101 character goals that don’t involve anyone’s dead wife
There are a lot of pieces of writing advice you can ignore, but here’s one you shouldn’t: you need to include character goals in your story.
)
There are a lot of pieces of writing advice you can ignore, but here’s one you really shouldn’t: you need to include character goals in your story. A character without some type of goal or motivation is just wandering through time and space, waxing poetic and navel gazing as they contemplate the nebulous tide of their existence.
And while there are some books that make this work, they’re few and far between. Even a slice of life narrative has a character who wants something. Your navel gazer is likely reflecting on some unfilled desire that challenges their troubled heart, anyway.
In case you’re wondering about the title of this article, the ‘Wife in Refrigerator’ trope, also sometimes called ‘fridging’, is considered a sexist and tired way to motivate a male character. And we don’t do that sort of thing around here.
Writing advice you can take or leave (but I suggest you take)
One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received is that your character’s motivation should be evident within the first chapter of your story. It doesn’t need to be much—it can be a line or a few words, but by revealing this want in your character, you immediately set up the bond with your reader and give them a reason to care about your protagonist.
Sometimes this advice will work and sometimes it won’t, but heed the spirit of this idea and make your character’s goal clear somewhere near the beginning of your story.
Why are character goals important?
The reason character goals are so important is they’re what drive the story. Without some kind of want or need in your main character, they have no reason to act or pursue the obstacles you throw in their way. Without giving them a raison d’etre, they’re going to do a terrible job of helping you create a compelling plot.
Types of Character Goals
There are two main types of character goals.
External
External goals are the types that the outside world can see. Think of a fantasy novel where there is a quest or an object of desire your hero must recover. It could be their goal to take down an evil overlord or find their soulmate. Other characters are aware of the goal and might even help your protagonist achieve it.
Internal
Internal goals are ones only your protagonist knows. Perhaps they’re planning to commit a crime and they’ve kept that little fact to themselves. Perhaps they’re pining to escape a loveless marriage or secretly want to become a superhero.
This type of goal might be particularly useful in an unreliable narrator type of scenario where not even the reader knows entirely what your protagonist is after. In this case, they might have an external goal that everyone, including the reader, believes to be true, while your character secretly knows they have additional intentions.
Obstacles and failure
Obviously, for a story to be interesting and compelling, your character’s goal needs to be difficult to achieve. If they’re able to get to their end point with nary a scratch, then your tale is going to be a snoozer. (Snoozer is, in fact, an official literary term BTW.)
So you’ll want to consider what kinds of obstacles are standing in their way. Are they external forces, like a curse they need to break or a fortress they need to storm? Or is it something internal, like in the case of a romance novel where their lack of trust is impeding the relationship?
Either way, consider how you’ll make it really, really hard to get there. And then, when they’re almost there, consider how you’ll throw them a curve ball one last time on their way to fulfillment.
Their goals and their inability to achieve them can also relate to their flaws, which helps give more depth to your characters’ personalities.
Scene goals versus story goals
Not only does your character have a goal for the whole novel, they also have smaller goals for every scene or chapter you write. This helps keep your story and your protagonist moving forward and helps engage your reader.
These can be small or big, depending on the scene, but you’ll often hear people say that every chapter or scene should have some purpose—by tying a goal to them, you can ensure you’re following through on that advice.
List of goals
Obviously, the list of possible things your character can strive for are endless, but here is a list to help get you started:
Change a law or injustice
Appease a deity or higher power
Free a loved one from captivity
Become the strongest/richest/most powerful
Retrieve a stolen item
Break a curse
Assassinate a king/queen or head of state
Fall in love
Solve a murder
Uncover a secret treasure
Make others suffer
Invent something that changes the world
Manipulate an established system
Live happily ever after
Free a helpless victim
Shake up their current life
Find a muse
Establish their own cult
Lead a rebellion
Steal from the rich and give to the poor
Form their own country or nation
Overcome their self doubt
End a feud
Get themselves out of prison
Start or end a war or conflict
Learn to trust others
Win the admiration of others
Protect their homeland
Change the past
Champion a cause
Reveal a secret plot
Regain a lost title or legacy
Bring down their enemies
Get a new job
Move to a new place
Settle a debt
Control others
Retreat to solitude
Overcome their fears
Be remembered after their death
Explore the world
Find fulfillment in their work
Explore their creativity
Live a healthier life
Become more thoughtful
Save Christmas or another holiday
Live in a fairytale
Protect the environment
Learn a new skill
Overthrow evil
Get fired from their job
Stand up to peer pressure
Eradicate a scourge
Recover from an injury
Betray a sibling
Stop abuse of themselves or someone else
Get out of financial distress
Dump their partner
Get revenge on someone who stole something from them
Find a place to belong
Care for a sick loved one
Find their parents or lost family
Overcome an addiction
Fulfill a prophecy
Move out of someone’s shadow
Clean up a dangerous neighborhood
Become revered or respected
Find a new direction in life
Initiate a successful corporate merger
Recover an ancient artifact
Face their guilt for a past wrong
Make amends with someone
Seek revenge
Escape their destiny
Get back home
Sacrifice themselves to save someone else
Overcome fear of judgment
Become more than their outward appearance
Uncover a stalker
Write a book (ahem)
Lead people to change
Wreak havoc
Challenge the status quo
Catch a criminal
Tempt someone into ruin
Steal someone’s identity or life
Have a child
Get elected to public office
Overcome social anxiety
Win a contest or competition
Learn a new language
Save the world
Live forever
Become a supernatural being
Make contact with a foreign species
Travel to a distant land
Enchant an object
Kill someone
Atone for past sins
Find religion
Destroy someone else’s relationship
Hopefully, that’s enough to get you started. As you can see, goals and motivation can come in many forms.
To keep track of your characters and their goals, you can make use of Dabble’s Story Notes and take a look at this article on how to write compelling characters for some more ideas.
Try it yourself and write your way to characters who will keep your story moving forward. To try all Dabble’s premium features for free for fourteen days, click here. No credit card required.