Get More Drama in Your Stories by Thinking about Your Characters' Wants vs. Needs

Hi, welcome back to Write Better Right Now. I’ve been talking about goal, motivation and conflict in the most recent videos.

• Goal is what your main character wants or needs to do or get or achieve, the thing that drives the plot.

• Motivation is why it's very important to them,

• and conflict is why it's difficult.

But in terms of the goal, what they want or need to do or get, those can be the same things, but they can also be different things.

Characters almost always want something that drives the plot. That's usually an external thing. It's something that they start out the story wanting and it drives the plot forward, or something happens to them early on that causes them to want to do something, to change something, to get somewhere, to get an object. Whatever thing they are trying to get during the plot, that can be the external want.

In many cases, a character also needs something different that is internal, and that drives the character arc, the way the character changes over the course…