Pinpointing what my Story Goal is

Question: I'm stuck at the moment on pinpointing what my story goal is. I thought a lot about it and I narrowed it down but I hope you can help me.

My main character is a 22 year old college student who is months away from his graduation. He started programming in Middle School and has progressed to do illegal hacking in his free time for years now. He is in a romantic relationship with his best friend and they are living together. She is doing an internship with a big company where she wanted to work for years now.

My MC decided that he needed to stop all his illegal activities and get a legal job (which he finds boring and unfulfilling) because he can't imagine a happy future with his partner while continuing with the Hacking.

The story will be about his journey to change jobs and to find happiness with his partner. There are three other important characters (besides the partner), who are also all trying to work out what will make them happy/which job they want to do. One restaurant owner, one literature major and one fellow student from the MC who left his hometown to study in the capitol.

There are a lot of complications on the way and the MC will make the decision at the crisis (or around the crisis) that he can only ensure a safe life for his partner if he continues to do Hacking. He sacrifices his own happiness to keep her safe, therefore abandoning his goal of having a happy future together. (There is an antagonist, a fellow hacker, who doesn't accept that the MC wants to get out and he starts blackmailing him. He also threatens the girlfriend of the MC. Therefore the antagonist has to be stopped and it only works with illegal means)

A short while later it is revealed that the girlfriend already knew about his illegal activities and didn't plan on leaving him for it. She quits her job (there is a plausible explanation but it isn't important for my question) and joins the effort to stop the antagonist. Their friends help with that.

They manage to stop the antagonist and decide to start together a team, which uses illegal means to do good things (like Robin Hood, or Leverage). They are both (all) happy with this decision and the purpose it gives their lives.

That far I'm quite happy with my idea and I think it will work.

My problem is pinpointing what the Story Goal is. Because it keeps switching. I would say the goal of the MC is "Making sure that his partner has a happy life". But that goal wouldn't really involve the other characters. They do help with stopping the antagonist but not with the goal of getting a happy life for the girlfriend.

My other idea is "Finding a purpose in life/finding a fulfilling job". That one does fit for all the characters - except for the MC. Because for most of the novel he tries to let go of his passion and the job that enjoys him to change to something safe and boring. So I can't really say that he would drive forward to reach the goal of "finding a fulfilling job".

Generally I think it could be a case of the MC thinks he is trying to reach one goal (getting a happy life with his girlfriend together) and realizes midway that what he really wants or need to do is another one (making sure she is happy, even if that means loosing her).

I hope you can help me getting insight into this problem.

At the moment I can't even say if I'm writing a Comedy or a Tragi-Comedy - therefore I don't know how to set up the signposts.

Thank you very much for this website and all the useful information on it.

S.

Response: Hi S.

I agree there is potential here for a good story.

The first tip I'll mention is that when you don't know what your story goal is, it can help to ask what the consequence is. What catastrophe will result if the protagonist fails? What would the worst possible ending look like? The story goal will then be the opposite.

In the case of your story, it sounds like the consequence will be that the antagonist would carry out his threat against the girlfriend (she being an innocent victim of the protagonist's life of crime). So the goal must be to prevent that from happening, and the protagonist is willing to sacrifice his own happiness to protect her.

So far so good?

The main character's purpose of "finding a purpose or a fulfilling job" sounds like the symptom. It's what he thinks he wants, but not what he really needs. More on the real solution in a moment.

The typical structure of a four-act dramatic arc is...

setup --> complications --> move to crisis --> move to resolution

The crisis (the turning point at the end of the third act) is the point which looks "the darkest before the dawn." It's the point where the heroes look certain to fail and everything looks hopeless.

My suggestion (take it as food for thought) is that the crisis should be the moment when the protagonist, having run out of options, willingly sacrifices his own future happiness with his girlfriend in order to protect her from the antagonist. Maybe he agrees to a terrible deal -- like undertaking work for serious criminals that will mean never seeing his girlfriend again.

However, after that moment a new option arises that he hadn't foreseen. Perhaps this is where the girlfriend and his other friends, rather than write off the protagonist, rally to his aid and he realizes his mistake was thinking he had to solve the problem on his own. They then form a plan to work as a team to take down the antagonist -- which will happen in act four.

In other words, the protagonist will realize he's been going about things all wrong. The real solution to his problem wasn't finding a new occupation but making his current occupation as a hacker more fulfilling by working with his friends rather than being a lone wolf.

Note that it is important that the protagonist achieve the goal by his own efforts. His friends can't do it for him, but they can help him.

This would constitute a happy ending.

The team's further "Robin Hood" activities could be the subject of a sequel or longer series.

Of course, these are just suggestions I'm making based on what you've told me of the story. You may, after reflection come up with something even better.

Best of luck.

Popular Articles

---