Comments on: Constructing Your Story Goal

By: Jonathan Cain

Jonathan Cain — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:27:31 +0000

Just to briefly play devils advocate, I think it COULD be ok for your main character to not be the ultimate “winner”, because that sometimes happens in life. Also, it would be an interesting twist on the Character fails” story archetype where the goal is reaches but not by the hero.

I agree with Randy though in regards to the fact that your main character has to be a big part of your story though, and to do that, if the character is not actually there, he will almost necessarily have to have a story goal to which your ultimate battle is tangential. I think it would work, but might need some developing.

By: Melissa Prado

Melissa Prado — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:49:44 +0000

@Jonathan: To go along with that… I think if the main character is not the one who achieves the main victory in the story, he/she better at least have some sort of internal revelation or personal accomplishment aside from the ‘ultimate win’ achieved by the other characters.

By: Jordyn

Jordyn — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 07:09:39 +0000

Hi, I’m new to this blog and thought I’d add my 2 cents.

It might be okay if your main character is injured and then watches the events so that we can still feel attached to what is going on. My question is why wouldn’t you include him in the final battle? If it is because you secretly favor another character over your MC or have difficulty writing fight scenes (I have experiences both of these problems) you might want to rethink that plan.

By: Tessa Quin

Tessa Quin — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 08:14:22 +0000

Completely unrelated to this post: I received your E-zine today and you totally sold me on Tim Ferriss’s book. I would have loved to buy the book through your link, to support you, but since I live in Iceland and shipping + VAT costs are high, I ended up buying the Kindle edition. Perhaps you should include the Kindle link, too, since Kindle is becoming so popular? I honestly don’t buy books anymore if I can’t get them on my Kindle!

Randy sez: For simplicity, I include a single link, since anybody can get to any of the versions from any of the other versions. I receive that pesky affiliate fee from Amazon no matter which version you buy, since Amazon tracks that sort of thing. This is why I love e-books–you can get them anywhere right away. Hope you like Tim’s book! There are a lot of good ideas in the book. I’m already doing many of them, but there are still plenty that never occurred to me.

By: Story Goals, Questions, and Ambitions « Resplendence

Story Goals, Questions, and Ambitions « Resplendence — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:26:14 +0000

[…] explode. You can photograph any of those. You can’t photograph “defeat.” That’s too vague. (Constructing Your Story Goal, Advanced Fiction Writing […]

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 22:43:35 +0000

I have a follow-up question here. I can see that the story goal should be reached by the end of the story (or not reached if you’re writing a tragedy). However, what happens if it turns out that there’s another goal that would fulfill the ambition? Or, alternatively, reaching the goal doesn’t actually fulfill the entire ambition?

By: Thom L.

Thom L. — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:47:12 +0000

There seems to be a recuring theme in that new stories enter the mind as you are writing something else. I have found that this is good and has helped me be more creative. What I do as a new story pops into my head I get on my laptop and creat a quick outline, including a story title, what the whole idea is, etc.. When I go back and look at the list, at times I don’t remember the story until I read my outline and it all comes back to me. I have about 10 of these at this time and will get to them in the future.