“Every character should want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.” -Kurt Vonnegut
Lilith Iyapo wants to save humanity. Jim Lassiter wants justice. Vigdis wants revenge. Luke wants to save Leia. You get the idea. No want, no story.
The standard structure is:
Want (girl/guy, car, crown/throne, etc.)
Struggle (courtship, level up, suffering/growth)
Get (girl/guy, car—you get the idea)
Occasionally there’s a twist where the ultimate “get,” while completely different from the initial want is even better. Otherwise, the standard story follows the basic track. But there are so many other pathways to drama.
"A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall." -Aristotle
Homer gives us a masterclass in “be careful what you (your character) wish for.” Sure, Paris gets the girl. Then the “black-bellied” ships land, a siege turns into an occupation, and the people turn on Helen. The star-crossed passion cools. By the point in which the Greeks are farming to support their siege of Troy, Helen lives apart from Paris.
Fearless, Achilles doesn’t simply lead the Myrmidon into battle, he leaps ahead of them, a man destined to become a legend. In full-on battle rage, he slays Prince Hector, the hero of Troy. And then Achilles grieves but not for his lost love. He grieves for Hector. With no one left who can challenge him, Achilles is lost and rudderless. At the apex of his triumph, Achilles—who should be celebrating his conquest of the last worthy adversary—has nothing left but to die, from the arrow of a coward.
How about something more contemporary?
In Banard Malamud’s The Natural, Roy Hobbs dreams of the big leagues. A pitching prodigy, he’s on his way to Chicago to try out with the Cubs. Then he meets Major League Baseball star, Walter “Whammer” Whambold, (stand-in for Babe Ruth) only to then strike him out in an exhibition game. Hobbs has everything he ever dreamed of and he’s not even 20-years-old yet.
Then he meets Harriet Bird, a disturbed woman who is fixated on MLB stars. After an attempted murder-suicide, Hobbs is damaged goods. Major League Baseball wouldn’t touch Roy with someone else’ ten-foot pole.
How about something in red?
Little Clarice Starling dreams of excelling and of saving the day. The daughter of a mining-town marshall, (little more than a security guard) killed by hopped-up burglars, Starling wants to redeem her father, the yokel who died slow and clumsy. As Dr. Hannibal Lecter says, Clarice dreams of getting away, all the way to the F-B-I...
Ambition seldom makes for happy endings and almost never for women in 20th century fiction.
Clarice survives an orphanage, starves through college, and labors as a lab assistant during the FBI hiring freeze of the 1990s. If you doubt her struggle, remember that by the time we meet her in Silence of the Lambs, she’s driving a Ford Pinto. Spoiler alert, she makes it to the FBI. She catches the bad guy. And no one ever forgives her for it. Instead of a hero’s welcome at the bureau, Starling’s career is sidetracked, even dead-ended. By the events of Hannibal, she’s at the bottom of the bureau barrel, serving high-risk arrest warrants. Clarice never fully recovers from achieving her dreams.
"Count no man happy unitl his end is known," Herodotus
What if the real conflict comes after the want? In Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Amy Dunne's marriage, that she has worked so hard to cultivate, is dead. She would like her philandering husband dead as well. Sadly, Amy is trapped. She put her entire life, her career, and her fortune into her marriage. Unwilling to live in average-life wreckage, Amy decides to end it. All of it.
Unwilling to leave her husband unscathed, Amy decides to frame him for her “murder.” Hilarity does NOT ensue.
Amy does gets what she wants...out of her withering marriage. Then the public becomes captivated by her story. She finally has her parents' attention—without actually having to engage with them. Best of all, Nick, (husband) is the prime suspect and the cops are grilling him like a chicken.
But while the disappearing part is easy, staying out of sight becomes nearly impossible. The original plan—much like the idea of suicide, once so alluring—is less appealing in the warming beam of public obsession. Then there is Nick.
Even as the general public turn on him, Amy falls in love with Nick—so easily manipulated, so helpless without her—all over again. Amy also sees a path forward. The ending is an entirely different type of horror story.
Your results may vary but the important part is your options abound. The trader amasses a great forturne in buying and selling, sacrificing family, love, and happiness, only to find the cost of great wealth is life itself, (A Christmas Carol). The ambitious general who conquers all—wins all but can trust none because he is trusted by none, (Arthurian legend). The do-right spouse who forsakes temptation only to learn their spouse harbors another in their heart (The Dead). When there is nowhere else to live and nowhere else to run, burnt bridges lead to new realities.
"Sooner or later, we all sit at the banquet of our consequences." -Robert Louis Stevenson
I once read that no one gets a happy ending. Indeed if the ending is happy it is because the story is cut off before the actual end. That is the drama behind giving your protag exactly what they want—as well as the headaches and heartaches that come with it.
The photo at the top, Gone Girl Theatrical Poster, belongs to 20th Century Fox, (et al). It is used here for informational/educational purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
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