Five Keys to Compelling External Goals

The protagonist of a story doesn't have to be honorable (Psycho) or even endearing (Scarlett O'Hara), but he or she must have a goal. Not only a nebulous, long-term, internal goal, either, such as, "I want to feel I belong somewhere." If it's something the character wants to experience as a feeling, an idea, or a lesson to be learned, then it's internal. Internal goals are necessary to provide meaning to the journey, but specific, urgent, external goals that can be seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelled are required to drive the story to its destination. When the protagonist achieves his external goal (or not), he'll know it and readers will know it. There will be no doubt because it will either be in his hands or not.

A common misconception is that love is an adequate external goal. Love is a feeling, and while most people long to experience it, few are truly willing to sacrifice what they want in order to have it. That's why love makes for great complications for the external goal. It creates choices. The protagonist starts out wanting one thing, but then love comes along and starts pulling on him to share someone else's goal at the expense of his own. At other times, a protagonist may mistakenly believe that the thing he wants is the same as love, but learn by the end what he must sacrifice for real love. For example: a secretary's external goal is to make her boss fall in love and marry her, because she's ready to trade in her career for a crib... until she learns it's her home-loving next-door neighbor she really loves.

Characters enter a story with goals. Some are long-term and flesh out characterization as the story progresses. Some are temporary and serve as an exciting hook to catch up readers in the story. The protagonist's main external goal develops a little later; typically, it will not be the same goal the character has on the first page or in the first scene. Rather, the chief external goal is the adventure the protagonist is called to, the purpose which the inciting incident encourages or bullies the protagonist to adopt.

In Gladiator, Maximus's goal in the first scene is to win the battle. This goal serves as a short-term hook. His long-term goal is to be reunited with his family. This characterizes him throughout the story, and is part of his inner landscape. His chief external goal in the story arrives when the emperor asks him to take over the empire and return it to the power of the people. It is this goal that launches the dominant conflict of the story and drives the film towards its resolution.

Make the external goal clear and unmistakable. This is one element of storytelling that never benefits from subtlety. The protagonist may need to possess something or someone, accomplish something, prove something, get relief from something, or revenge for something. Like Maximus, he may even be unwilling to embrace the goal or have a choice between two goals of differing moral values, but both he and readers must never be in doubt about what the external goal is.

There are five keys to making external goals compelling. Consider which of the following two goals is more dynamic:

-- A man wants to help his girlfriend get a visa so they can take their twelfth annual vacation somewhere overseas.

-- A man wants to help his married ex-girlfriend get a visa so she can escape the Gestapo. (Casablanca)

What makes the second goal stronger than the first?

#1: It's concrete. A video camera could capture them doing it. The protagonist knows what it will look like. Readers know what it will look like. In the above example, it will look like the girlfriend with the visa getting on the plane and flying out of the country. By measuring every scene against that desired image, the protagonist and readers will know whether he is getting closer to or farther from his goal.

#2: It's something the character needs because he doesn't have it already. The twelfth time he's seen the same island in the company of the same girl is nothing new, and he really wouldn't miss anything if he didn't make it this time. But a character who needs something he's lacking will be desperate enough to take actions that create plot events.

#3: It's important to him, if no one else. This is the motivation connection. Stakes are involved. Dreadful consequences are attached to the goal. To fail means the protagonist will be worse off than before, and he knows it. In the example above, the implied consequences are the Nazis will imprison, torture, or kill the woman he loves. In a lighter story, the stakes may not involve death, but they should involve some sort of pain--emotional, interpersonal, financial, or social.

#4: It's urgent. Whether or not a story utilizes a "ticking clock" device, the protagonist's goal should always be urgent. It's not something he can risk procrastinating about until next week or next month or next year. In Casablanca, the Gestapo is closing in fast on Ilsa and her husband. There's no time to waste on other things unrelated to the external goal.

#5: When the goal is over, the story is over. The moment the goal is achieved or irrevocably lost is the moment the story ends. There may be time for a short scene tying up loose ends, but the journey has reached its destination and the readers are ready to get off. When Rick puts Ilsa and Lazlo on the plane, the goal has been reached and everyone is satisfied.

For the sake of focus and clarity, it's best that a character devote his energies to only one external goal at a time. Other things can be going on in his life to provide context, but context is only interesting in proportion to its relevancy to the external goal. In Casablanca, the owner of the Blue Parrot wants to buy Rick's business, and has for a long time. This is context. It's relevant because in the end it provides Rick a way to tie up his responsibilities, freeing him to make the final commitment necessary to reach his external goal.

Several smaller goals may spring up beneath the umbrella of a character's main external goal. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's chief external goal is to get back home. To accomplish this goal, she must break it into smaller, manageable sub-goals: get to the Emerald City; see the Wizard; get the Witch's broomstick. None of these sub-goals exist outside the atmosphere and compulsion of the chief external goal.

The protagonist's external goal can change during the course of the story, but it's vital that a cause-and-effect relationship be maintained and that the change increases the urgency rather than decreases it. In Psycho, Marion's goal is to escape with the stolen money. When she is murdered partway into the story, a new protagonist emerges with a new goal: hide the murder. The second goal would never have come about if not for the first goal, and the stakes increase from going to jail for theft to execution for murder. Shifting goals two or three times in a story is an advanced technique that can work very well but which requires great skill.

Placing an important, urgent, and concrete external goal behind the steering wheel will guarantee the story gets where it needs to go in a timely manner. That's the kind of trip readers are looking for!