Three Kinds of Story Fuel: Goal, Desire, and Search
By Barbara Linn Probst | February 21, 2024 |
Goal. Desire. Search. Related, but different.
In fiction as in life, each can be a source of energy—the force behind our choices and actions, the fuel that sustains us as we grapple with unforeseen challenges.
And, in fiction as in life, sometimes all three are present. At other times, one or another is dominant.
What’s the difference?
A goal is relatively concrete: I can (usually) tell if I’ve reached it. Getting a promotion. Saving enough for the down-payment on a house. Getting five hundred reviews on Amazon. Goals are often framed by the word “get” (acquire) or “get to” (reach).
In fiction, the protagonist’s goal often (though not always) provides the propulsive force, the narrative destination. Goals tend to be more explicit in so-called “commercial” novels: when the protagonist attains or abandons his goal, the story is over.
A desire is the emotional source of that goal—the reason that I want whatever it is I want. In fiction, it’s the character’s motive. The key word here is “want.” My goal is to get those Amazon reviews because I want to feel successful and validated.
A search, on the other hand, is broader, deeper, more enduring. It’s not necessarily the kind of search where one knows exactly what one is searching for, like a hidden bomb or a kidnapped child; that would make it a goal. Rather, it’s psychological or existential—as search for meaning, belonging, connection, valor, authenticity. How does life work? What kind of person am I? How shall I live my life?
In fiction, especially in so-called “literary” novels, the search itself matters. It may still be there for the protagonist at the end of the story, even if there’s no clear-cut “arrival,” though he might now understand it in a new way.
How do they work together?
In many novels, goal and desire are closely intertwined, but there’s no over-arching search. In The Last Thing He told Me, for example, Hannah has a goal—to find out who Owen (her husband) really was, and what’s happened to him—fueled by her desire to be reunited with him. The story is set in motion by a specific, unexpected incident—the disappearance of her husband. Both goal and desire exist only in relation to that incident.
Sometimes, of course, the protagonist realizes that her true desire isn’t what she thought. And then her goal changes. In Remarkably Bright Creatures, Tova thinks she wants to “close down” her life by moving to Charter Village, a retirement home, but eventually realizes that she really wants to “open up” her life by remaining in Sowell Bay.
Or the goal may appear midway through the story, as events begin to move the character in a new direction. In Pineapple Street, none of the three protagonists starts out with a clearly-defined “goal.” Yet, for each, a new question begins to grow: “What kind of person do I want to be?” By the end of the book, each has made an important change in her life that is related, at least implicitly, to a broader search for meaning and authenticity.
Sometimes these three elements—goal, desire, and search—line up neatly. In my own novel, The Sound Between the Notes, Susannah’s goal is to triumph at the concert; it’s a concrete goal that she will achieve or fail to achieve. Her desire is to recover the magic at the keyboard that she seems to have lost. She views the concert as the way to fulfill that desire; that’s why it matters to her, and she’s willing to risk so much to achieve it. Behind that, her search, as an adoptee, is to understand where she belongs in the world. That question unites the story strands under a common umbrella: Susannah’s relationship with the birth sister she never knew; her changing relationship with her ailing, adoptive father; her fraught relationships with her husband and son, and so on.
Does a story really need a goal?
At other times, there simply isn’t a goal.
That struck me when I was writing my recent post, and it got me thinking … which is why I decided to write this follow-up piece.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, Scout doesn’t have a “goal” in To Kill a Mockingbird. Instead, she begins to learn how life works and how she wants to live.
In We All Want Impossible Things, none of the characters has the goal of preventing Edi from dying; it’s a story about how to be human, how to do right by the people you care about. In Small Pleasures, Jean doesn’t have the idea that she needs to change her life (though the reader may). Yet it does change, though that’s not what she set out to do. So too, in The People We Keep, April doesn’t have a goal—other than to survive— or even a destination, as she sets out on her improvised journey. Yet she certainly has an “arrival” and a meaningful story.
There are many more examples. The question, then, is why there such a huge emphasis, nowadays, on goal. I’d even say that the protagonist’s goal has become central to our notion of what a story is. Without a goal, there can be no conflict, obstacle, or stakes—no story.
At least, that’s what we’re told.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against goals. They can provide a powerful frame for a novel. The protagonist’s goal—to find the kidnapped child, repair a damaged relationship—gives the reader a clear, tangible way to follow the progression of the story, even if the goal isn’t exactly attained. In Once There Were Wolves, Inti’s goal is to re-introduce wolves into the Scottish Highlands, just as Franny’s goal in Migrations is to follow the last Arctic terns on their final migration to Antarctica.
A goal can also be about knowledge or understanding, as in The Catch, where Ellie’s goal is to find out why her father left her a seemingly ridiculous gift in his will and gave his prized baseball to someone she’s never heard of.
I recently found myself arguing with a friend who hated Tom Lake as much as I loved it. To her, there were no stakes, no tension, since we know from the beginning that the protagonist ends up happily married—and not to the heartthrob actor in her summer stock troupe. Since we already know “what happened,” and Lara, the narrator of Tom Lake has no “goal” to keep us worried and engaged—why bother reading?
So too with Everything I Never Told You. We learn on page one that Lydia is dead. We read to find out how and why, not what. Neither Lydia nor any other character has a “goal,” though the reader does.
I’m reminded of biography and memoir. We already know how the story ends, yet it’s fascinating to unwind the thread that led to now. Perhaps, readers of novels that are not framed around the pursuit of a well-defined goal are more like readers of biography and memoir—interested in the journey, for the specific pleasure that brings.
And that’s okay with me. As long as I have a goal, as a reader, the protagonist doesn’t need to have one.
What about you? As a reader, do you need the protagonist of a story to have a goal? As a writer, are all three “sources of energy” present in your WIP, or is one much more important?
Barbara (she/her) is an author of contemporary women’s fiction living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Each of her acclaimed novels (Queen of the Owls, 2020; The Sound Between the Notes, 2021; and The Color of Ice, 2022) was a medalist for prestigious national awards, including the Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction, the Independent Book Publishers Award, the Hawthorne Prize, and the Nautilus Award for Fiction. Her fourth novel, Roll the Sun Across the Sky, launches in May 2025 and has received stellar advance praise. Barbara has also published more than 80 articles on the craft of writing and the writing life. She has a PhD in Clinical Social Work and has been a therapist, teacher, researcher, and advocate for out-of-the-box kids and their families. When not writing, she’s a serious amateur pianist and a traveler to spots from Iceland to the Himalayas. Learn more on her website .
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Sorry to contradict you after such a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece, but Scout does have a goal – to make Boo Radley come out of his house. Spoiler alert – the goal gets forgotten, overtaken by events, but is eventually achieved, when she isn’t even trying. And she mentions in the first sentence that Jem’s arm is going to get broken, but that never stopped me reading on.
Thank you for such an interesting observation! It’s true, and Harper Lee signaled that when she chose the book’s title. At the same time, the book is “about” so much more than making Boo Radley come out—at heart, it’s a coming-of-age story that would have been powerful and coherent, even without Boo Radley. Conversely, if it had been “only about” making Boo come out, so much would have been lost.
Your thoughtful remarks remind us that a book can be and do many things at once. You’ve enriched our conversation, which is what Writer Unboxed is all about! Thank you again!
Such a good point. When we know what “happened” from the outset—let’s call it the Spoiler-as-Novel—then why do we read? What’s the story?
I think in that type of story it’s simple, what we want to know is not what will happen, but rather why and how did it happen? We’re at the end already but…hang on! Explain please, author!
I’m working on such a novel right now. We know from the outset that in 1953, a sweet and beautiful young newcomer to Reading, PA, who has won the devotion of her friends, burns the public library to the ground—and many years later those friends are even more devoted to her than ever. Indeed she is their hero and knowing her has changed them all for the better.
Huh? At least, I hope that that is what the reader will feel and why therefore the reader willl want to read. Now the challenge is to make the unraveling suspenseful and fun and I must say that I am having a blast. Thanks for this post.
Totally with you! Reading to find our HOW and WHY something happened is at least as compelling (to some of us, anyway) as reading to find out WHAT WILL happen. It’s a different question, a different incentive (as a reader), that’s all …
Stories that are structured as dual timelines—or those that begin in the middle, taking the reader both forward and backward in time—lend themselves to this approach. In fact, that’s exactly the structure of my newest (forthcoming) novel, so perhaps it’s been on my mind. I enjoy those stories as a reader, too. Because, really … why do we insist on thinking of time as linear, and thus that stories must only move forward in time? Backstory has gotten a bad rep, but that’s when it’s used as a shortcut to revealing motivation. LOL now I wish I’d included all this in the essay, but thank you for such a stimulating comment!!
Barbara–thank you so much for the clear, convincing distinctions you make here. I especially appreciate the way you identify stories whose energy and interest don’t rely on conventional ideas of goal/desire/search. Wanting to spend more time with characters the writer has brought to life is my “goal,” both as writer and reader. I’m completing a story that I thought of for a time as a coming-of-age novel for geriatrics. “It’s never too late to grow up” was the idea, but I came to see that this notion wasn’t really accurate. The character is grown up, but he is incomplete. He doesn’t search for completion, but it is more or less imposed on him by circumstances. He is completed in spite of himself. It never had to happen, but it does.
Thanks as well for giving a thumbs-up to mysteries that don’t rely on the conventional whodunit formula. In two of mine, I out the bad guy in the first chapter. The interest lies in 1. following the ongoing crimes of the bad guy, and 2, following the lead character’s search for the truth. That is, the interest is there if I’ve succeeded in making these characters worth the reader’s time.
Thanks again for a great post.
Thank you for such a wonderful comment! I agree that, as readers, we are drawn to follow the unfolding of character ,as much as the unfolding of events (that is, the sequential plot).
When we know the answer to A Big Obvious Question right from the beginning (as in Celeste Ng’s novel), we read for a different, but equally compelling reason. Ain’t it great that there are so many ways to write and read?!
Thanks for your examination of these three terms – as you say, related but not the same. I always start a story with the protagonist pursuing a goal that’s tangible (in my latest, earning a promotion) but it’s a bit of a McGuffin – it gets interwoven with deeper, more important desires that sometimes the character isn’t even aware of. This teasing out of what’s really important and vital to the protagonist (and often the antagonist as well) provides the meat of the novel.
So well said, Maggie: “the more important desires that sometimes the character isn’t even aware of.” In other words, what seems like the goal may not be the real goal. That “real goal” can even contradict the goal that the protagonist believes he’s after. That’s one of the reasons “Gone With the Wind” works so well: Scarlett’s goal is not her true desire. The reader knows that before she does, which provides another layer of energy and drive as we read.
And yup, great point that the antagonist’s desire may be revealed as well, in tandem or counterpoint with the unfolding of the protagonist’s desire. And both may change!
Hi Barbara,
Thank you for this fresh way of looking at things. I think all three things exist in the best stories. What makes the difference is the relative importance each element has to the whole. Thrillers, which are largely goal (plot) driven are far more gripping when we care about the protagonist, usually by understanding their desires (such as the ousted CIA officer needs to make good on his reputation) Likewise, the best character driven fiction (like most women’s fiction) is best when the character has a goal and through that goal (plot) makes the internal changes they need. If we understand the impact of all three on our stories, they will be better for it.
I love your point about the interweaving of the elements, and their relative importance. Yes, so true! In general,. I’d say that a true search (which may have no clear resolution) is found less often than goal or desire—more likely, I think, in literary fiction than in genre fiction (thriller, romance, etc). But I agree, it’s the layers and connections (including the contradictions) between these elements that adds both interest and depth. Thank you so much for adding to our conversation today!
Barbara, good stuff. I enjoyed Tom Lake for those “searching” reasons: the ongoing development of her relationships with her kids and her husband, the revelations over time, cleverly parceled out to the kids, of what happened in those frothy days, the things she didn’t reveal about Duke but rolled over in her mind, her own perceptions of her skills and lacks as an actress and how that played out in her later years, the stirring friend connections she made at the lake, and how her family were all attached to their land and animals in different ways.
The book grew on me, and there was much to savor.
Me too. I think the key word in your comment is “savor.” It’s not always about suspense and surprise. Sometimes a good story makes us stop, linger, reflect. Thank you for saying it so well!
Barbara, thank you for these important distinctions between goal, desire and search. I often think that the inciting incident can set our story people on a path, but it is in the journey that they take that they discover what they really value, who they are becoming. I think this esp. in coming-of-age stories, and women’s stories, finding your place in the world. I’m more conscious of it now after reading The Virgin’s Promise by Kim Hudson (as a counterpart to the hero’s journey).
Gosh, knowing the what is never enough for me. I always want to know why, why, why. This is why I also read some of my favorites over and over because they’re like good friends and I can take the journey with them again and again.
Thanks, Vijaya! And yes, certain genres (like women’s fiction, coming-of-age stories, and family sagas) do seem to lend themselves to the unfolding of a search, which can change and expand over time. I do think that a longer time span is needed for a story based on a search, rather than a specific goal!
Good post, Barbara. Historical nonfiction illustrates some of the points you make. Erik Larson is a master of this. I may know what happened during the great Galveston hurricane of 1903 or the sinking of the Lusitania. It’s the who’s, how’s, and why’s that Larson so compellingly describes that keeps me reading. Same with the fictions, The Death of Ivan Ilych and Death of a Salesman. We’re told the outcome. It’s the characters’ goals, wants, and search that have made the stories classics.
Thanks for bringing historical nonfiction into the discussion! I’m guilty of focusing on fiction, since that is what I write (and read). As you say, we already know “what” happened (as we do with biography), so it’s the unfolding of why and how that engages us. I do think that fiction can benefit from the lessons and virtues of nonfiction, and vice versa!
I started thinking about “Little Fires Everywhere,” in which the first scene makes it clear that someone has gone to some trouble to set several fires inside a house in a nice neighborhood, and we spend the rest of the book making our way back toward that moment. Then my brain served up a little scene in which one of Agatha Christie’s characters, either Poirot or Miss Marple, told a roomfull of gathered suspects (naturally) that the murder is not the beginning of the story, it is the end, and that is why the detective is asking all the seemingly meaningless questions about what happened weeks or even years ago.
I’ll grant you this kind of backwards search works best in mysteries, but you never know. Most people don’t remember because the movies didn’t use it, but “Frankenstein” (Science Fiction, in my opinion) started at the end, with the doctor chasing his creation somewhere in the ice of the Arctic.
I love having all these things to think about instead of working on my own monster. No lightning storm can give you a plot.
Great examples! I think of “search” in a kind of existential sense too—that is, not necessarily for the “how” and “why” of a seminal or life-altering event, but as a through-line for a story about a character’s quest to understand what it means to be human and how to live … For sure, this can lead to novels that are really just a string of episodes, if the connective tissue of the search isn’t made clear to the reader. But at their best, they are enduring works like “Sophie’s Choice” by William Styron, which is really about Stingo’s quest to understand how life works and what sort of person he wants to be …
Thank you for this post, Barbara! I’ve been thinking about it all week as I work on outlining/plotting a new novel that is very much relationship-centered. Stories seem to present themselves to me from the internal, emotional side first, and then it’s my task to find the external action plot that goes along with the internal transformation. Like you, I often feel that the character’s external goal — something tangible and concrete — is given too much emphasis in discussions of craft these days. Your definition of desire reminds me of the way I think of motivation — the “because” in a story equation. But it’s the search part — “as a through-line for a story about a character’s quest to understand what it means to be human and how to live” — that opened up new possibilities for me. It is the search that I look for as a reader. I love reading and writing “quiet stories” that are more concerned with growth and transformation than with the pursuit of a specific or well-defined goal.
I recently finished reading Gail Carriger’s The Heroine’s Journey, and I wonder if this emphasis on a tangible goal has something to do with our cultural default (or bias?) of expecting stories to follow the trajectory of the hero’s journey. The “search” as you define it seems better suited to the heroine’s journey, in which the reward at the end is not the main character’s solitary triumph, but the comfort of a return to family/community or the healing that comes from newfound knowledge/understanding. That’s oversimplifying it a bit, but still.
Glad to have this goal-desire-search distinction in my back pocket as I dig deeper into this new character’s journey!
Many thanks for your thoughtful comments, and glad they were useful! I agree that there is a cultural default (though I don’t think it’s necessarily gender-based) because we industrialized Westerners are so intent on doing, achieving, and acquiring. In other cultures, perhaps the search for meaning is valued more …
Thanks for the wisdom, Barbara, like a signpost for the lost. I’ve read books that make me indifferent to all the cat’s nine lives dying because the format is so predictable that the story’s quest/question/search etc loses tension. My reader’s mind is in the story while my writer’s mind judges whether the author is darkening of the soul on the right page, like an actor hitting/missing their mark in a well known play.
Hi Deborah! I do wonder if the structural sameness and “predictability” of so many novels has been fostered by agents and editors, who are convinced that this is what readers want. Thus, a vicious circle. I say this because I recently had a start-in-the-middle project (i.e., that unraveled the HOW and WHY of a key event that the reader is told about right away) rejected by a small literary press, for that very reason.
Redacting some of the details, the editor told me: “I wonder if you give too much away in the prologue, telling us from the start that XXXX. For me, it took the wind out of the sails, making the flashbacks with XX and later developments with XX feel deflated.” The editor only read the first 30 pages or so, but that was her judgment. Obviously, she’s entitled to it, especially since her first priority has to be what she believes she can sell. But it does make one wonder …. FYI the project found another path. I doubt anyone will read this comment, or care what happened to the manuscript, but I figured I’d set the record straight!