Writing Tip: The Difference Between a Character’s Want and Need

One is a conscious goal. The other is an unconscious goal.

I am currently teaching my Core III: Character course, a one-week online class. In one of my lectures, I explore the use of Want and Need in relation to several memorable movie Protagonists.

[Note: Want and Need are not my language system, as far as I know, those concepts in terms of character development have been around for many years. I find them to be helpful tools, so I use them in my teaching.]

One of the examples I cite in the lecture is the movie Slumdog Millionaire (2008). At the emotional core of that film is love story between Jamal and Latika. Here is the IMDb plot summary:

A Mumbai teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

In my lecture, I stated this:

What does Jamal want: To reunite with Latika.
What does Jamal need: To embrace the role of Fate in his life.

One of the people taking the class asked this:

Why is winning the game show considered the Protagonist’s need in Slumdog Millionaire instead of reuniting with Latika? Since winning the game is the Protagonist’s active goal, I thought it would be considered a want.

Here is my response:

Concepts like Want and Need are malleable by nature. For example, your take — Jamal wants to win Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and needs to be with Latika — is a plausible one. After all, it seems clear that Latika is an Attractor character in relation to Jamal as she is intimately connected to Jamal’s emotional life.

I tend to look at Need a bit differently. I think there are layers of Need and the key to understanding the Protagonist and their journey is to dig down through all of them until you hit their deepest Need of all. In other words, what is really driving them into and through their journey? I call this deepest Need a character’s unconscious goal. In one way of looking at it, that unconscious goal is the reason why this story exists. It’s Dorothy learning “there’s no place like home” in The Wizard of Oz. It’s Michael learning “I was a better man as a woman than I was as a man” in Tootsie. It’s Luke Skywalker learning to “go with your feelings” and relying on the Force within in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. In all three of these cases, as with countless others, the very thing they realize at the end of their journey is something which has been inside their self all along.

Given that frame, if we think of the purest form of a character’s Want as their conscious goal, then in my view at least, finding Latika and being with her represents that. There’s nothing unconscious about it. He’s been in love with since they were children. In fact, he seeks to play Who Wants to Be a Millionaire precisely because of that Want: To use the popular TV show to somehow reach and eventually find her.

In truth, he doesn’t care about winning the game. He cares about “winning” in love by reuniting with Latika. But in order to win the game, he goes deeper and deeper into his own past. The series of questions he answers is a kind of therapy session forcing him to look back on his life. And in that process, he claims his deepest need: That Fate dictates he and Latika will be together. He has felt that all along, but never acted on it. Looking back on his life during the course of the gam and seeing how Fate has been at work in his life … Latika’s life … his brother’s life … he becomes aware of his unconscious goal and embraces it. He has felt all along that he and Latika should be together. By participating in the game, it transitions from “felt” to “know”: he knows that Fate will bring them together.

Hence, his Need: to trust in what he’s known all along and act on that trust. Perhaps the most overt example of how Fate has worked in his life to bring he and Latika together is being chosen to play the game … and he chooses one right answer after another.

That’s my take. But as I say, the take you have laid out can work, too.

The main takeaway from this discussion, I think, is to explore this concept of unconscious goal, a character’s deepest … deepest need. It’s been there all along … it’s the reason why the story exists … it’s the answer to this question: Why does this story have to happen to this character at this time?

If you can discover a character’s unconscious goal, most importantly the Protagonist, you will have discovered what I call the Narrative Imperative: the fundamental reason why the story exists.

I hope you’ve found this helpful. Feel free to add any comments or observations you may have to continue the conversation.

Here are the two pivotal ending scenes in Slumdog Millionaire:

And why the hell not? Here is the dancing credit sequence!

In my book The Protagonist’s Journey, I do a deep dive into these ideas: Want as Conscious Goal, Need as Unconscious Goal, Narrative Imperative, and a lot more. If you want an autographed copy, go here.