Stories are about character. Sure, you can have an action film with little more than special effects and plot (think Transformers), but those kinds of stories have little emotional impact. They are fun while you’re watching them, but they don’t linger. They don’t make the audience think. Or feel. For those reactions, you need characters who want things and need things.
Wants and Needs are two elements that drive stories. They determine plot and character. Story and resolution.
But what exactly are wants and needs? How are they different? How do they contribute to character development? And how can they help plot? These are the questions we’ll be exploring in this four-part series. First, we’ll tackle wants and needs—what they are and how they’re different.
Character wants drive the plot. Characters want something outside of themselves and that want push them into taking action. The wants drive the character forward.
The wants are conscious. They are known to the character and are usually something enjoyable (hence the wanting). They are also unique to the character, meaning they vary from story to story. While you may have two characters in a single story who want the same thing and are fighting over it, say to be homecoming queen or a champion boxer, the wants will be particular to that story, i.e. not universal in nature.
Needs are different. What a character needs is typically unknown to them. It’s the need they don’t see in themselves. Why? Because it is the opposite of their fatal flaw, which is typically invisible to the person possessing it. The need highlights the trait they don’t want to recognize or actively deny about themselves. Fatal flaws are negative or, at the very least, don’t serve the character well. It could be selfishness, ego, cruelty, anger, commitment issues, past hurts, fear, or any emotion-based trait that stands in their way of reaching their goal. Their need is what is needed to overcome their fatal flaw—selflessness, humility, kindness, love, bravery. Needs resonate with readers because they are universal in nature. They speak to all of us and serve as a theme in stories.
Wants are often aspirational—things the character wants: material objects, cash, power, fame, love. Or a specific goal, such as a perfect wedding or marriage, the corner office, partner in the firm, to direct a major motion picture, perfect a soufflé. Whatever that want is motivates your character through the story, is what every obstacles and plot point should speaks to, and what determines success. Think of it as the X on a treasure map. The want is to find the treasure. The plot is how you get from point A to the X. The obstacles are all the things that stand in your way to the treasure. The need is what the character needs to overcome in herself to resolve the story and achieve what she needs to be whole. This may or may not mean taking the treasure or revealing it. The resolution is completely based on fulfilling the need, not the want. Don’t worry, we’ll break it down over the course of this series.
Want drives the plot. It determines the steps the character takes and the types obstacles she’ll find along the way.
Need, on the other hand, forges emotional connections. It is based on the traits that define us as human. You might say that needs are what defines our human condition.
Both wants and needs are necessary for a successful story. When stories only have one, they are inherently weaker. Stories filled with wants only (no needs) are action-oriented, plot-driven pieces with little to no emotional connection. Wants alone aren’t enough to make an audience care. Then again, stories with nothing but needs are little more than pure emotion without the driving force of a want (think: no through line). Pure emotion isn’t enough to make your audience care either. Without the plot-driven obstacles in their way of achieving their wants, there is no context for the character, nothing to overcome, nothing to drive your character’s decisions. Readers need to know why they should care. If you bombard them with need but provide no wants, they will feel overwhelmed or, worse, manipulated.
Stories that have neither wants or needs are an utter disaster and not worth discussing. Really.
The best option is to marry the two: Wants and needs. The wants will define where the character wishes to go and what obstacles make sense to put in his way.
The way the character deals with those obstacles uncovers his fatal flaw.
It is this fatal flaw that reveals the true need or what that character needs to succeed, overcome or resolve the storyline.
Wants and needs. Together.
The next blog will explore how wants and needs determine plot.