Chapter 9. Goals and Conflict: Want, Need, and the Lie They Believe

In the last chapter, we built the chain of flaw, lack, and trauma. The first part of the character’s driving force was planted. Today, we address its second part—goals—and conflict, the stage that puts those two parts into motion, in a single chapter.

Goals and conflict are a pair: without a goal, conflict is impossible; without conflict, a goal has no meaning. If only one side is built, the other becomes weak, so they are grouped in one chapter.

Today we cover the mismatch between external and internal goals, the three lines of Want, Need, and Lie, three kinds of character arc, eight kinds of conflict, five kinds of stakes, and five kinds of Fun Engine. It may look like a great deal, but it is all one chain.

A Story Without Change Is Not a Story

First, let us establish the stance.

People who create characters often want those people not to change. Change is risky. A character may break in the course of changing, or move into territory the writer cannot control. So writers want to keep characters somewhere safe.

That feeling is understandable. But a story without change is not a story. If a person stays in the same place, they no longer live and move; and a person who does not live and move cannot live in a work either. Character change is necessary precisely because it lies beyond the writer’s control.

Change comes from conflict. Conflict comes from a blocked goal. When a goal is blocked, a person must decide, and at the moment of decision they change. This causality—goal → blockage → decision → change—is the workflow of this stage.

Four Questions for an External Goal

The first goal exercise is to define an external goal: what the character consciously wants, a tangible goal observable from outside.

Define the external goal with four questions.

1. What do they want?
2. Why do they want it? (one decisive reason)
3. What is the price of getting it?
4. What will they be like after they win it?

The four questions look simple, but they determine the texture of a work. Even with the same external goal, the second question—why—makes the person different. If two people have the external goal “I want to be rich,” but one is driven by the trauma of a poor childhood and the other by wounded pride after being dismissed, they will take different paths toward the same goal.

M’s external goal:

1. What: Identify the corpse on which her mother’s wedding ring was found.
2. Why: She wants to know her mother’s final moments. She wants to confirm where thirty years of absence went.
3. Price: Violating the autopsy procedure. The risk of losing her professional standing.
4. After winning: Someone who knows her mother’s last moments. Someone no longer qualified to remain beside the dead for the next thirty years.

Once the four questions are filled in, the texture of the external goal gathers in one place. The fourth question asks us to look ahead to what the person will be when the goal is attained. It is the starting point for the later mismatch of Want, Need, and Lie.

These four questions are a section that can be worked through with an AI work partner. Give it the seed, flaws, and trauma, and it can produce a first pass. The producer reviews it.

Internal Goal

Once the external goal is set, build the internal goal. If the external goal is observable from outside, the internal goal is the destination toward which the person’s inner life truly moves.

State the internal goal in one line.

M’s internal goal: To accept her mother’s absence; to leave absence in the place of absence, in its own shape.

This internal goal clashes with the external goal—finding out her mother’s last moments. M consciously wants to find out what happened to her mother, yet what she truly needs is the posture of accepting absence without knowing those final moments. That mismatch drives M throughout the work.

After establishing the internal goal, decide which stage the person occupies in relation to it.

There are four stages. In the confrontation stage, they do not even know the internal goal. In the acceptance stage, they know it but cannot accept it. In the will-to-resolve stage, they accept it but have little will to resolve it. In the method-of-resolution stage, they have the will but do not know how.

Decide which stage the character occupies at the start of the work. The stage to which they move by the end becomes the work’s pattern of change.

M: She begins in the confrontation stage (she does not even recognize that she has lived thirty years unable to accept her mother’s absence). She ends in the will-to-resolve stage (the will to accept emerges, though she still does not know how). The distance between these two stages is the work’s range of change.

Want / Need / Lie

Put the external and internal goals together, and three lines emerge.

Want (external) is what the character consciously says they want. Need (internal) is what they truly need, usually without recognizing it. Lie (the lie they believe) is a false belief the character holds about themself and the world.

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge consciously wants to accumulate every possible penny (Want). Yet after what the ghosts show him, what he truly needs is not wealth but connection with people and a warm meal (Need). When the desire proclaimed outwardly diverges from the true need starved within, that gap keeps a character moving to the end. The ending of a well-built story usually fulfills Need rather than Want. Remy in Ratatouille is similar: he consciously wants recognition as a great chef (Want), but what he truly needs is to live according to his talent without being intimidated by his origin as a rat (Need).

Close-up · Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2 Arthur Morgan in the game Red Dead Redemption 2 is a loyal enforcer in an outlaw gang. What he consciously wants (Want) is the gang’s survival and loyalty to its leader. But as he dies of tuberculosis, what he truly needs (Need) is to let go of the Lie, “I am a bad man, and that is all I am,” and use his remaining time rightly. His final days offer a textbook character arc in which he follows Want, the Lie collapses, and he reaches Need.

The essence of a character arc is one sentence: the process of breaking the Lie and reaching the Need. Want is the bait. While a character runs toward Want, the Lie begins to collapse; when the Lie breaks, Need becomes visible.

The three lines can be organized as follows.

M’s Want · Need · Lie:

Want: To identify the corpse on which her mother’s wedding ring was found
Need: To accept her mother’s absence in the very shape of absence
Lie: “If I do not know my mother’s last moments, she might still come back alive.”

E’s Want · Need · Lie:

Want: Kill the enemy commander
Need: Forgive herself for C’s death
Lie: “If I had been stronger, C would have lived.”

J’s Want · Need · Lie:

Want: Become a bestselling writer
Need: Not lose meaning in the act of writing itself
Lie: “A work has value only if it is entertaining.”

The three lines for the three people reveal that Want is bait and Lie is the real engine. M must break her Lie to reach her Need. As long as the Lie does not break, Want will be pursued without end and satisfaction will not arrive.

The first compression of these three lines can be drafted with an AI work partner. Give it the four external-goal questions, the internal goal, flaws, and trauma, and it can produce a first compression. The producer reviews it and finds the exact wording of the Lie. Because that one line is the work’s central engine, no one else can decide it in the producer’s place.

A Two-Part Reading of Need: Change for Self and Change for Others

After defining Want, Need, and Lie, add one more consideration: Need is in fact two kinds of need.

Background

This distinction was proposed by American screenwriting teacher John Truby.[^c9n1] It observes that when Need appears as a single line, two kinds of change are buried together inside it.

Purpose of Introduction

If one works only with a single line of Need, a character can end up focused only on self-change. Such a person may live within self-recognition but fail to live in relationships with others. Truby notes that strong characters carry both kinds of Need.

Psychological Need is change for oneself, directed toward self-recognition, self-esteem, and overcoming trauma. Moral Need is change for others, directed toward treating others better and making amends to those one has harmed.

Expected Effect

When both Needs are present, a character lives three-dimensionally between self and others. With Psychological Need alone, the character becomes self-centered; with Moral Need alone, they remain in the position of a saint for others without changing themself.

Apply this to M.

Psychological Need: Accept her mother’s absence in the very shape of absence (a change in her own posture)
Moral Need: Reveal herself to the colleague who has worked alongside her for thirty years, for the first time (a change in relationship)

The two Needs work as a pair. With self-change alone, the fact that M has worked alongside a colleague for thirty years loses meaning in the work. With relationship change alone, her posture toward her mother’s absence gets pushed into the background. M’s change becomes three-dimensional only when both Needs are present.

Place this breakdown at the end of the stage-8 goal exercise. After defining Want, Need, and Lie, unpack Need into two lines. Receive a first breakdown with an AI work partner, and let the producer adopt it.

Three Types of Character Arc

Once the three lines are in place, the person’s arc—the pattern of their change—can be decided. There are three patterns.

Character arc means the curve of inner change a person traces through a story. It is a trajectory that bends like an arc. Starting from a false belief and reaching truth is a growth arc; remaining trapped in a belief until collapse is a fall arc; changing the world while remaining oneself is a flat arc.

A Positive Change arc moves from recognizing the Lie, through refusal and crisis, to abandoning the Lie, adopting Truth, and attaining Need. A Flat arc begins with knowledge of Truth; the world changes as the character breaks its Lie. A Negative Change arc cannot break the Lie, or falls more deeply into it, moving toward tragedy and ruin.

Sunja in Min Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko crosses a generation carrying the desperate Want of “survival.” Over those long years, her Need slowly grows from enduring shame and holding on to existing openly without shame. It is a strong example of a growth arc unfolding across several generations, rather than a short change contained in one volume.

Which of the three patterns you choose determines the tone of the work.

M’s chosen arc: Positive Change. She begins by believing the Lie strongly; throughout the work it collapses, and at the end she abandons it and reaches Need.

E’s chosen arc: Negative Change. She cannot break the Lie to the end. Unable to save a seven-year-old hostage, she sinks further into self-punishment. A tragedy.

J’s chosen arc: Flat. J knows the Need from the beginning, but the outside world continually pulls J toward Want. What changes is not J but the world around J.

When three people have different arcs, their works have different tones: M’s is a recovery narrative, E’s a tragedy, and J’s a narrative of consistent self-consciousness. The same process gives the three people different fates.

Choosing an arc is the producer’s direct work. Because it determines the tone, genre, and ending of the work, no external tool can do it in the producer’s place.

Story Spine: A Seven-Line Compression

Once the three lines and arc are set, the person’s entire journey can be compressed into seven lines.

Once upon a time, [the character’s ordinary life].
Every day, [a repeated action or habit].
One day, [the inciting incident].
Because of that, [reaction 1].
Because of that, [reaction 2].
Until finally, [the climax].
And ever since that day, [the result of change].

These seven lines gather the character’s journey in the work into one place. Apply them to M.

Once upon a time, M had lived only beside corpses as a medical examiner with thirty years of experience.
Every day, whenever she touched the callus on a corpse’s finger on the autopsy table, she checked it once with the callus on her own index finger.
One day, her mother’s wedding ring lay quietly on the left index finger of a corpse.
Because of that, M broke procedure and put the ring in her own bag.
Because of that, M began looking into the private realm she had avoided for thirty years in order to identify the corpse.
Until finally, M learned that the corpse was not her mother. Her mother was still absent.
And ever since that day, M lived by leaving absence, in its own shape, in the place of her mother’s absence.

The seven lines compress M’s entire work onto one page. This compression becomes the footing for later five-act transitions and conflict design.

There are many tools for compressing a person’s journey into a few steps. Story Spine is a form organized by improvisational-theater writer Kenn Adams and widely known through its use by Pixar creators. Dan Harmon, creator of Rick and Morty, also offers the representative Story Circle. Trace this structure of “departure and return” furthest back, and it reaches mythologist Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey,” outlined in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: a universal structure in which a person leaves ordinary life, undergoes trials, changes, and returns. Many protagonists, such as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, leave home and return changed after adventure. The seven-line compression is a tool that reduces this larger structure to the size of one person.

The seven-line compression is a section that works well with an AI work partner. Give it the seed, the three lines, and the arc, and it can produce a first seven-line compression quickly. The producer reviews it.

Checking the Correspondence Between the Opening Lie and the Final Truth

After the seven-line compression, check whether the opening Lie and the final Truth correspond like a mirror. In Toy Story, “I must be the most loved toy” becomes “Love is not possession.” In Inside Out, “Joy is the only right emotion” becomes “Sadness is needed too.” In Up, “My journey is over” becomes “My journey is beginning now.” M’s Lie—“If I do not know my mother’s last moments, she might still come back alive”—corresponds to the Truth, “Even without knowing the last moments, I can live holding my mother’s absence.” It must not be a simple negation of the Lie, but a statement that sees the same problem with a different posture; only then is the character arc complete.

Eight Types of Conflict

Once the goal is set, build conflict. Conflict is blockage of the goal, so when the goal is known, the outline of conflict comes into view.

First, the external/internal division:

External conflict is conflict between tangible entities, such as person versus person or person versus environment. Internal conflict is conflict within one person.

The four external subdivisions are: individual vs. individual / individual vs. society / individual vs. fate / individual vs. nature.

We place the confrontation of eight types in a table.

The eight types are: 1. “what one believes is true vs. actual truth” (external); 2. “what one wants vs. what one has” (internal); 3. “what one wants vs. what others expect” (external); 4. “one’s own limitation” (internal); 5. “inner goal vs. outer goal” (integrated); 6. “fear vs. ultimate goal” (internal); 7. “opposing force” (external); 8. “opposing force vs. mercy” (external).

Adopt three to five of the eight types that apply to the character. There is no need to fill all of them. Three core types are enough.

M’s application of the eight types: Type 1 (believed truth vs. actual truth) is the conflict in which she has believed for thirty years that her mother is alive, while the ring on the corpse shakes that belief. Type 5 (inner vs. outer goal) is the conflict between outwardly identifying the corpse and inwardly needing to accept her mother’s absence. Type 6 (fear vs. ultimate goal) is the clash between the fear of learning her mother’s last moments and the ultimate goal of accepting absence.

These three types identify the core of M’s conflict. Receive a first assessment of the eight-type mapping with an AI work partner, and let the producer adopt it.

Five Kinds of Stakes

There is a tool for measuring the intensity of conflict: stakes, the type and amount of what a character can lose in a conflict.

They divide into five kinds.

The physical layer is survival, injury, and economic loss (an 18 kg pack, four hours of oxygen remaining). The professional layer is dismissal, disqualification, and loss of a license (the risk of losing one’s qualification as a medical examiner). The identity layer is the loss of a name or inability to classify one’s species (the collapse of self-identity). The relational layer is betrayal, complicity, or protection (the trust of a colleague of thirty years). The ontological layer is memory, dimension, or existence itself (the risk that one’s thirty-year posture toward life is nullified).

Strong conflicts place stakes on several layers at once. John McClane in Die Hard puts not only his own life (physical), but also the safety of his estranged wife (relational) and his pride as a police officer (identity), on the line at once. Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame faces the risk of losing love (relational), the bell tower that is his only refuge (ontological), and life (physical), all at once. Tension grows severalfold when there are multiple layers of loss rather than one.

Strong conflicts usually put stakes on three or more layers simultaneously. M’s stakes are as follows.

Physical: (not applicable)
Professional: Risk of losing her medical-examiner qualification through a procedural violation
Identity: Collapse of her identity as the “quiet witness” of the dead for thirty years
Relational: Having to reveal herself for the first time to a colleague who has worked alongside her for thirty years
Ontological: Risk that her entire thirty-year posture toward her mother’s absence will be nullified

M places stakes on four layers at once: the texture of strong conflict.

One-line core stake: “What M fears losing most is her right to remain beside the dead for thirty years.”

Map the five kinds of stakes in a first pass with an AI work partner, then have the producer review them.

Five Kinds of Fun Engine

If stakes capture the intensity of conflict, Fun Engine captures the fun of conflict. It classifies five kinds of entertainment engine that may operate in a work.

Buddy dynamics: the relationship between two people drives the narrative. The miracle of the concrete: worldbuilding mechanics create wonder. The aesthetics of paradox: logical contradiction becomes narrative force. The ticking time bomb: a time limit creates tension. Betrayal and reversal: a turn overturns expectation.

We recommend installing at least two of the five engines. Top-tier works have three or four. All five are overload and become distracting.

M’s Fun Engine:
- Aesthetics of paradox: The strength that has disguised weakness in order to remain beside the dead is ultimately exposed before her mother’s death.
- Ticking time bomb: By autopsy procedure, the corpse must be handed over to family within 24 hours. Its identity must be established before then.
- Betrayal and reversal: In the end, the corpse is not her mother. Her mother is still absent.

M has three engines installed: top-tier.

Make this mapping through a first assessment with an AI work partner, then let the producer adopt it.

Conflict → Change Transition

Finally, state in one passage how conflict leads to change.

M’s core conflict: The posture that seeks to know her mother’s last moments vs. the posture that leaves absence, in its own shape, in the place of absence.
Change: After learning that the corpse is not her mother, she sees the shape of her mother’s absence anew.
Direction: Positive Change Arc.
What she must endure: The nullification of her thirty-year posture; responsibility for violating procedure; revealing herself to a colleague for the first time.

This paragraph gathers the character’s entire driving force in one place. Every element built so far—Want, Need, Lie, arc, conflict, stakes—connects here as one flow.

Going Deeper: Supporting Tools (Optional)

Alongside the chapter’s core tools (Want, Need, Lie; arc; conflict, stakes, and Fun Engine), we have collected supporting tools to turn on only when you want to refine more precisely. You may skip them in an initial build.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (self-actualization, esteem, social, safety, physiological). Look at which stage the character’s Want belongs to. M and J are at the esteem stage; E is at the self-actualization stage.

Dan Harmon’s eight-stage Story Circle (You · Need · Go · Search · Find · Take · Return · Change). Check which stage of the journey the character occupies. A short story typically passes through stages 4–7; one volume of a novel passes through all stages 1–8.

Pixar’s 22 Rules (Emma Coats, 2011). Naming only those that connect directly to character: #6 (“Throw the polar opposite of what they’re good at”) belongs to stages 7 and 8; #16 (stakes) belongs to stage 9; and #19 (“Do not get characters out of trouble by coincidence”) is an absolute rule of stage-9 conflict. In particular, #19 is in the same vein as the Sexy Lamp Test in chapter 14: a principle for preserving character agency.

Next Chapter

Today’s chapter can be summarized this way. The three lines—external goal (Want), internal goal (Need), and the lie one believes (Lie)—determine a character’s driving force. The mismatch among them creates change in the work; the pattern of that change is built as an arc (Positive, Flat, or Negative). Conflict is classified into eight types; its intensity is measured by five kinds of stakes, and its fun by five kinds of Fun Engine.

By today, nine of the twelve stages are complete. Every part of the character’s driving force has been planted. From the next chapter, we enter the relationship network: the stage of placing that person among other people.

The next chapter is “The Five People Beside the Character.” A five-axis matrix for cast distribution, placing five people around one central character, is the core of that stage.

[^c9n1]: The two-part reading of Need is from John Truby, The Anatomy of Story (2007). The hero’s journey is based on Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and the 22 Rules on Pixar’s Emma Coats (2011).