A few weeks ago, I discussed going back to the drawing board and reworking my WIP with a different character as the lead protagonist. Part of this change
entailed finding a stronger goal for my new leading lady, and after much
painful work, I have now given Eileen her goal: The Plan. The plan is a set of
concrete goals she believes she must accomplish in order to have a stable,
settled life in place before her ex-husband gets out on parole and returns to
town. The Plan will be the heartbeat that drives the story and propels Eileen
forward in it, like a good protagonist goal should. But if I use the full potential of the goal, it will do much more than that.
This past week, while procrastinating about writing – er, taking a break to contemplate craft – I read Courtney Milan’s book The Duchess War. In the first chapter, Minnie, our heroine, has a concrete goal that will ensure her self-preservation. Milan quickly takes an interesting path with Minnie’s journey. She gives the character the tools to accomplish her goal early in the story. Hard times are over! Mission accomplished! But not so fast (of course, as we are still in the first act!).
Turns out, if Minnie takes the final step to accomplish her goal, she might destroy the lives of people loves. But by not accomplishing her goal, she might destroy herself. Now the goal is a double-edged sword. The actions Minnie takes to pursue her goal reveal her true nature, and the way her actions change as the story progresses and she learns and grows shows her character arc.
A concrete protagonist goal and an antagonist trying to block it build conflict into your plot from the beginning. But a good goal does more than that. It helps readers connect to ‘our gal’ by rooting for her to accomplish her goal. It reveals character (why does she want this particular thing at this particular time?). It can even be a roadblock to the character’s ultimate success, if reaching her goal would destroy some other part of her life.
Have you read any stories lately that did something interesting with the protagonist’s goal or used it to reveal something interesting about the character? What interesting things does your protagonist’s goal reveal about her?
Eight Ladies Writing 
Goals are a huge, huge problem for me. I mean that personally, and in a craft sense. I used to make a lot of goal-oriented lists, but I often got derailed — often for the good, too. So, I don’t quite trust goals. If I had pushed through and tried to accomplish the goals I set for myself at 17, who knows where I would be now? Probably dead in a ditch in Russia.
So, I set goals, but I wouldn’t die for them. However, those life-and-death goals make for the most interesting stakes in a story, I think.
In one of my favorite books, the hero’s goal is to be a great military man, like his father. This goal (with the father part being at least partly subconscious) leads him into all sorts of adventures. He fails the military academy test, and is sent abroad to his grandmother’s to figure out what he wants out of life. He winds up hi-jacking a mercenary army, and becoming the admiral of it at 17. It sounds crazy, but it works (for me, at least). A lot of it is really quite subconscious. He just thinks he’s helping out.
In the process, he learns that he really doesn’t know enough to be a real admiral, yet. However, with this on his resume, his relatives are able to pull some strings and get him into the military academy, so he’s back on track with his dream.
Now that I think of it, it really is an interesting study about how our dreams and goals can be temporarily thwarted, but we can achieve them anyway.
I wonder how much the author thought about that, and how much she consciously planned this as a theme. I should ask.
And thinking about my goals at 17, I wanted to be bi-lingual. I wanted to earn a living wage. I wanted to live overseas. And I wanted to write. I articulated that as, “I want to study Russian then go overseas as a foreign journalist.” Well, life handed me a whole basket of chocolate-covered thwarts, and I wound up in Japan teaching English. With more than I ever dared to ask for — kids, extended family and a beautiful second home-town. (-: If I work on the writing part, I guess I’m not so far from my teenage goals, after all. Hmmmm.
Micki, your goals were much more ambitious than mine at 17, which were just to get into college and find a way to pay for it. And it sounds like you’ve gotten what you wished for, even if it didn’t happen the way you expected. I like bringing that kind of surprise to my characters, so the protag might not get what she wants (concrete goal), but she’ll get what she needs (addressing her underlying motivation). At least that’s my goal for the ‘happily ever after’ stories.
This really made me think about things. Yeah, I did get what I wanted, but not by the plans I laid. And I can apply this to my characters. It goes back to that “want/need” thing we studied in class — blanking on the name of the person who made it famous. Plans can be subverted, but for successful (fun) fiction, the underlying goal should remain the same? Loved this post.
What a thought-provoking post, Nancy. I think the goal I have for my protag makes her very one-dimensional. I like the double-edged sword idea, but I’m not sure if I can incorporate that in this story. I’ll have to keep that tucked away for the next one, though!
Well, I hope to do multiple things with my protag’s goal, but whether that happens remains to be seen. I am very happy she even has a goal at this point :-).
I have read stories where the protagonist had a Plan and Goals. I love when those plans and goals are turned on their head (“be careful what you wish for”). And I love watching a character learn that what they thought they wanted might not be what they really wanted, or what they needed. Plans and goals as character growth always interest me.
I think those scenarios (of characters not even realizing what they need) resonate with readers because that’s often true in real life, too.