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This week is a first for me: I wanted to update a popular older post I frequently find myself referring authors to that addresses one of the more common root problems I see with stories and characters that aren’t as engaging and propulsive as they need to be: The characters’ goals and motivations aren’t fully or deeply enough developed.

Revising this post was a fun exercise to explore how my thinking on this topic has evolved over the four years since I first wrote it: deepening my thoughts on the issue and honing and clarifying my suggestions for addressing it. I hope you find it useful!

Figuring out why your characters do what they do can be some of the hardest work of writing, and a common area where a story may fall short. You can’t just force your characters into the action of the plot you’ve created. What makes a story and characters feel organic, fully fleshed, and believable is letting readers see what’s driving the characters into the actions they take. What compels them to act and react the way they do.

The question isn’t as straightforward as it seems—a lot of layers go into your characters’ actions, reactions, and behavior. And it can be complicated by the typical “goal/motivation” concept often presented as the holy grail of characterization, which is useful, but a bit simplistic.

• A goal is generally defined as “what your character wants,” but identifying the brass ring your character strives for is just the tip of the clichéd iceberg.
• Motivation is usually taken to mean “why your character wants that thing,” but there’s much more to that story too.

Goals and motivations that aren’t fully, deeply developed can lead to characters who feel flat, unengaging, or unbelievable, hampering reader investment in your story. And without a deeper understanding of what your character truly longs for and what drives that longing, often a story will stall out or lose its way once the initial impetus winds down (hello, 35K-word midbook sag, you old nemesis, you…).

Goals and motivations that aren’t fully, deeply developed can lead to characters who feel flat, unengaging, or unbelievable, hampering reader investment in your story.

Let’s take a specific example: Say your protagonist wants to be an architect (goal) because she dreams of creating eco-friendly, sustainable buildings that can revolutionize cities, improve people’s daily lives, and adapt to global warming (motivation). On the surface this looks good, and this is where many authors will start writing, confident that they’ve checked the right character-development boxes to give their character a clear goal and motivation that creates agency and momentum.

But that type of simple goal is just an external or tangible manifestation of something deeper that your character actually wants. And her true motivation—her reasons for wanting that particular thing—are an outgrowth of much deeper, more foundational core needs within her as well, stemming from somewhere in her past. And these deep-rooted levels of goal and motivation are where a story’s power and punch truly lie.

What does that actually mean, though, and what does it look like on the page?

Clarify the Goal: Broad and Granular Objectives

Let’s go back to our wannabe architect. What does “being an architect” mean to her?

This kind of broad, generalized goal is where many authors often stop in defining what a character wants—and the reason stories may feel fuzzy or lack propulsion. Vagueness and generalizations lead to vague, generalized characters and stories.

Define the character’s goal(s) more granularly:

• Does she want to study architecture in school? Is she working at an architecture firm as an assistant and dreaming of leading her own projects? Or working in another field entirely but always dreamed of being an architect?

• And what does that dream actually look like to her? Is it designing landmark buildings like high-rise offices or residences? Public-use structures like train stations and concert halls? Dream homes for individual families? Something else?

• In her dreams surrounding her goal is she leading a team of people or working alone? Working at a major firm or in her own small boutique agency? An industry leader or working behind the scenes?

• Does she want notoriety and acclaim? Creative challenges and fulfillment? To make a mark in the world? To improve people’s lives? To succeed as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field and blaze a trail for others?

The key is to keep circling in ever more specifically to what that generalized initial goal—“being an architect”—actually looks like and means in the context of your story and the character’s journey.

And then the crucial final step here is to pin these desires to a concrete, specific, tangible goal. That’s what serves to focus your story and create its stakes and propulsion. It establishes a material finish line for the character that gives the reader something definable to root for and lets us understand her progress or setbacks along the way toward that concrete goal. For instance, is she competing for a spot at a specific school, or a firm with an open position, or a concrete job or opportunity?

This last step—creating a concrete, measurable goal—is what stories that lack momentum, urgency, or stakes most often have failed to identify. It’s essential to pin the character’s goal to some measurable external metric—but those broader goals are what gives it meaning and potency in the story. And that can be more than just one thing, while the concrete external goal is generally most effective if it’s a singular, specific desire.

What will help you circle in on these specific answers that bring a character to life is figuring out what’s beneath her ostensible goal of “being an architect”—what she wants that her specific external goal is the means to helping her gain.

But the “goal” as it’s often understood and defined in most writing craft—which is usually taken to mean a character’s external goal—is simply a means to a greater end for your character, not the end in and of itself.

That greater end—the deeper longing—is what you must define as the author if you want characters who feel three-dimensional, relatable, and real, and whose goals sustain the story.

You must discover the engine that drives them toward it—what motivation makes them want that goal.

Read more: Is Your Protagonist Focused on the Wrong Goal?

More than Motivation: Core Longings and Lacks

The reason your character wants what she wants is the propulsive force behind her actions and behaviors in pursuit of that thing throughout a story, the root of three-dimensional characterization, strong story stakes, and propulsive momentum.

But as with the simplistic definition of goal that writers are often taught, motivation is far more complex than simply “why the character wants what she wants.” It’s an attempt to obtain something that she needs—the thing that fills some internal longing or lack within her.

Read More: "Creating Character Motivation: The Fallacy of Magical Knowing"

Let’s say the ostensible motivation behind your character’s goal of becoming an architect has to do with the buildings she will design and the good they may do in the world and people’s lives.

That’s her top-level motivation, the big-picture “why” that drives her toward her goal. Defining that is a good start in fleshing out your character.

Motivation is far more complex than simply “why the character wants what she wants.” It’s an attempt to obtain something that she needs—the thing that fills some internal longing or lack within her.

Perhaps as a child she read about Zaha Hadid, the first female recipient of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize who broke barriers of both gender and design, and whose unique, fluid structures that defined city skylines thrilled your character’s soul.

But that top-level why is just scratching the surface. What made Hadid and her career speak to your character so strongly, specifically? What is the deeper lack or longing behind that motivation?

Perhaps her father put all of his focus on his sons and treated her as if she were simply being groomed to be a man’s appendage and was incapable of achieving anything of her own, and she wants to prove him wrong.

But you might dig deeper still—down to her deepest and most essential motivating drive. These will often be rooted in core universal desires like those described in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—which is what lets readers deeply relate to the character’s journey even when they may not have experienced their exact situation or desires.

Perhaps this character craves approval or recognition she felt she never got from her family. Maybe she internalized her father’s message and feels self-doubt or a lack of confidence about her own abilities. That’s her internal (often subconscious) longing or lack—and that’s the real force(s) that drives her. And the force that will drive the character arc and thus your story more powerfully.

Read More: "Working Backward to Create Fully Fleshed Protagonists"

Let’s try a couple more variations as practice, using the same basic example of a woman who wants to become an architect.

• Broad goal: She wants to revolutionize the industry and improve people’s lives through her architectural designs, and dreams of designing energy-efficient, affordable multiple-family residential structures.
• Specific external/tangible goal: She’s in a competition/contest to be awarded the design contract by a developer looking to create a new multifamily urban building.
• Top-level motivation: She grew up in a low-income area where she saw her family and the people in her community struggle every day and live in run-down, inefficient homes where their rent enriched their landlord but never let these families get ahead. Watching her parents’ spark slowly fade as they struggled to support their family and give them opportunities, she felt powerless to do anything to help the people she loved. Now she’s determined to help other families avoid their fate.
• Longing/lack: Perhaps she feels a sense of profound injustice, or envy or resentment of those with money and power that makes her feel less-than, or a longing to fix a problem she couldn’t fix then.

Let’s try one last example:

• Broad goal: To create modern, streamlined, aesthetically elegant buildings that fit into the environment and enhance people’s lives.
• Specific tangible goal: A wealthy client has hired her to build a high-profile dream home for them, and she wants to use the project to showcase her vision and establish her reputation.
• Top-level motivation: She grew up in a messy, chaotic, unpredictable environment, but when her parents took her to see Fallingwater when she was a child, she was captured by Frank Lloyd Wright’s logical, orderly designs in harmony with nature and responsive to how people actually live.
• Longing/lack: Her upbringing left her feeling chronically stressed and insecure, as if everything is in imminent danger of falling apart, and she feels a powerful longing for order and control.

If this kind of character development seems a bit complicated, it’s because it is…because human beings are incredibly complex, our actions and behaviors rooted in our singular personalities, our histories, our situation and circumstances. One reason so many stories can fall victim to cardboard characters is that authors may rely on the bare-minimum craft definitions of goal and motivation to animate their characters, which doesn’t take into account the vast depth and richness of the human psyche.

Read more: "The Best Character Tool You May Not Be Using"

As an author, you are creating life—and that’s a major undertaking, one great authors don’t take lightly. Character is the basis of all great story—making sure yours are real, fully developed, and believable is the key to creating compelling stories, and characters who come to life.

How about you, authors—where do you struggle with developing your characters’ goals and motivations? How do you dig deep enough to get at what really drives them? How do you flesh out your characters and discover what truly compels their actions and behavior? What resources do you use to broaden your understanding of their inner makeup, and/or the human psyche?

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