Elements of Fiction (56)

Element 56: Want

Another key attribute of Character is Want, important enough to deserve its own Element, methinks.

This has also been pondered by good writers, to wit: “First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.” Ray Bradbury

Flannery O’Connor muses, “Let him be a monster because he wants to be a monster, not just because he is a monster. He seems to me evil but not sinful. Sin is interesting but evil is not. Sin is the result of an individual’s free choice, but evil is something else.”

As for Ayn Rand, “To appreciate what makes a good plot situation, you must identify not only a character’s specific purpose, but also all the conflicts that this purpose necessarily engenders.”

“To illustrate the achievement of a purpose, you have to show men overcoming obstacles. This statement pertains strictly to writers. Metaphysically — in reality — one does not need obstacles in order to achieve a purpose. But you as a writer need to dramatize purpose, i.e., you have to isolate the particular meaning that you want your events to illustrate — by presenting it in a stressed action form.”

“The events are determined by the goals that the characters want to accomplish, and each event is necessitated by the preceding one — necessitated not deterministically, but logically.”

While Barnaby Conrad suggests, “You must show that the goal is of supreme importance to her.”

And then adds, “The reader should be in sympathy with the goal, whatever it is, and hope fervently that he achieves it [or manages to avoid it].”

Yours Truly puts it this way, “The protagonist’s want or pressing goal should be something wanted more than anything else. Something very important to him, wanted with passion. Motivation is the fuel, what propels the story. Want is the soul; desire is the man; passion is an affliction. All three will serve my story.”

As for John Gardner, “He [the character] must want — in some desperately serious way.”

And then elaborates, “In nearly all good fiction, the basic — all but inescapable — plot form is: A central character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.”

Jake Kasdan sums this up beautifully, “For every crime there is a motive. For every motive there is a passion.”

Enough said.

© Wolfstuff