Goal Diggers: Characters Who Actually Do Stuff

Ever feel like your story should be working — but something’s just... off? Chances are, your characters are missing the one thing that drives truly compelling fiction: a clear, active goal.

In this episode, we dig into why so many screenplays and novels lose steam, how to spot the silent killer of narrative momentum, and what your character really needs to stop drifting and start doing. Whether you’re knee-deep in draft land or just sketching your first outline, this is the clarity boost your story structure’s been waiting for.

🎯 Because when your characters stop wandering and start pursuing — that’s when the magic happens.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 99 times out of a hundred when I read a screenplay or a novel that isn't working. It is because the author has not given the character a clear, objective, actionable goal to pursue relentlessly. Over the course of the telling. They've usually given the character, if they've given them a goal at all.

[00:00:23] They've usually given the character something nebulous. And something abstract, 

[00:00:28] 

[00:00:39] So what does that mean? Well, it means that you, the writer, have to make sure that if the goal for the character is to pursue the goal you have, give them the right goal to pursue.

[00:00:55] You have to understand the difference between an abstract goal and a concrete goal, and then you have to figure out. What that would look like in your story. 'cause they're always about pursuing the goal. Does their goal effectively drive the action? That's what we're looking at. You're looking at your own characters right now, and I want you to ask yourself, do they have an active goal?

[00:01:19] Now, I'm gonna explain this in a little bit, but before we even get there, I want you to think about your character. Do they have an active goal? That is so clear that it actually drives the action of the story. What do I mean by active versus abstract? Let me break that down for you. I had a client who came to me with the story that they wanted me to evaluate and the story.

[00:01:44] Was about a little girl during Jim Crow time whose father was a civil rights activist, but the father had been murdered and now it's the little girl's story, and the story wasn't working. And so I asked the writer, what does she want? What is she after? What is she pursuing? And he said, well, she wants to get back to the time when she felt safe with her dad.

[00:02:10] I said, okay, that's why your story isn't working. There's no way she can ever attain that. The dad's dead. He's dead. She's never going to get back to a place where she feels safe with her father. He's dead. So okay, maybe she wants that. Maybe that's what she would really like, but she's never gonna get it.

[00:02:29] So now you have to change the goal to be something actionable because that's nebulous and abstract. And what can your story even be about if it's about getting safe? Also, the problem with that goal is that it's very self-centered, like, and it's very childish. Oh, I just wanna be safe. Okay. She's a little girl.

[00:02:49] I get that. But it's so childish. And here's the thing. When somebody has faced great hardship like that, it forces them to grow up and now they have to do something else. So what if instead of it being, she wants to get back to a time when she felt safe with her dad, which she'll never accomplish. And so the story never goes anywhere.

[00:03:10] She never grows, she never changes. In fact, she. Stays, and maybe even goes backward into childishness unless you wanna tell a story about how she ends up in an insane asylum because she's never recovered from that trauma, which I doubt is the story you wanna tell. Now you have to turn the story into something actionable.

[00:03:27] Like what would be the equivalent of honoring her father's legacy? Her father fought for, you know, human rights, okay, equal rights, all those things. How can she honor? That legacy and continue the fight that he started and try to create a feeling of safety herself for the community in which she lives.

[00:03:48] How does she embody the spirit of her father so that she can pass that legacy onto other people? She felt. Safe and protected by a man who had strong beliefs in something more powerful than herself. How can she do that? And now give that back to the community herself. Does she become a human rights activist?

[00:04:10] Does she become a lawyer fighting for equality? Does she open a food shelter or a, you know, a homeless shelter? What does she do? What does she actually do? Now you can have a character who does something. That's the difference between abstract and passive. Yes, Alberto. Now, are there situations or are there stories where abstract goals do work?

[00:04:36] Okay. Yes. They're tricky and even if they're abstract, you have to still find a way as the writer. To put action to them. So I'm gonna give you an example. Have you heard of a movie called about Schmidt? Anyone? My gosh, it's brilliant. It's in my top 10 of all time. It's actually kind of difficult to watch, but it's so great. 

[00:04:57] Okay. The premise of about Schmidt is Schmidt. Is a man who's retiring from being an insurance salesman, and Schmidt has. Something that he wants. What is it? He wants to be important. This is an abstract goal. He wants to be important. He wants his life to matter, and yet it's a very real goal that many of us have.

[00:05:23] So even though it's abstract, it doesn't mean it's wrong. It means though. That we have to find a way to take that abstract goal and now make it actionable so that there's a compelling story. That's what it's about. It's not about, you can give your character an abstract goal, but you have to find a way to put it into action, to make it actionable.

[00:05:44] And so here's what happens. Schmidt wants to be important. That's really his goal throughout the entire thing. He wants his life to matter. The problem is, and the main problem. With Schmidt is that he's got a major character flaw, and the character flaw is that he's an arrogant SOB, he's self-centered.

[00:06:05] He's never respected anybody. He's lived for himself. He's a stranger to his wife. He's disconnected. He's a real SOB. So he's wanting to be like his, even his idea of being important is sort of self glorifying and blustering, right? So here he is retiring and we are revealing these things about Schmidt, like who he really is as we meet his wife and all these things.

[00:06:32] And the very first thing that he tries to do, the action step that he takes to try to make himself feel important. Is he tells his wife, you know, I better go, I better check in on them at the office. I, I bet that, you know, the new guy probably has some questions and I just better, you know, I just better go in there and just steer him straight, right?

[00:06:53] So he goes and he shows up at the office. This is about his self-importance. He wants to prove in a way that his life matters, and instead of finding a guy that wants his help, what Schmidt finds is this guy is like, oh, well look at the time. Let me ride you down the elevator. This guy doesn't have any questions.

[00:07:12] He's not looking for answers, and in fact. All of the boxes that Schmidt so painstakingly put together with all the, you know, all the files and everything, they're piled up by the garbage dump. That's how important his life is. It's all piled up. By the garbage dump. So he goes home, but he tells his wife, oh, it's a good thing I went in.

[00:07:36] Yeah, yeah. He had some questions, but it's false. It's false bravado. His life doesn't matter. Then he takes on the idea that, you know, I don't think this guy that our daughter Jeanie is married to, I just don't think he's up to snuff for our genie. I think maybe we should encourage her to postpone that wedding.

[00:07:56] That becomes the thing that he focuses on as breaking up his daughter's marriage because he thinks that will mean he's done something important. He also focuses on temporarily going down memory lane, like that's going to make his life seem important, and he tries all these. Things to try to make his life important.

[00:08:17] He even takes the Winnebago and goes on a road trip by himself and meets new people. Like that adventure is going to make his life important. The problem is he will never get importance until he is first a changed man. He doesn't deserve for his life to matter because he's an SOB. So his need is to become a decent human being.

[00:08:40] And so the story becomes a story of his. Suffering in pursuit of his goal to make his life meaningful, but he has to suffer to the point of being humbled and actually changing before the universe can actually grant his wish. So again, it is complicated. The point is that the key for you, generally speaking. Most people aren't as good as Alexander Payne who wrote about Schmidt and is a master at nebulous abstract goals.

[00:09:17] Alexander Payne knows how to take those abstract ideas and put action to them to keep the character active. Rather than passively allowing things to just happen, everything happens to the character and they're just reactive. The character has to be making choices to pursue a goal, so even if it is an abstract goal, you still have to give them actionable steps that they can take to get it.

[00:09:44] Most of us probably aren't that good, so it's usually better to give them something objective. For example, if you're writing a rom-com. And you know it's a college kid who is in love with the girl in his class. But in order to win her over, he has to prove his worth by winning the competition of the such and such, the science fair, and then she'll finally see him as a worthy candidate.

[00:10:11] Well, now he's got something objective to pursue. He's gotta win that contest. How is he gonna do it? He's gotta, now we can still, but either way, we still have to break it into little mini goals that he can pursue along the way to get the big goal. The real goal is to get the girl. In order to get the girl he is gotta win the contest.

[00:10:29] In order to win the contest. He's gotta do this. In order to do this. He is gotta do this. He's gotta, you know, you work your way backwards with actionable steps that the character pursues. That's how you keep your character active and not passive. Yes. Thank you. That was very helpful. This will keep making more sense as we go, but Alberto?

[00:10:47] Yes. So to simply put it like an uh. An active goal is more like a movie where it's like the character wants to take revenge and like, that's what the movie's about. You know, he's, he's making choices that will lead him to the end, which is revenge on, you know, the antagonist, right? And an abstract goal is someone, uh, pursuing something like we, like you just talked about, and it's kind of on a journey that takes them Here, here, here, here, here.

[00:11:19] And what's tricky about that is that. As the writer, you can get lost in that journey that like looks like, you know, like a ping pong machine or whatever. Like a pinball machine. Yes. Is that That's exactly right. And that's why see most people, I love that you just said that. You said like a movie, you know, it's clear what it's about, but a novel should be that way too.

[00:11:42] And that's what people don't understand is that if you don't have that, then your character is the pinball. Your character's just reacting to all the things that are happening to him rather than driving it. So the best novels are ones where the character's actually pursuing a goal. By the way, there are always exceptions to this.

[00:12:00] We can always point out cases where there were novels that were successful, where the character really is passive. Frankly, the great Gadsby, the main character of that story. Doesn't really drive the action. He's just a passive participant. He's just watching great Gatsby's story unfold and then writing it down for us.

[00:12:23] But he doesn't influence anything, and that is, I think, a major weakness. Now it works sort of because Gatsby is such an amazing character, and so we're getting to see. Gatsby's action steps. And so somehow it still ends up being compelling, but the truth is the main character is pretty boring and blah.

[00:12:47] You know, we don't really care about him, but we do care about Gatsby, so they still pull it off. So somehow it manages to work, but it's a weakness of the novel. Most stories though, shouldn't be that way because your main character should be active. They should be driving the action. And I'm thinking of right now, I'm I, I don't know if you guys read sci-fi, the Red Rising Series.

[00:13:08] Wow, it's so great. And Darrow is definitely pursuing an active goal. It's relentless. He knows what he wants, and there's all these mini goals that he has along the way that he has to accomplish in order to get the big meta goal that he's actually after. And it takes seven books to get there. Harry Potter.

[00:13:29] What's great about Harry Potter is you start out, there is a meta goal built into the entire structure of Harry Potter. At some point he has to take on Voldemort. That is the whole point. He has got to stop the greatest wizard of all time who is not constrained by morality. It is Harry's job. He's the only one who can go up against Voldemort and save the actual world.

[00:13:56] Each book. Has its own meta goal built into the book as something in that particular book to attain. And then all the action steps that take place are many goals in pursuit of the meta goal for that book. But the books are many goals for the meta goal of being able to take on Voldemort, but it is clear from the beginning what he is after.

[00:14:21] It is clear he has to go after it. He cannot be passive. Okay? So when you have your character, then one of the first things you have to decide. Once you know what they are after, what do they want? This is absolutely essential for you, the writer to know. Even if, and this is also a way that sometimes characters get lost and therefore the writers sometimes get lost.

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[00:16:03] Sometimes the characters don't know what they want, but you, the writer need to know. So sometimes the characters themselves seem confused about what they really want. Yet you, the writer, need to know what's really motivating them, what they really want deep down, and then that's revealed to the character over time.

[00:16:24] These are trickier stories. So the first thing is you have to identify what your character wants. What are they actively pursuing over the course of the story? Generally speaking, at this stage, I would recommend that you have it be something clear that even the audience can identify, so the audience can go, oh, here's what they want.

[00:16:41] More like a movie. Even if you're writing a novel. Something clear that they are pursuing. But you also, and this is where things get muddy and can sometimes be confusing, you also need to know what they need. And those are two different things, what a character wants. Versus their need. So what they want is the objective criteria that drives the plot because it's what they're actively pursuing over the course of the story.

[00:17:11] But the need is their wound or their character flaw or whatever it is where they're deficient. The need is their arc. It's how they acquire whatever they're missing or whatever it is that they haven't walked into the full person that they are, yet they have a need or they have a character flaw that must be overcome.

[00:17:35] I. The real story is always about the need, and yet the plot is always about the want, and the plot is the thing that gives you the playground for the need to be worked out. I have lots of examples of this. but it's essential that you understand the difference.

[00:17:55] There is a want and there is a need. The want is what they are actively pursuing. It's the active part. The active part. The need is how they're broken, how they're deficient, and how they change over the course of the telling. So just for about Schmidt, so like quickly the, the want would be, he wants to be important, but the need 

[00:18:18] Schmidt, his need is to become a better person. He needs to be humbled, he needs to be repentant, he needs to recognize. His flaws. Watch the movie. I don't wanna give it away. It's so good. It's so good. You gotta see it. So again, plot and characters plot unfolds according to the choices that your character is making. To pursue the goal. But here's the other thing. The character's choices are always also revealing who the character is deep down inside.

[00:18:51] And that's the beauty of story is that you are doing both at the same time. By having the character make choices in pursuit of that goal, you're revealing what they're really made of. You're revealing who they really are. Deep down inside. What's the most logical thing that your character would do next?

[00:19:12] They know they want that big goal. That's what I want. And now what is the most immediate action step that they would take? First things first. You have to be logical about it. . All right? feel free to email me if you have questions or anything.