As an editor, I always do this exercise in the editing process. But you can do this in your planning process before you write your book to. Take some time before you begin your first draft to ask yourself, what does your protagonist once and what does your protagonist need? And as you write your way through your first draft, you can always come back to your answers, to those questions, to help guide you as you discover the story. Welcome to your next draft.
In this episode, I'm going to give you a simple character development exercise that will enable you to craft a compelling arc for your protagonist and create a really satisfying climax and resolution of your novel. This is an exercise that I do every time that I edit a book. When a writer sends me a manuscript and asks for my feedback, the two questions I'm going to share in this episode are at the top of my mind, the whole time that I'm reading the manuscript.
And this is an exercise that I do with writers when I'm on a call and sharing my feedback with them. I'll usually come with some notes that I've taken on. What I think based on reading their manuscripts. But before I share the ideas that I came up with, I walked the writer through this exercise, through these two questions to see what ideas they have in mind. It's a simple exercise. Like I said, it's just two questions.
But you must know the answers to both questions in order to craft a really excellent character art and deliver a satisfying climax and resolution of your story. In fact, I'll go ahead and tell you the questions now. First. What does your character want? And second. What does your character need? That's it. It sounds simple. Right. But I'm telling you. The discussions that I have with writers around these two questions are so illuminating.
And they can really clarify exactly what a writer is aiming to do with their book. So for the next few minutes, I'm going to break these questions down. And I'm going to show you how I'd answer them for an example, novel. And then I'm going to give you some suggestions for how to find what your character wants and needs in your novel. The novel that I've chosen for this episode. Is the last graduate by Naomi Novik. I absolutely love this book.
It's the second book and Naomi Novik scholar limits trilogy, which begins with a deadly education. I think all three books are fantastic. Why fantasy novels and Naomi Novik does so many things so well in them. And one of the things she does well is establishing her protagonist, wants and needs, which are incredibly clearly illustrated in the last graduate, especially. As always, I'm not aiming to share spoilers in this episode, but in order to explore once and needs effectively.
I might have to step into some spoiler-y territory. And I'll tell you why that is. Because I actually think understanding this will go a long way towards illuminating how your characters wants and needs, impact the story. When your protagonist walks onto the first page of your story, they have a goal. It's a specific, external thing that they want to get or achieve. By external. I mean, it's a physical, literal thing in the real world.
Not something in their mind or something about their way of thinking. You can identify what they want. They're external goal pretty quickly. Now their exact goal might change in the first act. Once the inciting incident happens. I recently saw avatar way of water. And in the very first minute of the movie, the protagonist Jake Sully's goal is to live a peaceful life with his family in the forest.
Depen, Dora. Early in the movie, the human invaders returned to Pandora and his goal changes from live peacefully in the forest with my family to fight the invaders, to protect my family. And then it changes again to flee from the forest and live with the sea people in order to protect my family. At the beginning on the very first minute of the movie. His goal is not so much protection as just enjoying a peaceful life. But once the inciting incident happens, that goal has to change.
Now I actually think that avatar way of water was a really terribly plotted movie. And I'm a little appalled that I just used it as an example on this podcast. But it does illustrate how the external goal of the protagonist can be one thing at the opening of the story and then change to something else when the inciting incident happens, which is the point that I want to make here. Your protagonist's external goal will be very clear at the beginning of your book.
Your protagonist's need, however, is a little bit different. Their need is internal. It's something that needs to shift in their way of thinking in order to be successful in your novel. The thing is we, humans don't want to shift the way that we think we don't like to shift the way that we think it's uncomfortable and unpleasant, no one walks onto the first page of a book.
Thinking the things that I believe about myself in the world are wrong and I need to change them and believe something better in order to be successful. No. In fact pressure to change feels like a threat. Your protagonist, isn't looking for it. And they may even think that it's a bad thing when they first encounter it. So many times the characters need is a lot less obvious at the beginning of a story, it's there for sure.
But while your reader can name on page one or can name within the first act. What it is that the character consciously wants. Your reader might not be able to identify as clearly within the first act. What internal need is getting in the way of your characters success. After all your character probably can't articulate it either. In the beginning of your story, your character believes that they're thinking the right things about the world. They're not trying to change what they think.
They're just trying to get what they want. Thin throughout the middle of the story. We see the character continually not achieve that external goal because something about their internal way of thinking. Just isn't working. Their internal need is getting in the way, but it may take them a long time to acknowledge that. The place where we see the need most clearly is actually in the last third to the last quarter of the story.
That's usually the point when the character actually has to make the change. To shift what they think and believe in order to be successful. And because they do make that shift because they finally meet that internal need. Then they're able to go into the climax and hopefully also achieve their external ones. And that's why a discussion of wants and needs can kind of step into spoiler territory because the want is evident in the story very quickly.
But while the need is also an important part of the story from the very beginning, it's a lot more subtle. And it's actually connected to the solution of the whole book. It's a critical part of the way that the protagonist ultimately solves their problem in the climax of the book. But you're not listening to this podcast because you're afraid of spoilers. You're listening to this podcast to learn from other great novels and gain tools that you can use to edit your own fantastic story.
So let's dive into Naomi Novick's novel, the last graduate and see the wants and needs at play there. Let's stop talking about a movie that I don't think is very good. And go talk about a book that I think is fantastic instead. First a little context. The skull immense trilogy is about teenagers. Who are students at a magical boarding school. But this boarding school is more like a prison.
All magical teenagers are sent to this school because if they stay in the outside world, a bunch of nasty, magical creatures called Malika Caria. We'll eat them. Inside the school. There's survival rate through puberty goes up significantly, although they're also still in major danger. And the most dangerous point in their educational career is graduation.
That's when the senior class sprints across a hall, that's full of waiting now for Caria and anyone who can make it to the doors and out of the school survives and anyone who can't get eaten. So that's a moment when the survival rate of the school goes down significantly. The last graduate is about our protagonist L during her senior year at the skull limits. She's preparing for graduation and she survived the first three years of her high school career.
By following the sort of unspoken code around the scholar mats. She takes care of herself. And no one else. She is always on alert. She's always watching for something that can kill her. She doesn't take unnecessary risks and she doesn't stick out her neck to help anyone else. So that's how she plans to survive graduation. She'll make a strategic Alliance with a couple of other similarly minded students, and then they'll look out for each other and no one else.
That's our starting point for the story, which is a great time to talk about once what this Al Bont. She wants to survive graduation. A nice, straightforward, external golf, stay alive, make it out of the school. Now. What about her need? In order to be successful in this book. In order to achieve her goal. L needs. To acknowledge and embrace her interdependence. This has two facets to it. First. She must expand her investment beyond her own survival.
She has to learn to care for other people in the school. First, her immediate allies and friends. And then the younger students who are right next to her in the same classes as her. And then all the English speaking students in the school. And then literally everyone. She has to go from seeking her own survival to seeking everyone's survival. And the second part of interdependence. Is that she must ask for help.
She has to offer help to other people and she must acknowledge her own limitations to other people and ask them to help her and trust them to do so. There are a lot of layers here. But it all boils down to interdependence. She has to go from her fierce, determined independence to embracing her interdependence within a community. That's her need. There is no guarantee that if she remained independent, that she would be able to make it out of the school alive.
If she remained independent, she definitely would never be able to keep more than a couple of other people safe. But by addressing her need. By embracing her interdependence in some pretty radical ways. She is not only able to succeed at attaining her once. But to go far beyond it. And that results in a brilliant climax that's full of conflict with just sky high stakes. By the end, we're not just wondering will El will make it out of the school alive.
We're wondering will every single student in the scholar Mance make it out alive. Can L get them out. And if she does, can she survive what it takes in order to do it? I won't tell you exactly how the story ends, because again, I'm not aiming to spoil it all for you. But I do think that this book is a fantastic illustration of the intersection between character wants and character needs. Plus it's a ton of fun. I highly recommend it.
Now. Before we wrap up, I want to give you a few tips on how to identify your character's wants and needs. Tip number one. Answer these questions one at a time and take a few minutes to ponder each question. First ask yourself, what's your protagonist once. Can you identify their external goal? What is their external goal on page one of your book? What is their external goal? Once the inciting incident happens. Then ask yourself what your protagonist needs.
What are they getting wrong about the way that they see the world? Or about the way that they see themselves. What's holding them back from being completely successful throughout the middle of the story. And what empowers them to be successful in the climax. Tip number two. Brainstorm several ideas for each question. When I'm answering these questions, I like to brainstorm a few ideas. I make a list of probably three to seven different wants that. I see a character pursuing throughout his story.
Then I make a list of three to seven different needs that I see. Usually I'll notice that several of these ideas circle the same general themes. So then that becomes a clue that maybe that theme is what's really the wants or the need. Or when I notice a general theme, it'll spark more ideas for what the wants or needs could be. And then I'll land on the thing that really works for the story.
Ultimately, you're looking for one want and one need and together, those two things will drive the whole story. But it can be really helpful to write down any possibilities that you can think of. And thin narrow things down from there to identify the one ultimate once and one ultimate need. Tip number three. Think about how your character changes over the course of your story. This exercise of identifying your characters wants and needs.
Pairs really nicely with another character development exercise that I shared on the podcast a few weeks ago. That one was about crafting your character's arc. By identifying who they are at the beginning of your story and who they are at the end. I actually ask the questions from this episode and the questions from that episode. Every time that I edit a novel. And I recommend that you do the same.
So after you listened to this episode, go listen to two essential questions to craft a compelling character arc. And go ahead and grab the character arc worksheet that I created for that episode. It will prompt you to describe your character at the beginning and at the end of your story. And that'll give you some clues to work with to identify their wants and needs. You can grab that worksheet. At Alice sedler.com/character worksheet. And that link is also in the show notes.
So it's really easy to find. Tip number four. Think about what makes your protagonist unique? And uniquely able to be successful in the climax of your story. What is it that your character brings to the table that no one else can. Why are they able to succeed? When everyone around them would fail. Okay, this can be another clue about what your character strength is at the end of the book. Which might be connected to what they need to grow into throughout the course of the book.
And tip number five. As an editor, I always do this exercise in the editing process. But you can do this in your planning process before you write your book to. Take some time before you begin your first draft to ask yourself, what does your protagonist once and what does your protagonist need? And as you write your way through your first draft, you can always come back to your answers, to those questions, to help guide you as you discover the story. And there you have it.
One of my favorite character development exercises. Identifying your protagonists once and your protagonists need. Before we wrap up, I want to give you an assignment to do right now. I want you to pull out a piece of paper and a pin. Or a document on your computer. Or the notes app on your phone? Whatever's handy. And then I want you to make two lists. The first one is called once. And the second one is called need.
And I want you to write under those two headings, five ideas about your protagonist, five things that your protagonist wants, and then five things that your protagonist meets. Once you have that. Can you narrow those two lists down to one thing each one wants and one need. That is going to be absolutely key for creating narrative drive in your story. And paying off the whole thing with an incredible climax and resolution.
And while you're in this character development exercise, don't forget to download the character arc worksheet for a second exercise that will help you craft your best character arc. Grab that worksheet at Alice. dot com slash character worksheet. And that's it for this episode. I hope you have a lot of fun with this exercise. I always do. And I hope it sparks some great ideas for your character development and character arcs. One more thing before I go, if you're enjoying your next draft.
And you're listening on apple podcasts. Would you mind leaving a rating and review? I read every review and I love seeing what's helpful to you and what you're applying to your editing so that I can create more episodes that are really useful to you. Plus ratings and reviews, help more writers find the podcast, which means more writers, learning how to edit their books. Well, which means more fantastic stories getting published into the world.
And I think that's the goal that we can all get behind. You can leave a review in apple podcasts by searching for the, your next draft podcast. Tapping your next draft. Scrolling all the way to the bottom. And then tap, write a review, tap the number of stars you'd like to give. And then write a brief review and tap, send your review. Doesn't have to be long. Even one sentence means a whole lot. You'll hear another mention of reviews and the Alto music of this episode.
And I apologize for the repetition. But I just wanted to say a little bit more about how much I appreciate every single review and how you can leave one. And while we're at it. I want to give a quick shout out to listener X, K E D N I S, who left this review this week? There are lots of podcasts or writers, but not a lot about the revision process. Good news. Alice takes this on and wait for it. Loves revision.
I especially appreciated the real-time developmental editing session with Kim Kessler. It opened my eyes to how flexible I can be with a scene brainstorming alternatives and making choices that best serve the story. Thank you so much for your kind words. And that's one of my favorite parts of that episode too.
And my favorite parts about the editing process, when you identify what your story is really about, and then you can brainstorm all kinds of possibilities to adjust the story in tons of creative ways in order to communicate that ultimate idea and feeling. So I love that you heard that in that episode. All right. I'll wrap us up here. So you can go complete the character development exercise that I talked about in this episode. You'll find me here next week with a new episode of your next draft.
Until then. Happy editing.