External and Internal Goals

So. Right now I'm being punched in the face by working on a new WIP. When I take a moment to black out sleep (otherwise known as that magical time between 3:00 and 6:00 7:00 8:45 hopelessly late to work in the morning) I've been thinking a lot about how to get the first draft to make sense, rather than jamming it into place during edits and knocking off half the sequins.

After years of bad drafting habits, I've hit on a little exercise that helps me keep my character motivations straight. In turn, this gives the whole novel direction and forward momentum. I like to call it External vs. Internal Wants.

Okay, it's pretty obvious that you need to know your MC's External Goal, right? It's the thing they want to DO, aka the whole point of your novel.

External Goal: A writer named J...u...li..ET. TA. Julietta. Actually, she's Spanish. BAM. Hulietta wants to write the best novel ever crafted.

But to make your book interesting and relatable your MC should also have Internal Desires. Now listen carefully: A great way to make your book richer is to make sure these two things aren't the same, and are actually in conflict. Internal and External Wants should be at cross-purposes, comme ca:

Internal Desire: Hulietta wants to play six hours of Assassin's Creed II every day.

Wily Temptress

Because of the Obstacle, both of these things aren't possible at the same time.

Obstacle: There's a finite number of hours in the day. And when the sun goes down, Hulietta cannot resist the evil clutches of SLEEP.

In order to overcome the obstacle, the character must take action! She must find a way to fight sleep!

BUT! If you want your story to be longer than 50 pages, there has to be something that prevents the character from tackling the obstacle head on. It could be something outside the character, like a school bully, a cranky boss, a thirteen-headed hydra, but these are really just more external obstacles. Your book becomes richer if the thing adding to the Obstacle is the Character Flaw.

Character Flaw: Hulietta hates the taste of coffee.

Now you have a rough framework to build a character and a story around. Amazingly, you also have a the major components of a quick and dirty blurb:

Hulietta is driven to be the best novelist since Danielle Steel. But hours of her time are taken up by Assassin's Creed II, the video game that's stolen her heart like no other in the last, oh, two months or so. Sleep is the enemy, but Hulietta can't bring herself to choke down any more disgusting coffee. Will Hulietta sacrifice her novel for her Xbox 360? Or will she learn to love the liquid crack and and become the video-game-playing bestseller of her dreams?

Yay! Look how shiny and logical this story is now! Focusing on your character's goals also helps keep your plot character-driven. When you know what the character wants, it's easier to make the character DO STUFF, rather than sitting around while stuff happens TO her.

(Admin Note: Sorry for the blog header, it's in progress. I will continue tweaking into infinity because that's what I do, but I promise it will look less crappy every time!)