“To touch readers on an emotional level, you’ll need your main characters to desire something your readers also desire.” Steven James from Story Trumps Structure.
Today, as I stood in line to vote, I read a craft book. After about fifteen minutes, I casted my vote and felt satisfied that this election is almost over.
More than any election, I’ve wrestled with a vast array of questions, especially about myself. What do I want? Why do I want this particular candidate to become president? Why do people want the other candidate to win?
Over time, my desires for particular policies have changed. I have fundamental policies that I adhere to, but other issues I’m still milling over. And as I understand our government, learn more about these issues, and as my roles change, I might change my views. And I might even change my priority over certain issues as well.
Our characters undergo changes and transformations as well. They start off with a deep desire but over the course of our story, their desire might change. And your readers want to follow our character’s journey in pursuing this desire and the transformation it brings.
Thus, every fiction writer should ask their character, “What do you want?” Then allow their protagonist to change as they pursue their deepest desire. Like my changing desires for certain policies, our characters gain knowledge, face adversity, and expand their world view as external and internal forces press hard on their lives.
Katniss Everdeen is one of those compelling characters who alters her desires. In the beginning of the Hunger Games series, her desire is simple: provide for her family. This escalates at the annual Reaping when her younger sister gets selected and Katniss volunteers as tribute.
Now, Katniss is focused on surviving the Games. But within the Games, as she’s exposed to the Capital and other District tributes, she expands her parochial world view. She understands the higher stakes involved and wants liberation from the oppression of the Capital.
Because of her acts of rebellion, she unwittingly becomes the symbol of Resistance (she’s called the mockingjay) and now thrust into the war against the Capital. Eventually, she fights as a soldier with the Resistance and becomes the prime target for President Snow as they engage in their own chess match.
By the third book, Mockingjay, her desire is to personally kill President Snow. This fuels her to defy orders, march upon the palace, and fight against mounting odds.
But when Primrose dies, Katniss’s desire changes. She isn’t as driven to kill Snow, but wants peace. She kills President Coin, ending the bloodbath between the Capital and the Districts.
Gale and Peeta symbolize her evolving desires. In the beginning of the series, Gale is her best friend. They both hunt in the woods, learn to survive together, and provide for their families. He’s the fiery side of her personality.
“His rages seem pointless to me, although I never say so. It’s not that I don’t agree with him. I do. But what good is yelling about the Capital in the middle of the woods? It doesn’t change anything. It’s doesn’t make things fair. It doesn’t fill our stomachs. It fact, it scares off the game. I let him yell though.” (Excerpt from Hunger Games).
But she ends up with Peeta, representing her compassionate, hopeful, and peaceful side that she had hardened through the years under the Capital’s oppression. Primrose, her younger sister, also represents this aspect of Katniss too.
“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.” (Katniss in Mockingjay.)
Yes, I did cast my vote, but like Katniss, I will probably change my stand on certain policies as I transform, discover truths, and even experience different roles and people in my life. Hopefully, as an author, I can properly learn how to show my characters’ evolution as well. After all, our readers want to follow characters who have desires they can relate to.