It Starts With Need

The need of your character gives you a goal, a destination, an ending to your story. How your character achieves or does not achieve that goal becomes the action of our story.

—Syd Field, Screenplay (Revised and updated edition)

A story is a fairly simple thing. As Field notes, you have a character. That character has a need. The need provides the ending of the story. How the character achieves, or fails to achieve , his or her need provides the action of the story.

The plot is not the thing. The focal point character is the thing. The character provides everything to make the story the story.

Of course the essential nature of all drama is conflict. If there is no conflict, there is no story. Knowing the main character’s need, enables you the writer to throw obstacles in the character’s path.

If the character overcomes the obstacles, he wins. He satisfies his need. If the obstacles win, the character fails.

So, you have an idea. How do you turn that idea into a story? I suggest you start with a person. The person will become your main character.

Write a brief sketch of your character and give him or her a need. The character’s need is going to provide you with the rest of the story. It’s Bradbury’s principle: create your character, have him do his thing, and there’s your story.

For example, my character Pierce Mostyn works for the uber-secret federal Office of Unidentified Phenomena. The agency’s mission is to stop monsters from destroying earth.

Mostyn’s need in each story is to discover what the monster is, the threat it poses, and to eliminate it if possible. That need provides the story’s ending, and all the action getting to the end of the story.

Another example: in The Bourne Supremacy, Jason Bourne needs to know who wants him dead and why. That need drives the action of the movie and provides the ending.

Knowing your character and his need gives you the kernel of your story. It is then your job as the writer to grow that kernel, that seed, into a full-fledged story.

I hope you found that useful.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy writing!