Goals: Driving the Narrative

As with every story element described in this series, the goal relates directly back to the idea of conflict. To reiterate, in its most basic form, conflict is when someone wants something and another person doesn’t want them to have it.

More specifically, narrative conflict is typically when one character proactively pursues a goal, which forces another character to react in an attempt to prevent the achievement of that goal. However, narrative conflict does not have to be initiated by an active protagonist. It may come from proactive oppositional character. Additionally, narrative conflict may be driven by an oppositional force that compels the main character to survive or endure.

Regardless of who or what initiates the narrative conflict, it demands resolution. A clear goal drives the narrative conflict towards its climax where the main character will achieve their desired outcome – or not. A clear goal will develop audience engagement and empathy by giving them something to rally for, and to root against. This can be true at the scene, sequence, or story-level.

While many of the lessons in this article will apply to the scene and sequence level, here we will explore the components of a goal that will drive the narrative conflict at the story-level. Describing a goal in this way will be vital when crafting a logline.

Defining the Goal

At the story level, triggering events impact the main character’s status quo. It is the threat of negative consequences for doing nothing that forces them into action. However, there is a persistent myth that the main character must actively seek a goal. Yes, a proactive protagonist will initiate their own goal, but as we’ll see, other main character types can be reactive to the goal of an opposition character, or a force that challenges them to survive or endure. The reactive main character, however, will still actively oppose the opposition’s goal.

The story-level goal expresses a specific desired outcome that is external, trackable, and achievable.

Let’s address each of these five elements separately. For our examples, we’ll return to A Quiet Place: Day One (AQP:D1).

Specific – When a goal is not clear, the audience may not know what success or failure looks like. In AQP:D1, more than surviving the alien invasion, Sam simply wants a slice of pizza from her favorite childhood pizzeria.

Desired Outcome – The character must be willing to struggle to return to their original status quo, or to achieve new acceptable circumstances. A failure to achieve the desired outcome in the climax will lead to immediate negative consequences. Sam starts AQP:D1 in hospice. Surviving the alien invasion can not lead to a new acceptable status quo. However, getting the pizza is so important to her it becomes the heart of the story. It is the thing she must do before she dies.

External – Show, don’t tell. Cinema is a visual medium. An external goal leads to an easily visualized climax. An internal goal forces the character to declare their success which could be made at any time. Eating a slice of pizza is external. Sam will either eat a slice of pizza or she will die trying.

Trackable – Given limited time or options to achieve the desired outcome, a trackable goal allows the audience to follow the character on their journey, seeing how a scene or sequence will bring the character closer or farther from success. AQP:D1 is all about the ebb and flow of Sam’s journey north to Harlem for the pizza. With each obstacle or roadblock, the audience knows whether Sam is getting closer to the Harlem Pizza place, or to death.

Achievable – Audiences engage more with stories where the character’s desired outcome is out of their reach, but attainable. If a goal seems impossible to achieve at first, the main character will likely discover something about the opposition or themselves that changes the dynamic. A truly impossible goal may leave the audience wondering why they’re watching the character’s struggle. New York City is in shambles in AQP:D1.

Although the specific desired outcome never really feels possible, it is understood from the inciting epiphany that getting the pizza is really an external, trackable symbol of her taking control of her last days on earth. While the consequences of failure are clear, it always feels like it might be possible in some way. The audience won’t be surprised when the character redefines success later in the story, when additional context for this specific goal is made clear.

The Story-Level Goal In the Logline

“The goal activates the conflict,” as Christopher Lockhart says. The logline describes the goal that activates the central conflict, the proactive goal, regardless of who initiates it. Let’s explore how story-level goals affect each of the different main character types and how they can best be described in the logline.

In the inciting epiphany, if the protagonist fails to act they face powerful initial stakes (deeply personal negative consequences). This forces them to proactively devise a goal that they hope will solve their problem. Their antagonist reacts to prevent this goal from being achieved. The goal in the logline belongs to the protagonist. Describing the goal of AQP:D1 we might describe the goal as, “...sets out on a treacherous trek to Harlem for a slice of pizza from her favorite pizzeria…”

The hero is reactive to their opposition, whether a villain, monster, or oppositional force. For the hero, the climax resolves the opposition’s goal. Without the opposition initiating their plan, the hero cannot rise. Even if the hero appears to be “actively” pursuing something like justice, it will still be a reaction to the opposition’s story-level goal.

In Deadpool & Wolverine, the villain (Paradox) initiates a plan to accelerate the destruction of Deadpool’s universe, annihilating everyone he loves. When the two titular would-be heroes discover the villain’s plan and its negative consequences (inciting epiphany) they are thrown into what is essentially a supermax prison for superheros (The Void). Before the heroes can bring the villain to justice, they must first escape their prison, then they will need to work together to destroy the villain’s powerful weapon (the time ripper).

When a main character faces many of the oppositional forces, or a monster, often the main character must endure or survive. This is reactive, and certainly not descriptive of the main character’s central conflict. Instead the “goal” of the oppositional force or monster should be described in a way that clarifies the central conflict.

We might ask, as an example, what does mother nature, as an oppositional force, “want?” While it may not have a motive as an antagonist or villain might, its actions will nonetheless force a character into conflict. For instance, when describing a character directly in the path of a hurricane, unable to evacuate, it would be better to describe the destructive strength of the hurricane and why they must survive. This is much stronger than describing the character’s reactive goal to simply survive.

With the resister, the story is driven by the opposition’s desire to enforce a new status quo. More specifically, to get the resister to conform, or die. The resister refuses to conform and the initial stakes do not force them to change. The opposition must continue to raise the stakes for the resister until the climax. Self-preservation is, by its very nature, reactive to the intention of the opposition. Audiences will of course want the main character to endure or survive, therefore it doesn’t need to be stated in a logline. Instead it will be vital to describe what the resister must survive, and why. The logline for the resister will make clear the oppositional force that they must endure or survive.

In Megan Park’s wonderful coming-of-age dramedy My Old Ass, the main character, Elliot is warned by her older self to avoid a boy named Chad. Enter Chad! The younger Elliot doesn’t know why she should avoid him, and the older Elliot isn’t saying. But it must be bad because it has really affected her older self. Despite the warning, the younger Elliot wants to resist, but keeps having coincidental interactions with Chad that bring them closer and closer. This conflict is resolved in the climax, when the older Elliot finally reveals Chad’s secret.

The trailblazer’s transformation comes early in the story, sometimes motivated by the opposition, sometimes by an internal drive. Like the resister, the opposition will continually raise the stakes until the climax. The narrative question is whether the trailblazer can endure or survive against an oppositional force that wants them to conform.

In my article on the main character, the example for the trailblazer was Oppenheimer. The non-linear structure makes describing the story a bit more challenging, but again, we can look to the climax to see the central conflict. The opposition has the goal that drives the narrative. The audience needs the context of his career to understand how dropping the atom bomb fundamentally changed him. When he expresses his opposition to nuclear proliferation, the mysterious oppositional force must silence him by denying him his top secret clearance in a rigged “trial” that escalates the stakes. He must endure accusations that threaten his reputation, patriotism, and personal relationships.

With an observer as the main POV character, the story will belong to the focus character, who may not have all of the elements of a main character. Not all main characters will be active or reactive. Some may be a passive character who interprets, narrates, or witnesses the story of the focus character. The observer narrator has the benefit of hindsight to explain why the desired outcome is necessary; they guide the audience through the story. The observer interpreter acts as the audience surrogate, helping the audience to understand how the desired outcome is necessary; they may track the efforts of the focus character to make clear that the goal is achievable. The observer may also realize late in the story that they are changed because of what they have witnessed.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, the goal belongs to DeNiro’s character, the villainous William”King” Hale. His murderous scheme to inherit Mollie’s family fortune is told through the perspective of Mollie’s dimwitted husband, Hale’s nephew Ernest.

When a leader emerges from an ensemble cast with the primary POV, they will have developed the traits of another main character type. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Jake and his family are reactive to the ruthless Quaritch, who has returned to Pandora in avatar form, seeking revenge. Quaritch drives the story-level goal. Jake is the leader/hero of the ensemble because he’s the primary focus of Quaritch’s revenge plot. These two characters resolve the central conflict in the climax. However, Jake’s family is also important to an ensemble, so deserves mention in the logline.