How to use hopes and dreams to make a character come alive

You probably already know that motivation is everything in a novel. Nearly everything worth reading flows from a character who wants something and actively goes after it.

In writing advice land, it’s popular to subdivide a character’s motivations into conscious motivations and unconscious motivations. Meaning, there’s something on the surface that’s motivating the character (saving the galaxy, defeating the dragon, figuring out what to eat for lunch) and there’s something lurking underneath the surface in their psyche that’s driving them (pride, vanity, hunger).

I don’t think about it this way.

Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve dreamed up wonderfully complex outlines that chart a character’s unconscious motivations with psychological complexity that would make Freud blush.

It never worked for me.

Here’s what does work: showing a character’s hopes and dreams with a great deal of specificity.

Why hopes and dreams are important

There are two main reasons it’s helpful to show a character’s hopes and dreams.

First, it helps establish the stakes. Showing what the protagonist hopes will happen if they succeed helps the reader understand why the events of the novel matter.

The reader tends to want what the protagonist wants, so understanding the best case scenarios gives us an anchor point that helps us invest in the struggle toward that north star.

But just as importantly, hopes and dreams help us understand what makes the protagonist tick. I think characters’ ultimate aspirations are severely neglected as a powerful writing tool.

Here’s why they work.

Hopes and dreams show us what motivates a character

You can come up with a list of all the unconscious motivations you want, but there are few things that tell a reader what motivates a character more than showing what it would look like if the protagonist succeeded.

For instance, when I’m editing novels I’ll often see a character who wants a promotion at work. That’s a good start since it gives the character something to actively go after, but why do they want a promotion? What will their life look like if they get it?

Wanting a promotion is vague. Lots of different characters might want that, and it doesn’t really tell us very much. Instead, get specific.

Do they want to upgrade their apartment and have their eye on an exquisite new couch? Are they going to use the money to save starving children? Do they want to lord their corner office over their coworkers? Get their pestering mother off their back once and for all?

The specific visions for what a character would do with a raise tells us a whole lot about what those characters value. Any reader will intuitively understand that someone who wants to brag about their corner office is very different from a character who wants to save starving children. We don’t need to be told their values or the internal qualities that motivate them, we just immediately grasp it.

Why it pays to make hopes and dreams specific

It helps if you describe what the character is imagining with the utmost precision. You can’t possibly be clear enough about hopes and dreams.

Who does this well? Disney princesses!

At the beginning of nearly every Disney animated movie is an “I want” song that establishes the protagonist’s precise hopes and dreams, whether that’s “Wanderin’ free, wish I could be part of that world,” “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere,” or “I’m brushing up on looking down, I’m working on my roar!”

These songs are terrific at fleshing out a nebulous desire for “freedom” or “adventure” or “strength” into a tangible, specific vision. Not only do we immediately understand what makes Ariel, Belle, and Simba tick, we start to invest in their quest on their behalf.

So if your character wants a promotion, don’t stop there. Describe those hopes and dreams all the way down to the embroidery on the antique couch the protagonist will buy with their raise or the smiles on the faces at the children’s hospital after their huge donation.

Be very specific about whatever they have in mind.

What would your protagonist do with a magic wand?

If you’re struggling to understand what makes a particular character tick, here’s a trick: ask yourself what they’d do with a magic wand.

Not in an Author Who Mustn’t Be Named sense, but one where your protagonist has the power to get everything they want. What would their life look like?

Where would they live, all the way down to the art and posters on the wall? Who would their friends be, all the way down to the venue for their birthday party? Who would love them, who would fear them? What’s the ultimate vision they have for their life?

Constructing a character’s overall north star with specificity will help you understand what they’re ultimately after. That overarching vision comprises an anchor point for both the character and the reader.

And then your protagonist needs to go after their north star in a relatively coherent way.

“And then what?”

Here’s another trick. You might have arrived at a general sense of what they want (“freedom from their parents,” “a sense of belonging,” etc.) but that’s still too vague.

Keep asking yourself, “And then what?”

Okay, the character gets free from their parents. And then what? What would they do with that freedom? Where would they go, what would they try to be? Okay, they now live in a new apartment. And then what? Keep it going until you have an overarching vision for the life they’re imagining.

Okay, the character is lonely and wants a new found family. And then what? What does that unlock for them? How does it roll up into their overall dreams?

Don’t stop until you’ve fleshed it out all the way out to a very nuanced, specific vision.

Make hopes and dreams as tangible as possible

You don’t have to go on and on about hopes and dreams, but when they’re as specific and tangible as possible it tells the reader an immense amount about a character.

Keep going with amorphous dreams like “independence.” Crystalize it into a specific vision. How will the character know when they’ve succeeded? What would be intolerable about failure?

To take the earlier promotion example, it pays to get more specific than an amorphous desire for “success.” Think about everything a post-promotion antique couch or philanthropic endeavor conveys about the protagonist: It tells us about their values, their taste, what drives them, where they would choose to devote their resources if they had more. It will often be bound up in their personal history and preexisting relationships.

When you’re precise about what a character wants, the reader will deduce the values and qualities that undergird the dream. In other words, it gives us all the conscious and unconscious motivations you’ll need.

Whether it’s Clive Linley imagining the reception of his symphony in Amsterdam, Ralphie imagining what he’s going to do with the BB gun in A Christmas Story, Luke Skywalker accepting his destiny (“I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father”) in Star Wars: A New Hope… classic novels and movies abound with sharp hopes and dreams.

Use them to show us what’s really motivating your characters, and we’ll understand what makes them tick. And chances are we’ll find ourselves growing much more attached to them as they put skin in the game to chase their dreams.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: September 21, 2020

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Art: A reverie during the ball by Rogelio de Egusquiza