3 Tricks to Writing A Great GOAL
If you want to write a great story, you absolutely need a great Goal. Because your Goal is what makes your story your story, and it’s the backbone of the Plot, or A Story. So what’s the secret to creating a Goal that will absolutely knock your audience’s socks off? Here are three tricks to get you started.
What Is The Goal?
The Goal is a physical thing your protag is trying to achieve. It could be winning a sports competition, slaying a monster, solving a murder… it’s that thing your story is about.
As you can probably tell, the Goal is often the quickest way of describing a story. For example, in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, the Goal is obviously “going to White Castle” since, you know, that’s what the whole story is about.
So what’s the secret to making your Goal as powerful as possible? Well, great Goals are three things — tangible, specific, and binary.
It’s Tangible, Baby
Great Goals are first and foremost tangible. But what the heck does that mean? It means the action is achievable in the physical world. “Slaying a powerful monster” is a pretty tangible thing because, you know, it’s a very physical action. “Solving a murder” is the same, since it’s rooted in the physical world.
Compare those to “become more patient” and you’ll realize why this option sucks — because it’s not physical. Unlike our other examples, we can’t see it happening (and therefore you as a writer can’t show it happening). Which is super important for the end of your story — we need to know if your protag achieves their Goal.
So make sure it’s rooted in the physical world, and make sure it’s tangible.
Getting Into Specifics
Second, great Goals are specific. It shouldn’t just be “solve a murder” because, you know, that’s pretty plain. Instead, it should be something like “solve the murder of a powerful billionaire before their fortune falls into the wrong hands” because, you know, that’s a lot more interesting.
That gets to the heart of the importance of specificity — it makes the Goal more interesting. It also makes your Goal your Goal, since it should be unlike any other Goal you’ve seen before.
So add details, and make sure your Goal is specific.
Zero or One — The Binary
Lastly, a great Goal is very binary. In this context, that means the success of the Goal is very “one or the other” like yes/no, win/lose/ pass/fail. There isn’t a spectrum of success — your protag either gets it all or gets nothing. There shouldn’t be much wiggle room.
That’s what makes competition movies so compelling — they’re rooted in a win or lose Goal. We can easily understand that first place = success, and anything else = failure. Obviously, there are stories that break this mold for a purpose, but by and large, the win/lose dichotomy is powerful because there are only two options.
So make sure you find your dichotomy, and make your Goal binary.
So… What Else?
There are more tricks to a great Goal, but these three are most crucial. If you want to check out more on writing a great Goal, here’s a video that will get you started:
