Driving Need - Structure and Characterization

[BlackShanglan]

I've been slowly absorbing Adam Sexton's excellent "Master Course in Writing Fiction," and it came to me today that he'd incidentally shown what precisely is the problem with many erotic stories. He begins the book by discussing structure and suggests that the central structure of a good story is a definable, dramatically achievable (meaning you could see it being achieved or definitely failed) driving need of a central character. In "Finding Nemo," Nemo needs to get home and dad needs to find him; in "Hamlet" Hamlet needs to avenge his father's murder; in "The Hobbit" Bilbo needs to get to the dragon and succeed in stealing its treasure. You can have emotional/psychological needs too, but Sexton argues that to make something that is recognizably a story, you need that central physically enactable need.

There's a lot to his theory and it has really helped me to see how I keep running into problems with characters hanging about artistically being themselves and not going anywhere or accomplishing anything. It's also, I realized today, shown me what turns me off about many erotic stories, and what really, to me, differentiates "stroke" from "stories." In stroke, the characters all have the same driving need: they need to have sex. It's a basic human need, but it gets repetitive if that's all the characters need, and it doesn't generally develop their characters much because the other characters in the story have the same central need. That takes us into the idea of conflict shaping characterization, which is valid, but I think just the basic "what is my character's driving need?" goes quite far.

Thoughts? I looked through my own things and felt that the more clearly I had a non-sex need for the central character, the better I did indeed like the work. I also realized that the one story I took down had, indeed, no real central need other than "characters need to have sex and indulge their fetishes."

Shanglan

 

[rgraham666]

All my non-pieces-of-smut have a goal for the central character(s), although the goal is most often only known to me and is revealed through the story.

In The Gift the main character was bought out of her nearly anhedonic shell by the man she met at the beginning.

In Abyss the central character was drawn into a conflict of destruction (I can't say life and death as he's already dead ) that he has to survive.

In Ruby and Bill the central character has to cope with the emotions of losing her lover to a coma, worse than death as a coma is so uncertain.

OK, I'll start tooting my own horn now.

So I've usually got that structure. I guess it's because of all the reading I've done over the years. That's just how I've always believed a story should be put together.

 

[Pure]

i agree about driving need, but the corollary is that good stories have obstacles and surprises and don't always come out how you expect.

pornish erotica simply has a sequence of fulfillments, with most turns, and the climax totally predictable.

 

[rgraham666]

i agree about driving need, but the corollary is that good stories have obstacles and surprises and don't always come out how you expect.

pornish erotica simply has a sequence of fulfillments, with most turns, and the climax totally predictable.

In other words, it's just like sex.

 

[cantdog]

There are needs and needs. It's not so clear-cut, sometimes. But it's more relevant than some criteria I've seen.

Thanks, Shang.

 

[Oblimo]

"Driving need" is usually called "motivation," isn't it? And it comes in two flavors -- internal and external. For Bilbo, his external motivation is stealing the treasure for the dwarves. His internal motivation is his Tookish blood -- he's always secretly longed to go on a grand adventure.

There must also be external and internal conflict. For Bilbo, the external conflict is obvious -- the damn dragon wants to kill him. His internal conflict is his stay-at-home Hobbit sensibility and sense of shame at being an oddball.

 

[Guest]

.....

 

[cloudy]

Thoughts? I looked through my own things and felt that the more clearly I had a non-sex need for the central character, the better I did indeed like the work.

Yes.

Of those I've written, my favorites have either very little (glossed over) sex, or none at all. They were also the easiest to write, probably because the characters' needs, as I'd written them, pulled the stories along almost effortlessly.

(you're so much more eloquent than I am, Pony)

 

[AngelofDarkLust]

I've always found that my better peices I've called something other than smuttage. I craft a non-sexual plot and then find reasons for my characters to have sex within it. It makes, I think, for hotter interaction. I think that is why some of the big "Erotic" publishers are loosing readers. There's only so many reasons to have your characters shagging by page 5 in a novel. Even in shorts, there has to be a reason for the WHY in the WHAT.

Of my published stuff well, Coyote, the WHY is too fucked up to explain, but I new it. In Twice the Cowboy the WHY is much simpler they have to get the horse back. The Darkness that was first here on lit* the motivation was not the main characters, but the secondary, the three angles of the apocolypse that required the living voice to bring them forth.


*oh yeah, lost that job so I'm not as concerned anymore

 

[Seattle Zack]

I've read a lot of Adam Sexton's stuff (although not the book you mentioned, Shanglan. have to check that out) and one of the ones I still have bookmarked is his essay about plot.

(Quoting here) "Renowned writer Anne Lamott ('Bird by Bird,' 'Operating Instructions') created a mnemonic device to help writers remember how to write plots that work:

Action
Background
Conflict
Development
End"

One of the things Lawrence Block used to write about is that for stories to work, the lead character needs to change. Confront his mortal enemy, finally get the girl, conquer the impossible challenge. Whatever.

Change is drama, which feeds the story. But then I thought, what about Mike Hammer, Nero Wolfe, Travis McGee, even Matthew Scudder. Those guys never changed. Their reliability is why you bought the book -- you knew what you were getting.

So it's their driving need for justice, or vengance, or whatever that keeps the story alive. Therein lies the conflict and development. "Driving need," that's a great story element. Thanks for bringing that up, Shanglan.

--Zack

 

[elsol]

There's a lot to his theory and it has really helped me to see how I keep running into problems with characters hanging about artistically being themselves and not going anywhere or accomplishing anything. It's also, I realized today, shown me what turns me off about many erotic stories, and what really, to me, differentiates "stroke" from "stories." In stroke, the characters all have the same driving need: they need to have sex. It's a basic human need, but it gets repetitive if that's all the characters need, and it doesn't generally develop their characters much because the other characters in the story have the same central need. That takes us into the idea of conflict shaping characterization, which is valid, but I think just the basic "what is my character's driving need?" goes quite far.

I think this is a misinterpration of the driving need & stroke stories. In true-pure-badly-written (a majority of them) stroke stories, neither the story nor the characters have ANY driving need.

Consider that if the driving need of a character were 'I want to have sex' how many different approaches there would be... who wants to have sex, with whom do they want to have sex... the story elements begin to develop quite naturally from the voice & life experience & interests of a writer.

I would venture to say the stroke stories you have a problem with don't have any driving need... they actually follow the form of "So-&-So gets to have sex."

That's not a story, it's a scene... Scene II of Act IV.

Really think about it... if you were to write a story with the central driving need of a character/characters of 'I want to have sex', would your final product be similar to a majority of the stroke stories you've read?

For me, I would almost always default a 'I want to have sex' story to a seduction story... and immediately have to pick the present 'her' I'd like to have sex with in real life.

I bet if you and I were to write a story with that driver, we'd arrive at very different stories almost form the get-go and that quite a few people would enjoy both because of the different approaches and elements... and at the end because they wouldn't be 'I get to have sex' stories, but "I want to have sex' stories.

Edited to Add: Actually, I could never write an 'I want to have sex' story... I would always change the central driving need to "I want to have sex with HER".

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'm wary of these "how to" writing guides. They all seem to be concerned with teaching you how to write one type of story: the problem-driven novel - the adventure, the thriller, the romance, the mystery. Those are fine, and they're very popular, but to my mind they're not very relevent or realistic anymore.

For some time now, literature has been concerned with heros and heroines who don't even know what they want, let alone what they have to do to get it, and their search is the whole story. You might ask what Holden Caufield's driving need is in Catcher in the Rye or Yosarian's need is in Catch 22. To say that Holden's trying to get out of school or Yosarian out of the air force is to miss the whole point. These are people lost in the world and trying to find their way, and to my mind, that's probably the most accurate description of our lives these days. That's what makes those books better than your average thriller, which are entertaining, but contrived and artificial.

Porn and erotica live by different rules than regular fiction as far as I'm concerned. For one thing, in what you call "stroke" (and I call porn - literature whose sole pupose is sexual titilation), plot has no place other than to enhance the sexiness. Porn is primarily descriptive, not explanatory or developmental. Plot is useful for setting up the social and emotional context of the sex, but that's about it.

If you're dealing with erotica, which I take to mean the literature of human sexuality, then yes, you want to show how the sexual experience affects and changes people, and that means some plot's involved. The focus is still on the sex, though, or maybe more accurately on sexuality.

For me, the reason so many of the stories on Lit are shallow and unsatisfying is not that they lack well-developed plots, but that the characters are shallow and unsatisfying. They feel nothing but lust, they have no understanding of what they're doing or empathy for their partners, and their experiences teach them nothing.

I don't think they need driving needs that are achievable. I think we all already driving needs that we try to achieve every day - the need to love and be loved. Those needs are sometrhing we all share and struggle with our entire lives to meet, so there's certainly no lack of plots and stories. It's our own failure as writers to put these yearnings into honest words that makes so many Lit stories so flat and unsatisfying.

 

[S-Des]

Shang, I think you stumbled on to an answer to 3113's old thread about why is LW so popular (and the readers so obsessive). Plot is everything. It has to feel real to a variety of people who have different life experiences or they'll eviscerate the story. It has to have elements of sexuality (seduction, romance, betrayal, etc...). But in the end, the characters need a starting point, a place where everything goes to shit, and a finishing point (either with reconciliation, seperation, or revenge). Almost every story (even the stroke ones) on the top list of that category have these elements.

I read your description and shook my head wondering, "Doesn't everybody put those in their stories?" I guess it's because I was a voracious reader of the category before I ever tried writing. To me, they go hand in hand. In my eyes, the difference between a stroke story and non-stroke is in the motivation, not the lack of plot. No offense to people who write differently, but I'll never read a story that doesn't interest me if you take out the flowery language or sex.

Think of it like a song. A group of classical musicians headed by violinist Rachel Barton covered a number of heavy metal classics, including Metallica. If the songs weren't well structured, they would have sounded awful when covered by a string quartet. The song 'One' played by that group is amazing and worth a listen, even if you despise that style of music. Stories are the same way. The best written story that doesn't contain a plot is utterly uninteresting (IMHO).

 

[dr_mabeuse]

As an example, let me name two great erotic novels: The Story of O, and Fear of Flying.

What's O's driving need in her book? What's Erica Jong's driving need in hers?

(Edited to remove further curmudgeonly remarks by curmudgeonly Dr having curmudgeon-o-delic morning.)

Good luck in all writing endeavors.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'm wary of these "how to" writing guides. They all seem to be concerned with teaching you how to write one type of story: the problem-driven novel - the adventure, the thriller, the romance, the mystery. Those are fine, and they're very popular, but to my mind they're not very relevent or realistic anymore.

For some time now, literature has been concerned with heros and heroines who don't even know what they want, let alone what they have to do to get it, and their search is the whole story. You might ask what Holden Caufield's driving need is in Catcher in the Rye or Yosarian's need is in Catch 22. To say that Holden's trying to get out of school or Yosarian out of the air force is to miss the whole point. These are people lost in the world and trying to find their way, and to my mind, that's probably the most accurate description of our lives these days. That's what makes those books better than your average thriller, which are entertaining, but contrived and artificial.

Now see, I knew that I would end up wishing that I had said more, but I was trying to work on that little prolixity issue of mine.

Sexton only sets the stage with the chapter on structure. That is, that's the first chapter of a nine-chapter book. What I've enjoyed about his approach is that he keeps bringing the foundation along and showing how it leads to new things and developments. The short version: he's quite aware that Catcher in the Rye and Catch-22 have a great deal more to them than the physical driving need - although I think he uses both as examples - and he is quite on board with internal development, character conflict, etc. etc. What I presented was not a "rule for writing" that stands alone. Rather, he does an excellent job of showing how this foundation of a driving need both allows us to give recognizable form to the internal needs (ye olde "show not tell") and lets us build characters and plot that are tightly connected to each other.

To defend Sexton, what I really like about him is that he is very much not a "one correct way to write" theorist. For instance, in discussing driving central needs, he points out several examples of excellent stories and novels that don't appear to have one. His point is not that you can only write well in one fashion; his point is that you need a great deal of talent to bring a reader through something that lacks the familiar structure of a story, and that you'd better know why you're giving that up and what very important thing you're gaining before you cast it insouciantly to the winds.

Shanglan

 

[Lauren Hynde]

His point is not that you can only write well in one fashion; his point is that you need a great deal of talent to bring a reader through something that lacks the familiar structure of a story, and that you'd better know why you're giving that up and what very important thing you're gaining before you cast it insouciantly to the winds.

Which is true for pretty much everything on writing!

 

[BlackShanglan]

"Driving need" is usually called "motivation," isn't it? And it comes in two flavors -- internal and external. For Bilbo, his external motivation is stealing the treasure for the dwarves. His internal motivation is his Tookish blood -- he's always secretly longed to go on a grand adventure.

There must also be external and internal conflict. For Bilbo, the external conflict is obvious -- the damn dragon wants to kill him. His internal conflict is his stay-at-home Hobbit sensibility and sense of shame at being an oddball.

Sexton differentiates between the dramatically performable central need that drives the text and character motivation. He's very good on both, and discusses character motivation (surprisingly enough) in his chapter on characterization. But he discusses the central dramatically performable need under structure. Essentially, he's saying that it's not just something a character needs, but something the entire story as a whole needs: a key physically performable need of one of the central characters that carries the reader through the text.

Around that, he suggests, we hang the internal motivation. That is, we could have just talked about Bilbo's internal conflict between the Tookish adventurish side and the stay-at-home, third breakfast side, describing his mental state and his thoughts and even letting him putter around the countryside waving a sword about. But without a central dramatically performable need to hang those concepts on and to give the reader a narrative thread through them, it's much more difficult to engage the reader's attention and keep him/her moving through the text. It's not impossible, but you need to really shine at others elements if you haven't got the central "will he succeed?" drive of the central need.

Oh, and Sexton's clear that neither characters nor readers need to know the central need right from page one - but if it's going to do what he wants it to do, i.e. engage the reader, it needs to get moving while the reader is still reading.

Shanglan

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Well, I don't know. Either I already know all this stuff, or I don't understand a word of it.

He's saying a story has to have something happen in it and someone's got to do it. Upon that, we get to hang all this other stuff.

I know you, Shang. There's more to it than that.

 

[NoJo]

Dr having curmudgeon-o-delic morning

I'll have whatever he's having

 

[Oblimo]

Around that, he suggests, we hang the internal motivation. That is, we could have just talked about Bilbo's internal conflict between the Tookish adventurish side and the stay-at-home, third breakfast side, describing his mental state and his thoughts and even letting him putter around the countryside waving a sword about. But without a central dramatically performable need to hang those concepts on and to give the reader a narrative thread through them, it's much more difficult to engage the reader's attention and keep him/her moving through the text.

What you're describing sounds like a combination of what I've always known as the "external motivation," "conflict," and "identification." The reader indentifies with the protagonist in some way -- whether positively or negatively, it doesn't matter.

There's also a formulation: "An X wants to Y." A farm boy wants to rescue a princess (Star Wars), a private detective wants to learn who killed his partner (Maltese Falcon), a guy who works at a paint store wants to win a dancing contest (Saturday Night Fever), etc.

The taxonomy may differ, but the elements are almost always the same: protagonist, antagonist, exposition, conflict, motive, resolution, yadda yadda. A story is a formal communication style like any other, and thus comes with its own formula, with the goal of maintaining the reader's interest in reading from beginning to end. You can always divert from the formula, of course, but you should know the formula first.

Erotic fiction is a little different, because the goal is to pique a particular kind of interest in the reader.

 

[Oblimo]

What's O's driving need in her book?

To be the constant center of attention.

 

[Oblimo]

I would venture to say the stroke stories you have a problem with don't have any driving need... they actually follow the form of "So-&-So gets to have sex."

That's not a story, it's a scene... Scene II of Act IV.

The pedant in me always wants to call stroke "stories" stroke vignettes for precisely (edited bad joke) this reason.

 

[duddle146]

The Literary Family speaks - I love this thread.

Mr. Shanglin's thread has provided so much information it's hard to absorb it all. As a novice among professionals, perhaps the one thing we all share is the desire to 'seek' out the mysteries of how to write something that's meaningful.

I have experienced a lot of solace and inspiration from Shakespeare's line from "As you like it."

"All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts."

Not being as smart or as intelligent as most of you, I have tried to think of the characters in my stories as people who appear in the fantasy life of my story for a little while and then make their exits. I try to move them around in a story much as actors move around on a stage.

As a Writer who is definitely a work in progress, I have loved the input of every person that has contributed to this thread. This thread is a shining example of the best that Literotica.com has to offer. It's great to be a small part of this group of excellent Writers.

 

[S-Des]

Not being as smart or as intelligent as most of you, I have tried to think of the characters in my stories as people who appear in the fantasy life of my story for a little while and then make their exits. I try to move them around in a story much as actors move around on a stage.

As a Writer who is definitely a work in progress, I have loved the input of every person that has contributed to this thread. This thread is a shining example of the best that Literotica.com has to offer. It's great to be a small part of this group of excellent Writers.

Don't confuse intelligence with experience and education. Shang and many of the others here often have me running for a dictionary as I try to decipher their posts, but I would never say any of them is "smarter" than me (or you). I'll bet they wouldn't either. Besides, sometimes people are intuitively talented at finding solutions that the most educated people don't. I don't say that you shouldn't try to educate yourself (trust me, I'm trying), but never put yourself down. Everyone has something to offer, especially if they work hard enough at it and keep an open mind.

Shang, this is a very interesting thread. Thanks for the discussion.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Mr. Shanglin's thread has provided so much information it's hard to absorb it all. As a novice among professionals, perhaps the one thing we all share is the desire to 'seek' out the mysteries of how to write something that's meaningful.

I have experienced a lot of solace and inspiration from Shakespeare's line from "As you like it."

"All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts."

Not being as smart or as intelligent as most of you, I have tried to think of the characters in my stories as people who appear in the fantasy life of my story for a little while and then make their exits. I try to move them around in a story much as actors move around on a stage.

As a Writer who is definitely a work in progress, I have loved the input of every person that has contributed to this thread. This thread is a shining example of the best that Literotica.com has to offer. It's great to be a small part of this group of excellent Writers.

Don't confuse literary criticism with a literary instruction either, an error we're all too often tempted to make when we get our hands on a book of stimulating and creative criticism. Mr Sexton's book is basically criticism - he analyzes stories to try and see what makes them work and then draws generalities from his observations. That's what criticism does.

That doesn't mean that the obverse works though - that by reversing the process and following his dicta we're guaranteed to write a great story. Criticism is an tool of analysis, not a blueprint for construction.

In fact, it seems like no sooner has a theory of literary criticism been established than someone comes along who ignores the whole thing and yet still writes a great book and suddenly all the rules have changed and the critics have to start all over again.

Anyone who writes has to be a good critic, just so they can judge the worth of their own work and better diagnose their problems, so you can learn a hell of a lot by reading criticism and analysis. But you never want to be a slave to any critical theory, no matter what it is.