The most common reason a story falls flat — and it has nothing to do with plot.

Most story problems trace back to one missing distinction. The want and the need aren’t in conflict. Here’s what I mean:

The want is the character’s concrete, ego-driven goal. Win the championship. Get the promotion. Pay the rent. Steal the jewel. It is specific. It is physical. It is something the character can actually obtain.

The need is something else entirely. It’s the deeper human longing the character suppresses, ignores, or flatly refuses to acknowledge. It isn’t physical. It’s the emotional or spiritual call to live up to a higher nature — to forgive, to act with integrity, to love unselfishly, to face the truth.

Here’s the key: to get what they want, the character must abandon what they need. To embrace what they need, they must give up what they want. There is a high price for either choice. That’s the tension. That’s the engine.

In Pretty Woman, Vivian Ward wants to pay the rent. That’s why she propositions Edward Lewis in the first place. When, after their week together, he offers her a condo — effectively meeting that want forever — she turns him down. What she needs is to live a life of honesty and integrity. The moment she chooses the need over the want, everything changes.

If you can’t answer those questions the story won’t hold together no matter how strong the individual scenes are.

What does the character want? What does the character need? And what is the cost of either choice? Those three questions will get you further than a hundred pages of notes.

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