protect her family and survive. Do you think these are substantial goals to drive the plot? Or should I reconsider their aims?
Protecting family and survival definitely has the potential to offer some great scene-by-scene goals. I think you’re on the right track!
Thank you 🙂 God bless 🙂
I think my protagonist needs a better goal… what makes a better goal?
I have no idea how to give him (a better) one within the confines of my very loose outline.
Here’s another article you might find helpful: Your Character’s Goal Needs to Be 1 of These 5 Things.
I am really struggling with my protagonist, and I was wondering if you could help me. I have a complicated triangle: the protagonist, the antagonist, and an important side character. The antagonist is really great, the side character is really great, but I can’t settle on anything for the main character. Her back story jumps all over the place, and I still don’t know what she wants. I’ve thought about trying to eliminate her and use someone else as the main character, but I realized that she is really important: she bridges the gap and creates a complicated character-quality triangle that the other two flushed out characters don’t share, so that they all overlap in some way. Any suggestions? I am really struggling with motive and backstory.
Sometimes it’s best to work backwards. If you know where you want your story–and thus your characters–to end up, you can figure out where and who they need to be in the beginning. See if you can figure out where you want your protagonist to be at the end of her character arc. What will she have gained that will have transformed her? This will be the Thing She Needs. What limiting belief will she have overcome? This will be the Lie She Believes. And what she have ended up gaining? This will likely be the Thing She Wants.
OK, thanks! That’s really good advice.
I think this article is now partly obsolete in view of
https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/protagonist-and-main-character-same-person-the-answer-may-transform-your-story/
Hi. I have read your books and they have been so helpful so first I wanted to thank you for this. I am a little confused about story goal as I understand that this should be made clear in the first chapter. My MC wants safety and security but starts the story trying to achieve this by running away from something that happened in her past (what she wants). She then realises later in the story that what she needs is to find out what happened in her past as this is the only way she can move on and get closure. Can her story goal change and if so, how do I set a story goal in the beginning? Also, can the key event that takes the MC back to her childhood home be because her mother died and she must go back home for the funeral etc? She doesn’t want to as her childhood home has bad memories etc. Her going home is therefore not a decision she makes actively but rather she is forced to. Is this okay? Its only by her going home that she discovers things about her past. Sorry for the long message.
Often, the character’s main story goal will not become explicit until the Key Event/First Plot Point at the end of the First Act. This is where the main conflict gels. However, the character’s underlying Want must be clear right from the start. Even if the main goal isn’t yet in sight in the first chapter, readers need to understand the motivation that will drive the character to need to achieve that goal later on.
I am writing a love story about a girl with depression and a boy that had depression. The boys goal is to make the girl happy. In the start the girls goal is to commit suicide and then it’s nothing. I can’t find a new goal for her!
If she’s decided not to commit suicide, perhaps her goal has something to do with finding a reason to live.
Thank you, I just couldn’t creat a new goal before