Desire, Part 1
Stories are the dreams we are too afraid to live . . .
Desire can be superficial and shallow (“I want ice cream!”). Desire can be hidden or suppressed (“I don’t want to admit, even to myself, what I really want”). There are internalized desires that are socially rewarded (“I should want to be a lawyer because my parents are professionals, and society rewards lawyers”). There are primal desires: to love, to create, to rebel, to dominate, to fear, to fight, to lust, to eat, to hide, to protect, to nurture.
Humans share many of these primal desires, and this spectrum of shared primal desire allows us to identify, in part, with humans on the other side of the world, in the distant past, and even in the very distant future.
Desire is hard for people. It’s hard to admit those private, personal, substantive desires that have to do with what you love to do, which we might call a calling to do a certain kind of work. You feel an impulse inside you, an urge to act in the world, a need to speak, write, paint, play, create, pretend, sing, teach, serve. And when you respond to that calling to do that work, you feel transformed. Transformative work is difficult and rewarding, and you want more of it.
Teaching. Who wouldn’t want more of this? I guess I do. Go figure.
But it’s hard for people to answer their personal callings, because we internalize social callings, and they’re so loud and insistent — social callings to work, that is, of the types that current society values. Investment bankers are paid more than teachers . . . way, way more.
Who in their right and reasonable economic mind would respond to the calling to be a teacher or a singer, an actor or a firefighter, a factory worker or a therapist? It’s illogical, economically and socially.
And we in our own lives are often too weak to fight for our own callings, so weak that we might even feel relief as we surrender to social valuations. We are so self-conscious that we can use our self-consciousness against ourselves and talk ourselves into becoming (or trying our damnedest to become) investment bankers (or the equivalent).
We can identify with others, and we can identify with ourselves. We can respond to obligations (the desires of others), and we can respond to callings (the desires of ourselves).
The dark side of compassion is that we can identify with the needs of a family, a tribe, a society, even as it hurts us. We can hurt ourselves to help others, and we can refuse to consider the paradox: if everyone is hurting themselves, who are we helping?
The dark side of self-consciousness is that we can will ourselves to take action against ourselves. We can overpower our genuine desires. We can rationalize ourselves to death.
This is why fictional characters with strong desires are so cathartic to watch or listen to or read about. These characters are so driven by desires that they will stop at nothing to realize them!
“The dramatist needs not only characters who are willing to put up a fight for their convictions. He needs characters who have the strength, the stamina, to carry this fight to its logical conclusion.” ◢ Lajos Egri, The Art of Dramatic Writing (1942)
“First, define the dramatic need of your character. What does your character want? What is his/her need? What drives him to the resolution of the story?” ◢ Syd Field, Screenplay (1984)
“In one kind of adventure, the hero sets out responsibly and intentionally to perform the deed. For instance, Odysseus’ son Telemachus was told by Athena, ‘Go find your father.’ That father quest is a major hero adventure for young people. That is the adventure of finding what your career is, what your nature is, what your source is.” ◢ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth (1988)
Desire = de•sire = “of the father”
“What are you questing after? What do you hope to find?” ◢ Viki King, How to Write a Movie in 21 Days (1988)
“Screenwriting is a craft based on logic. It consists of the assiduous application of several very basic questions: What does the hero want? What hinders him from getting it? What happens if he does not get it?” ◢ David Mamet, On Directing Film (1991)
“Near the beginning of most well-constructed screenplays, the author directs our attention strongly toward one of the characters. The writer does this principally by showing this person, the protagonist, in the grip of some strong desire, some intense need, bent on a course of action from which he is not to be deflected. He wants something — power, revenge, a lady’s hand, bread, peace of mind, glory, escape from a pursuer. Whatever it may be, some kind of intense desire is always present.” ◢ Howard and Mabley, The Tools of Screenwriting (1993)
“Heroes have qualities that we all can identify with and recognize in ourselves. They are propelled by universal drives that we can all understand: the desire to be loved and understood, to succeed, survive, be free, get revenge, right wrongs, or seek self-expression.” ◢ Christopher Volger, The Writer’s Journey (1998)
“Primal, primal, primal! Once you’ve got the hero, the motivation for the hero to succeed must be a basic one. What does X want? Well, if it’s a promotion at work, it better damn well be related to winning the hand of X’s beloved or saving up enough money to get X’s daughter an operation. And if it’s a match-up with an enemy, it better well lead to a life-or-death showdown, not just a friendly spit-ball fight.” ◢ Blake Snyder, Save the Cat (2005)
“Need has to do with overcoming a weakness within the character. A hero with a need is always paralyzed in some way at the beginning of the story by his weakness. Desire is a goal outside the character. Once the hero comes up with his desire, he is moving in a particular direction and taking actions to reach his goal.” ◢ John Truby, The Anatomy of Story (2007)
“What makes us care about the hero is that he wants something. The greater the stakes, the more invested our audience will be. The want should be primal, something to which everyone can relate. What does our hero want: respect, wealth, love, revenge, purpose, freedom, validation, fame, all of the above? Our protagonist’s want is the engine that drives the story.” ◢ Alan Watt, The 90-day Screenplay (2014)
I look up to those writers who shared the wisdom of their experience.
Critics may complain certain fictional characters aren’t realistic, and writers who listen to that complaint might compose static stories about realistic people who, realistically, have weak desires and do very little. And this kind of story may feel more realistic because characters without strong desires reflect how most people are . . . which is why we write stories in the first place . . . to imagine characters driven by desires in a world beyond the lame realism of our as-is human moment.
In dreams, we pursue our desires. In life, we temper our desires by deferring to others.
Stories are the dreams we are too afraid to live . . . yet.
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PHOTO: Jack, my brother’s cat, sleeps on my newspaper and laptop. How strong is my desire to write? Will I move Jack or wait until he’s done napping? I’ll wait.
