Writer of things that go bump in the night

Fallacies of Storytelling: The Protagonist’s Goal

Back to the FutureEscape from New YorkRaiders of the Lost ArkSaving Private Ryan.  Even in a cultural media vacuum, what narrative fundamental do the titles to those movies tell you about their respective plots?

They are goal-driven.

Goals can be an invaluable tool to establish suspense, propel a plot, and create an active protagonist.  But, like any storytelling appliance, they are an elective, not a mandate.  In the movie business, insecure creative execs will insist on their inclusion in every screenplay—a silver bullet for any plot that fails to effectively engross (which relates to an industry-wide problem I addressed in my first post:  the misapplication of craft).

Filmmaker Ivo Raza published this worthwhile, illustrative article on the subject of goals for Script.  I weighed in with my two cents, which I have reproduced here:

Really well-argued piece, Ivo.  Goals are helpful, but they are not right for every story.  In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, for instance, Peter (Jason Segal) has no goal whatsoever; he isn’t even in Hawaii to win back Sarah Marshall, merely to mourn their breakup (to “forget” her—to accept that the relationship has ended).  That was the right approach for that story, and the filmmakers kept the audience engaged without the aid of a “macro goal,” but rather by raising questions, as Ivo illustrates, that kept us in suspense.  Contrast that with the narrative strategy of the spinoff movie, Get Him to the Greek, which is built around a goal so overt that it’s right there in the title; that was the right strategic approach for that story.

So, rather than adhere to some nonsensical “rule”—like “your hero must have a goal”—one is better off using Blake Snyder’s versatile narrative models to figure out which conventions are required of the particular story one is trying to tell.  Sarah Marshall is a Rite of Passage tale (like Ferris Bueller), which are often about some form of personal acceptance (an intangible “elixir”); Greek is a Golden Fleece adventure (like Stand by Me), which are almost universally about achieving a tangible prize.  The advice in this article is sound:  Follow the genre conventions—and be attuned to the specific needs—of your particular story, rather than applying some misguided, blanket precept like “give your hero a goal.”

Craft is crucial, but it needs to be judiciously administered—and that takes study and practice.  Skills can be learned, even mastered, so long as the aspiring writer understands that technique is a toolbox, not a magic wand.  In the words of Dwight V. Swain, author of Techniques of the Selling Writer, “Arbitrary rules restrict and inhibit you.  Knowing why sets you free.”

4 Comments

  1. D. Wallace Peach

    Interesting post and I agree, Sean. My back bristles any time someone tells me that my creative juices must fit in a certain sized and shaped carton. Knowing the structural norms and established rules is important; they’re the building blocks from which we leap and find our own wings!

    • Sean P Carlin

      Well, thanks, Diana, ever so much, for digging through the archives and commenting on a “classic”! I had to reread the post myself just to recall its content!

      Working from the hero’s journey narrative arc so concisely articulated by Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler, late screenwriter Blake Snyder propounded — and I happen to agree with him — that all stories in this mode (as opposed to the more recent “postnarrative” approach) fall into one of ten “genres,” or story models, each with their own set of defining conventions. Some of these genres are more inherently goal-driven than others: Golden Fleece stories, for instance, are always about “getting the prize”; Monster in the House is about surviving and/or stopping the monster; Whydunits are about solving the crime. But other genres, like Rites of Passage (Chef) and Buddy Love (When Harry Met Sally…) and Out of the Bottle (Groundhog Day), have an engine that operates differently. As a screenwriter, I spent years working with producers and creative executives who didn’t understand the fundamentals of storytelling and habitually relied upon taking a strategy employed in one type of movie (usually whatever they’d just seen over the weekend) and applying it to an altogether different beast. And then they’d wonder how they’d managed to build a Frankenstein with no narrative or thematic cohesion! What drives a Dude with a Problem, for instance, isn’t necessarily going to fit in, say, an Institutionalized. But, there was no telling them that. Because people spend their lives consuming stories, they think they understand the complex machinations of narrative; I’ve been listening to music my whole life, but I don’t pretend to understand how to compose a song or symphony!

      I believe genre is one of the three critical components writers of fiction should study (along with structure and characterization), and, for my money, nobody’s codified it as cogently as Blake Snyder. But, as I’ve warned repeatedly on this blog — citing examples from American Beauty and Birdman and Whiplash, among others — beware “false prophets” who trade in the misapplication of technique. This stuff takes years to master, and there are an awful lot of folks who haven’t put in their “ten thousand hours” that are misguiding aspiring writers with hard-and-fast rules over versatile tools. To borrow a quote from Rush, “Fools and thieves are well disguised / In the temple and marketplace”…

  2. Clea

    I’m writing a rom com and when I realised some of the premise was similar to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I rewatched it. I am really struggling with what my character’s goal and want is. And so it was rather interesting to come across this article. I’m writing this script as part of a class and so I really do have to answer these types of questions, although we are following Snyder’s beat sheet as well. A character’s goal and want often also of course change during the course of a story but I’m especially struggling with the first half of the film in this respect. I ended up saying to myself in relation to FSM – his goal really is to forget Sarah. To ‘get over’ her basically. It seems to me that this drives his actions. And as you say about Get Him to the Greek, the goal is also in this title – Forgetting Sarah Marshall! It might be a more intangible goal, so I’m not disagreeing that some stories don’t need super overt goals, but I kind of think that IS definitely a pretty clear goal, once I saw it that way. And we truly know he has achieved it when he is not able to respond to her sexual advances – on some deep level he does not want her anymore.

    I am definitely going to remember your words “raises a serious of questions which keep us in suspense” in order to navigate my way through this script! Thank you!

    • Sean P Carlin

      Thanks for visiting the blog, Clea! I must confess I have not looked at this particular post in a long, long while. I used to post quite a bit about narrative craft on this blog, but over time my interests shifted away from that in favor of cultural critiques and personal essays. (If you’re interested in an overview of the blog’s evolution, I covered that subject in “A History of the Blog (So Far),” a post from 2022.)

      With respect to goals, Buddy Love romcoms can be tricky, because they are “soft” movies, meaning the characters may not have an explicit objective — or even an objective at all! Action movies are easier in this respect, because the goal is typically to catch the bad guy or get the MacGuffin or escape from captivity or free the hostages, etc.

      (Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a romcom in the general sense, but it’s not BL; it’s what Save the Cat! would classify as “Separation Passage.” Meanwhile, Get Him to the Greek is “Buddy Fleece.”)

      In BL, very often the characters aren’t after anything tangible or definable. They may have just a general desire for something that’s stymied by circumstance.

      For example: In When Harry Met Sally…, both characters just want to find stable romantic relationships, but neither one is having much luck. The audience knows Harry and Sally are the answer to each other’s problems… but that path is blocked by a complication: They’ve explicitly resolved to keep their relationship platonic. So, each character has a desire that is impeded by a shared complication. Only in the resolution of that complication can they finally be together and fulfill their heart’s desires.

      In Dirty Dancing, Johnny needs to ensure the performance at a neighboring resort happens as planned or he’s out that season’s salary and next season’s gig. Baby’s “desire” is to prove to Johnny she’s not some spoiled little daddy’s girl. So, those short-term, relatively low-stakes goals thrust them together. Attraction ensues. Then the complication becomes that staff and guests aren’t allowed to consort romantically at the resort. They want to be together… we want them to be together… but circumstance has conspired to complicate that.

      In Long Shot, Secretary of State Charlize Theron wants to be elected president. Seth Rogen, an out-of-work gonzo journalist, needs a job, and even though he has his reservations about politicians (whom he believes say all the right things on the campaign trail then get into office and don’t follow through), he sees an opportunity to promote progressive ideals as Charlize’s speechwriter. And… attraction ensues. But it isn’t optically advantageous for a presidential candidate to be romantically linked to a schlubby speechwriter, so a circumstantial complication stands in the way of romance.

      If what you’re writing is structurally similar to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you may have a “Separation Passage” on your hands. If your protagonist is trying to get over a broken relationship, like Jason Segel, you would do well to look at a bunch of “Separation Passage” movies and reverse-engineer them. I would recommend the 2013 Spike Jonze movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix.

      What does Phoenix “want” in that movie — what’s his goal? He just doesn’t want to feel lonely anymore! Her is a “soft” movie. You’ll find that most Buddy Love and Rites of Passage movies are “soft,” in contrast with Golden Fleece and Dude with a Problem movies, which have very clearly defined, explicitly stated goals.

      This is where Blake Snyder’s genre categories can be indispensably helpful: When you know the genre (and subgenre) to which your story belongs, you can study cinematic antecedents for guidance and inspiration. (So be sure to read Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies if you haven’t already!)

      If I were writing a “Separation Passage,” I would watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Her and The Break-Up and deconstruct them all. I’d ask myself: What does the protagonist want (external goal)? What does he/she need (internal goal)? What stands in the way? How did the screenwriters construct a plot that challenges the protagonist to face his flaws in each scene, thereby compelling him to grow by story’s end in a narratively satisfying and emotionally resonant way?

      Do that for every scene — ask yourself how that particular scene advanced the plot and pushed the protagonist along the trajectory of his emotional arc. When you really understand how other (creatively successful) movies work, you’ll see that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are models we can follow when we set out to tell a particular type of story.

      So, just like you did for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, study a movie like Her and ask yourself what’s missing from his life, what actions does he take (either consciously or unconsciously) to remedy what ails him, and what decisive choice does he make at the climax that demonstrates he has fulfilled his transformational arc.

      I wish you luck on this project, Clea! And if you’re writing this script for a class, I’m going to assume you’re relatively new to screenwriting…? (Forgive my assumption if it’s mistaken.) If that’s the case, please remember to show yourself patience! Be kind to yourself! Most of the early screenplays and manuscripts we write are more about getting comfortable with the creative process — discovering a methodology that works for us — rather than cranking out a masterpiece.

      “You learn to tell stories by telling stories,” Spy Kids filmmaker Robert Rodriguez once said. And only after we’ve built confidence in our craft — which happens over many, many scripts — does our unique voice begin to assert itself in our writing. It happens — it just takes time. Give yourself the time you need to let it happen. And best of luck!

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