I'm looking at a character development checklist, and the first question on it is: "what does the character want?" My immediate reaction is to toss the checklist. We're always advised that a protagonist should have something they want to achieve, or to avoid, and every step in the story is a battle to achieve or avoid. They gotta have a want, or it all falls apart. I think where I get frustrated with this, is something more personal. I'm 36, married, have one kid and one on the way. I don't know what I want right now any more than I did when my high school guidance counselor asked me that question. I just do, you know. I'm just winging it mostly. But maybe I wouldn't be the most compelling protagonist to grace the pages of a novel. But I do think there is something to be said for characters that don't have a specific, articulable want. Maybe they're just thrust into a fucked up situation, and they have values and backbone and character and try to do the right thing, and it messes everything up, and the want emerges later. In Gods of Wood and Stone, there are two main characters, Horace and Grudeck. Horace has a defined want, he wants to preserve his family and to raise his son to respect old-school masculinity. Grudeck has no idea what he wants, he just knows he's miserable and he fills the void with sex. Horace's arc is finding out that one of his wants conflicts with another. Grudeck's arc is finding out what he truly wants. I don't think one is better than the other. I think this is why those checklists, for me, are better suited to be looked at after a first draft. Once a character has had time to experience the tribulations of the draft, I can examine them and see what they truly want, even if they don't know it. So I'm not tossing the checklist. I am modifying it, however, by making the second question: "Does she know what she wants?"
I am thinking though, even the character who doesn't know what they want, they still need to have a want, even if it is just an immediate want. For example, a character may want to avoid getting fired, and that defines the initial conflict and sets the plot in action, but what they truly want is to be the breadwinner and secure the future of their family, and in reality holding on to this lousy job threatens both.
I'm of the variety that would toss a character checklist into the trash by its nature alone. Their arbitrary nature seems at odds with... well, characters and people. Characters are allowed to not know what they want, for sure. I do think that either maintaining or deviating from a status quo can be found in the vast majority of stories, though. And like you mentioned, those tend to be the core components of conflict. Congratulations on being a married man with 2 children (1 incipient), by the way. It's a damn fine accomplishment for someone just winging it. Is it straight to NASA if you stop just winging it?
For sure not everyone knows what they want, or else what they think they want is not really what they want (or need?). I think having a character discover what they really want would make for a compelling character arc. That would call for some self-discovery and personal growth.
What's all this about characters needing to know what they want? I've never heard of that one. They just need to want something, even if that's hard to define. It might be a sense of purpose, or to know what they want (or what they need). Maybe it's just hedonistic pleasure, or to be free of all constraints. Or to just drift through life without having any goal. But they don't have to understand what they want, some characters don't. It's more like they're trying to discover what they want (or what they should want). Be careful not to interpret these instructions (in writing books and checklists etc) too literally or in too simplistic of a way. Doing that will result in simplistic predictable stories.
That's why my thoughts are only to use them once the first draft is complete. They may be an imperfect tool, but if they can help focus what is already on the page, they give an avenue to sharpen the story and bring out the most compelling parts. Haven't they lost enough space shuttles already?!
Apologies. I misread that. worth exploring in more depth. If a character doesn’t know what they want, and still produces conflict, why? Could be they are self-deceiving, making up justifications for their actions. Like someone may be evasive with the cops without any stakes in the outcome of the investigation, because they think police are power hungry barbarians, but in reality that is just a justification. Maybe the truth is the resent authority because foster dad was super strict. What other ways can someone produce compelling conflict without an immediate grasp of their motives?
If it wasn't clear, I made several suggestions above. That's what I was talking about, a character who doesn't seem to understand what they're after but just seems to be drifting through life. I dont' think every character needs to understand what they're after, and the author might noe through a first draft or so, but I listed several sort of indefined wants that might make a character seem shiftless.
Or sometimes it can be -- we might think we know what we want but what we really want is .... Which reminds me of Romancing the Stone - Joan Wilder, the mousy romance writer - she wants a man like the hunk she created in her books - Jesse. And deep down she thinks that's what she really wants - and it kinda is. But near the beginning of the movie she's pestered by street venders and can't shake them, neither can she stand up to her publisher. The real desire seems to be more apparent to the viewer than to Joan. In order for her to get her hunk she's going to have to take the dangerous scenario she's thrust into and become like her heroines. Only through gumption and courage will she ever hold the interest of her Jesse figure - Jack. It's something she doesn't know she wanted but we see the result at the end of the movie when she breezes past the pushy vendors with a smile. In wanting a romantic figure she had to become the heroine which is probably what she deep, deep, down she wanted.
