We hear a lot about making clear what the main character of a story wants. Desire leads to motive and thence to action. It’s a powerful catalyst for plot.
But desire isn’t homogeneous. It has fluctuations. Desire weaves its various fluctuations differently in different characters. That’s why there’s a danger in taking “what a character wants” too much at face value, especially for stories where characterization greatly matters.
I explored the idea of a character’s outright mistaken desire in this recent post. But today I’m talking about subtle gradations in a true desire, one the character will fulfill.
Latching onto character desire as a guiding principal may make the story appear wooden. The reader may feel manipulated. Family killed by marauding soldiers? Hero shut down and seeking revenge? Okay, got it–but what about doubt?
Doubt and desire
When a main character feels doubt about whether the object of desire is worthy, he or she may seem less than heroic. Do we really want that?
We do. It is even necessary.
It’s necessary because, for one thing, it keeps the reader guessing and adds tension. Giving up? Oh no! For another thing, it can increase empathy.
How do we look at people in our lives who never doubt? We see them as obsessive, perhaps. Self-satisfied. Narrow. It takes a master story teller to make Ahab in Moby Dick a worthy protagonist. The rest of us may want to tell a story more within our grasp.
I’m not talking here about a character who doubts it can be done–that is a plot moment that can be a dark night of the soul, and it’s another great tool in the fiction kit. I’m rather talking about one who doubts it should be done.
Does the outlaw ever wonder if his course of slaughter is destroying him? Does the main character’s quest ever seem worthless to her? Is there a point at which the love of the one person requires a sacrifice too great? (Dilemmas can be lovely foils for desires on the verge of becoming annoying!)
While we definitely want to establish the hero’s desire–I am in no way saying that it’s not important–I am saying that there is a place for complexity, and complexity will require doubt.
One way to weave this in is to introduce the price.
The cost of desire
Nothing comes without a price. For one thing, we have limited time and energy and thus we face choices between competing good things. In heroic action, the main character may lose something that makes the success poignant. And more meaningful. He wanted it so much he gave up something dear to him.
And right there is a great chance for a moment of doubt. Who would not pause before sacrificing something dear?
Even if the story doesn’t entail a heroic sacrifice, who, really, does not sometimes falter in their pursuit of the object of desire? How can we even relate to a character who never stops to consider the price they are paying?
Therefore, doubt.
A fine balance
For most stories, doubt must be treated like a powerful spice. A little goes a long way.
Let’s not, for example, have an anguished main character who can’t decide what she wants, unless you really must write such a story (and good luck selling that one.) My advice is to not introduce moral dilemmas right away or more than once. And a couple moments of doubt, carefully dramatized, will be enough. Do you need to make explicit that the doubt has been overcome? Yes. But you can do that through action rather than internal monologue.
As with all aspects of fiction, it’s the author’s job to judge when and how much; what to put in and what to leave out. No one can teach us that. Our beta readers will have different opinions. The writer must decide.
It’s a fine balance of how much a character can doubt, and how much boldly desire. I was going to suggest 90 percent sure, 10 percent doubt, but that’s nonsense, of course. There isn’t a rule.
Alas, there are no rules. The writer decides.