Depth-charging clarification…
Posted on January 22, 2007
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EDIT:Â Â Khid brings up a good question in the comments section of this post:
“What’s the difference between Desire, Motivation, and Goal? These seem to change for me during the course of writing, and I feel like I’m doing something incorrect.”
Let me attempt to tackle DESIRE first…
As far as I’m concerned, it’s your Protagonist’s DESIRE that powers the overall story you’re trying to write. Without a strong desire from your Protagonist, YOU GOT NOTHIN’.
Desire is pretty simple… It’s what your Protagonist or any other character in your screenplay, WANTS. It’s that DESIRE/WANT that drives the story through to the end because your characters WANT something and they create action in their attempts to get what they want i.e., their desire or their OUTER GOAL.
One reason you might be a little confused is because THERE ARE NO RULES. Some movies depict their Protagonists with a very CLEAR and DESISIVE desire/want. In other movies, the Protagonist’s desire/want is NOT so clear cut and in fact, their desire/want changes throughout the story…
Having said that…
Your Protagonist should have yet another desire/want… This desire/want is not so cut and dried… This desire/want is UNDER THE SURFACE… This is the desire/want that your Protagonist might not even be totally aware of but it too is driving him or her just as strongly as the tangible desire/want. This is the INNER GOAL i.e., the transformation character arc that your Protagonist should make by the end of his or her journey.
If this seems confusing, it could just be the way you’re looking at it… Some writers tackle GOAL as the tangible outer goal that the Protagonist achieves by the end of the story and DESIRE is the inner goal or transformational character arc that the Protagonist achieves by the end of the story. I say, configure these however they work best for you in whatever way is EASIEST for you to get off your ass and write. LOL.
GOAL
See above. LOL. Seriously, goal is probably the easiest of the these three to figure out… If you want to keep it simple, just think of your Protagonist’s goal as that overall tangible THING he or she wants to achieve by the end of the story. In fact, this may be the best way to START out writing but as your writing continues, try to absorb the idea that it’s all just a matter of semantics in that somebody explains it one way and somebody else explains it a different way… There seems to be no universal rule here and even if there were, I’d be right there with an axe to chop it down.
I think if you take these elements of story and simply try to see how they interact together and relate, that is probably the best way to go so that as you further your screenwriting education, whatever new information you take on doesn’t necessarily cause you to get HUNG UP on details… Many of us need to know this kind of information as RULES because we’ve been bred to FOLLOW THE FUCKING RULES. LOL.
Ouch.
Okay… Cool. But this isn’t the military… This is the ONE TIME in your life where you are GOD. You do what you want. If it doesn’t work; CHANGE IT. Keep changing it till it does work. None of the stuff that I write about here on the blog should ever be taken as a fucking RULE of writing. I would rather think of it as a foundation of information required to write a legible story and once you’ve mastered the foundation, it’s time to start forging your very own paths to greatness.
Ah… Motivation. Motivation can be elusive because once again, there are no rules! Are you sick of me telling you that yet? Sorry, but I’m not done. Not by a long shot. But motivation is where YOU, the screenwriter come in. I’m actually glad Khid asked about all these elements but wow… Motivation is a major problem with spec scripts these days…
Why?
Because the Protagonist’s motivation just isn’t STRONG ENOUGH! Writers should be taking a hard look at their Protagonist’s motivation and then quite possibly CRANK it up a few notches.
Let’s go back to GOAL. What is your Protagonist’s goal? If this goal is weak, then guess what? Your Protagonist’s motivation is going to be just as weak if not weaker. When that happens, you take us out of the story because we’re immediately asking ourselves, “Who gives a shit?â€
Let’s go back to DESIRE. If your Protagonist’s desire is to simply to obtain a brand new Harley by the end of the story, WHO CARES? Is getting a Harley really that compelling? Nope. You’ve got to make that desire and goal compelling. It can’t just be some passing want… Some flavor of the month… It’s got to be an ISOLATED CRITICAL COMPONENT that your Protagonist DESPARATELY wants. Something that he or she feels he cannot do without. Something that will make sense out of their life. COMPELLING.
On the other hand, a Protagonist might very well see obtaining a Harley and being able to ride around the country for the rest of his or her life as a LIFE GOAL. Having a life goal like this should be very telling to YOU, the screenwriter about this character… A fairly easily obtainable life goal like this would cause a Protagonist to make totally different kinds of decisions than someone who wants to stand up at Thanksgiving, take a look at his or her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and carve a turkey in complete peace as their life goal.
I recently read a script about a young woman who’s compulsion was to obtain a degree from college. YAWN. Now I’m not saying this goal couldn’t have been compelling… I’m sure if done correctly, it could be quite compelling but that’s exactly my point. The screenwriter completely failed to make me (and others) understand what was so fucking imporant about getting that degree. There was no magic job at the end of the rainbow… There was no parent or grandparent who was going to be proud. She already had a good job and made good money. I had to go back and reread the fuckin’ thing to see if I somehow missed the point.
I didn’t. The screenwriter simply failed to make that compulsion IMPORTANT ENOUGH for us to care whether or not the young woman obtained the degree. I can think of a dozen ways right off the top of my head to make that a compelling desire, want, goal. And, had something been there to CLARIFY that compulsion, BAM! You gots MOTIVATION.
And yes, a Protagonist can definitely possess different MOTIVATIONS throughout the story… i.e., the motivation to deal with whatever obstacles you jam in front of him or her however, the supreme or overall motivation should govern the path your Protagonist takes in his or her decision making process when it comes to dealing with the obstacles…
To SUMMARIZE…
Any good screenplay should be about a Protagonist that desparately WANTS SOMETHING. The more of a compulsion this SOMETHING is, the more we, the audience are going to lean forward, climb aboard the vicarious train and take the ride to the end of the tracks…
It’s my own opinion that most successful films seem to contain Protagonists that do in fact have desisive goals to achieve by the end of the movie… i.e., that tangible goal that we can EASILY see that the Protagonist has.
If I were to give anyone advice, I would say that you should definitely make your Protagonist’s goal something clear and desisive so that we can easily see it… That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go deep with your characters however… Once you find that clear, tangible, and desisive goal, now it’s time to explore the transformational character arc of your Protagonist. If you’ve done an extensive bio, this should be a little easier to flesh out.
Once you’ve fleshed it out and understand it yourself, it’s time to dig deep down into that character’s being and make that goal so fucking important and compelling that we can easily understand and NOT QUESTION why he or she wants to achieve it… i.e., it must make sense to us for that character to want that SOMETHING so fucking bad.
You’ve got to take your Protagonist’s compulsion i.e., his or her motivation and somehow translate that to us, the audience… It’s simply not enough for your Protagonist to have that compulsion. We’ve got to somehow understand WHY he or she has that particular compulsion so that once we do understand it, acknowledge it, we can climb aboard for the rest of the ride.
Unk
===
Whoa… TONS of email on depth-charging. So much email that I would rather attempt to clarify what I meant by the posts rather than attempting to reply to each email especially since many of the emails seem to raise similar questions…
1) I think about my character all the time. Why do I need to write a bio?
Uh… I never said you HAD to write a bio… LOL. I don’t CARE if you write a bio. That’s entirely up to you, right? Of course it is…
I will say however, that writing a bio (FOR ME), allows me to bring THINGS about the character in question that I would normally not have –Â WITHIN REACH… Let me explain… If you simply THINK about your characters, are you REALLY TRULY getting to know them well enough to know how they will handle any given situation you throw at them?
At first glance, you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, I do.”
Cool. If that’s what you think… Go write the way you want… For me, unless I know quite a few things about my characters’ past, I normally come up with the OBVIOUS character decisions… i.e., those character decisions that are quite predictable and translate into BORING.
In other words, without knowing a lot about your characters’ past history, you’re apt to pull a lot of the same types of reactions, decisions, dialogue, etc. between many of your characters… In fact, when I read a screenplay where the characters all sound the same and seem to make similar decisions; it SCREAMS out to me that the writer just doesn’t know his or her characters well enough. That’s about the best way I can explain it…
When you DIG into your characters’ past history, whether you THINK IT or write it, you are bringing up those events that shape people’s lives into WHO they are TODAY. The more history you have on someone, the more your own brain is going to be able to reach for those decisions and reactions that are less cliché… Less predictable. You’re simply taking all those events, traits, etc. that are at the bottom of the drawer and sitting them out on your bed so they are READILY AVAILABLE and trust me, your brain will remember most of them when you really need it… i.e., while you’re writing.
While it’s true that most if not all of the history, traits, backstory events, etc. will never make it into your screenplay, what all this information does very well is to plop everything right out on top with all the usual cliché and predictable stuff that we see so often… Sure, you still have to CHOOSE but at least you have MORE to CHOOSE FROM.
2) I don’t get the Maslow’s thing at all. How do I use it?
Easy… Just see what level your character in question is at just about any point in your story/outline/screenplay and you can immediately get an idea of what immediate need that character is motivated to fulfill next. Once you know the need, you must now construct a way for that character to achieve meeting his or her need WITHIN THE CONTEXT of your story.
3) I don’t get the 3rd goal… What the fuck are you talking about?
Again, this is information that may or may not make it into your screenplay but if you, the writer know what your characters WANT OUT OF LIFE, this helps you guide them to achieve the outer and the inner goals they have in your screenplay. For instance, if Character A’s LIFE GOAL is to just have a little two bedroom house in a neighborhood with a white picket fence by the time they die; they might make different decisions than Character B who wants to be rich and powerful by the time they die. The possibilities are endless here and I honestly believe that once you know your characters’ life goals as well as their more immediate outer and inner goals of your story, that FORCE is going to help guide you through the creation of a multidimensional character.
I mean, how can it hurt? LOL.
No offense to any of the readers that sent me email but much of the email I read seemed as though you simply didn’t want to have to go THOSE EXTRA STEPS of writing.
Well guess what?
You don’t.
Unk
Tags: character motivation character desire character want character goal depth-charging your characters The Unknown Screenwriter
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10 Responses to “Depth-charging clarification…”
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Thanks for clairfying the use of the pyramid. I had to sit down for another hour during lunch break on set today to really construct a plausible way to use it; turns out I wasn’t far-off. Another tool tucked into the box for me.
But, as I go through the list and decide how I want to use it to fit my writing sytle, and while moving BACK to the days when I’d write a college-ruled notebooks worth of backstory for characters I realize that I don’t know the difference between desire and motivation. It keeps sticking me in the throat, and I’d like to get past that. This has a bit to do with the Maslow (spelling?) Pyramid.
What is the characters desire? Doesn’t desire change through-out the course of the story? What’s the difference between Desire, Motivation, and Goal? These seem to change for me during the course of writing, and I feel like I’m doing something incorrect. Maybe the Pyramid will help.
This has been great. I’m reading a lot of you and Syd Field, and the confidence is building. Structure and this kin of prep work really just makes you feel “more right” about writing the screenplay. Really helps to define purpose.
I am SO using the “FORCE”.
Face it, Unk . . . you’re Obi-wan, and not just ’cause you live in the desert;)!
We all bow to the master!
Khid,
As usual, my comment in reply to your comment ran too long so I simply edited the post… Hope this clarifies things a bit more for you…
Spat,
May the FORCE be with you… LOL. Or rather, “When I investigate and when I discover that the forces of the heavens and the planets are within ourselves, then truly I seem to be living among the gods.” –Leon Battista Alberti.
Josh,
I ain’t feelin’ it… LOL.
Unk
WoW! Thanks so much! I had such a hard time splitting the element into atoms. I kept hearing from the three peoples I trust lots with my work that they couldn’t see the desire. So while the content was fun and a great read, the characters and their desires lacked.
I was going to ask about that HARLEY scenario, but you went right behind it and clarified. Something similar to The Heroe’s Journey and the Elixir… if a hero travels across eight different lands to get a bottle of booze… it’s like “okay”, but if the bottle of booze is going to bring back his deceased little sister from years ago, then that’s a completely different tale.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to break that down for the newbie.
My take: motivation is what propels characters towards goals. Desires may affect or be affected by goals, events, or story elements. Desires can change. Goals can change. Motivation is less fluid.
Mary Anita,
Absolutely correct so one has to really create a hell of a motivation… You’ve got to come up with the kind of motivation that signals US, the audience, that this goal is something you simply cannot do without. Once you’ve laid that groundwork, we’re more apt to believe (if only for 2 or less hours) and get on board the vicarious train.
That’s why motivation is so critical and it’s just not done well enough a lot of times these days… A STRONG ENOUGH MOTIVATION can get us through the most terrible of movies…
Think about it.
Unk
I’ve been exploring The Matrix and Spiderman (two movies that I’m using a study material for my current feature) and while I see a lot of goals and desires translating to screen, I can’t seem to pin down a tangible motivation for the protagonists.
Neo - It just kind of happens to him. He’s being approached by both sides of the force. What was his motivation in life? he works a desk job, and his second life is all about hacking. Is it enough to say that his motivation is possibly the urge to know what the truth really is? My protagonist is similar to this… in that he seems to be pulled into this dilemma up until a certain point, and then he begins to act instead of react.
Peter Parker - Just kinda happens to him again. It didn’t seem like he had motivation toward a great goal, or maybe I just missed it. It was more like once he got his abilities, then he had motivation to fight crime. Although he Desired Mary Jane, what was his Goal in life and what was his motivation?
I feel like I’m not paying attention enough.
As for why I fill out a character sheet or chart - so I can remember all those little details about my characters - even if I DO think about them all the time. Look at it this way - if you’re in a relationship right now, when is your SO’s birthday? When is your anniversary? Can’t remember? Better write it down. Now.
Oh, the light. It hurts!