Character Wants That Work: A Practical Guide to Desire, Motivation, Stakes, Conflict, and Character-Driven Plot

A busy plot can still feel directionless when its protagonist has no reason to act. Character Wants That Work explores how desire gives fictional choices their force. Mina Gallagher separates the thing a character pursues from the reason behind it, the need beneath it, and the costs of success or failure, giving writers a way to connect motivation to visible action.
The chapters examine conscious and unconscious wants, competing desires, obstacles, relationships, subtext, and the evolution o...