Ah, well, now.

Yes.

Ego & Self.

I suppose where I am coming from is a different way of labelling Character “wants” and “needs”.

If you accept the basic premise of a scene or story is a conflict between the focal character and an obstacle to obtain a goal, then we can start from an agreed premise, at least.

Somebody wants something, and is prevented from getting it. Conflict.

Now in simple terms we have Odysseus wanting to go home and encountering all sorts of monsters on the way. I think Joseph Campbell has done a good job of identifying that this particular Hero’s Journey is really a trip through a dreamscape encountering monsters and archetypes from our own subconscious. Circe and Cyclops and Crashing Rocks and whirlpools, Sirens and nasty paternal and maternal Gods & Goddesses, the whole shebang. An externalised version of good vs evil but a sophisticated one. The Monsters of the Id if you like. But we have no real formal bad guy, enemies can become friends, gods can be kind as well as cruel. Just as in a dream/nightmare/dream.

More recently we have the idea of good vs evil as posited by Sulcus. But rarely (except in Fantasy sometimes) is it ever the simplistic version Sulcus complains about. There’s Sauron, yes, but there’s also Gollum. There’s James Bond, where good is defined as “England” and bad as “anti-England” but then there’s Le Carre where Smiley and Karla are eventually indistinguishable from each other in both methods and goals. The doppelganger idea…we can become the dark mirror image of ourselves, and the Batman fighting the Joker is really fighting himself. Same with Shane and Jack Palance, quite overtly black and white versions of the gunfighter.

There’s Jekyll and Hyde, where the externalised Vampire/Werewolf creature is explicitly become our dark side (the Ego). The Ego wants all the stuff our base instincts lust after…sex without love, money without earning it, revenge, it is the Miser, the Wicked Stepmother, the paeodo and the rapist.

Now the character wanting something. Captain Ahab wants to kill Moby Dick. We can recognise the stuff of obsession here. The Ego. Silas Marner’s hoard of gold. Macbeth. Iago. Whatsisname from Wall Street.

These are the people for whom the Ego rules. What they want, what drives their stories, it will destroy them.

I will continue... STOP THE BILL

Now if we identify the needs of the Ego as a "want" (e.g. revenge) we can also ponder what the more healthy "wants" of a character might be. We can also see that any healthy want can become an obsessional Egoist "need" fairly easily.

So, in romance, girl wants boy. Seems okay. Biologically and evolutionarily rubber stamped. Mr Right (or variations thereof). The staple diet of romance is the misunderstanding between boy and girl that gets resolved into happily ever after. But what about Scarlet O'Hara, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina et al? What about a schoolgirl that falls in love with a vampire? Bonnie & Clyde? The Postman who always knocks twice?

What about when Beauty loves the Beast, but he isn't really a Prince?

These are not good or evil decisions, but they are the Ego obsessing and basically destroying the hero(ine).

That's what stories are about, separating what is "real", the unselfish, the dutiful (the Self) from the Delusion (the Ego, the Miser, the Lustful Voyeur, the Thief, the Fantasist).

It is in fact the difference between writing Truth and dreaming about "being published". One is (arguably) a pure drive of the Self, the other the utter spoiling obsession of the Ego.

But of course, as we can see, the two are embroiled and sometimes what we want and what we need are the same.

But like a father who loves a daughter, to keep her love eventually you have to give her up.



STOP THE BILL

Well there we hint at the fundamental difference between what you are saying and what I am saying.

At heart I am saying that stories are, have to be, morality tales. Like religion and philosophy they are a hunt for an answer to the question, "how should we live our lives?" or even, "what are the consequences of the way we behave?".

You want to reference storytelling without the search for truth. Your imagined readership:

People a little tired of the same old thing in novels.
People who are interested in language.
People who recognise and aspire to reading non-linear narrative/characters, in the belief it better represents how our minds work
People who want to engage with their present reality, by reading a partial deconstruction of it and its underlying myths which buttress it

It dodges ethical or moral questions entirely, presumably in favour of linguistic games and/or observation of the human condition.
"People who are tired of the same old thing in novels". People who dislike bad novels, surely? Or people who dislike story, per se? This is really a non statement, like saying you are looking for a strong "voice". It's a slagging off generally of something.
And your last point, about engaging with and deconstructing our present reality...what does that mean? you want to write satire and slice of life snapshots and subvert story by, um, showing you know what is expected and not providing it?

You seek a readership of cleverdicks who don't read stories? STOP THE BILL

So much for all the theorising, which may be useful if you are thinking of waffling yr way through any form of literature degree.
But I'm afriad all these 'great essays' on the subject sound to me like made to measure entries for Pseuds Corner.
What happened to a gooid read being the reason for attracting somebody to a book.
I'd settle for the comments by FreelanceLogan in the writing style thread above for what makes one.

No joke, rather than waste all this here, why not cooperate in providing a superior Guide to Creative Writing. I've read a few - and books on syllabus. You learn more here on the essence and identity of writing.