How to use competing desires to create protagonists who feel achingly real and stories that readers can’t put down
The Problem With Single-Minded Characters
Picture this protagonist: Alex wants to save the kingdom. Every decision Alex makes serves this singular goal. No distractions, no doubts, no competing priorities.
Sounds focused and heroic, right?
It’s also incredibly boring.
Here’s why: Real people don’t operate with laser-focused singular desires. We’re bundles of contradictions. We want security and adventure. We crave independence while fearing loneliness. We pursue success while valuing relationships that success might jeopardize.
When characters possess only one driving desire, they feel less like people and more like plot delivery mechanisms—ambulatory goal-seekers moving through scenes toward predetermined outcomes.
But when characters want multiple, incompatible things simultaneously? That’s when fiction mirrors the messy reality of human motivation. That’s when readers stop observing and start identifying.
Recent studies in narrative engagement show that readers rate characters with competing internal desires as 52% more relatable and 68% more memorable than characters with singular motivations. The reason? Internal conflict creates the psychological complexity we recognize from our own lives.
This guide will teach you how to weaponize competing desires to transform flat characters into multidimensional people readers can’t forget.
Understanding the Mechanics of Competing Desires
What Makes Desires “Compete”?
Competing desires aren’t just multiple wants. They’re mutually exclusive or conflicting priorities that force impossible choices.
Not Competing:
- Wants to save the world
- Wants to eat breakfast
These coexist easily. No tension, no choice required.
Competing:
- Wants to save the world
- Wants to keep family safe from the dangers that saving the world entails
Now we have conflict. Pursuing one jeopardizes the other.
The Three Types of Desire Conflicts
Type 1: Goal vs. Goal Character wants two concrete things that can’t coexist
Example: Wants promotion requiring relocation + Wants to stay near aging parent
Type 2: Goal vs. Value Character wants something that conflicts with their principles
Example: Wants financial security + Values honesty (but easy money requires dishonesty)
Type 3: Value vs. Value Character holds two principles that come into conflict
Example: Values loyalty to friends + Values speaking truth (friend asks them to lie)
The most powerful stories often combine all three types, creating layered internal conflict.
Why Single Desires Create Flat Characters
Characters with only one desire are predictable. We always know what they’ll choose because there’s only one thing they care about.
The Predictability Problem:
Single-desire protagonist faces choice:
- Option A: Advances their goal
- Option B: Doesn’t advance their goal
They’ll obviously choose Option A. Every time. No tension, no real choice, no character revelation.
Multiple-desire protagonist faces choice:
- Option A: Advances Goal #1, undermines Goal #2
- Option B: Advances Goal #2, undermines Goal #1
Now we genuinely don’t know what they’ll choose. The decision reveals priorities and creates emotional weight.
The Architecture of Competing Desires
The Foundation: External Want vs. Internal Need
This classic structure remains popular because it’s psychologically authentic.
External Want: The concrete, plot-level thing the character pursues Internal Need: The psychological or emotional thing they actually require for fulfillment
The power comes from these pointing in different directions.
Example Framework:
External Want: Win the championship Internal Need: Prove self-worth without external validation
The championship pursuit can’t fulfill the internal need—in fact, it might reinforce the problem (tying worth to achievement). Character must discover their need and adjust accordingly.
Deployment Strategy:
Act 1: Character pursues external want, unaware of internal need Act 2: External want pursuit creates problems stemming from unmet internal need Act 3: Character must choose—pursue external want at psychological cost, or address internal need by releasing external want
Layering Multiple External Desires
Don’t stop at one external desire. Give protagonists 2-3 concrete goals that conflict.
Example: The Whistleblower
Desire #1: Keep job and financial security Desire #2: Expose corporate wrongdoing Desire #3: Protect colleagues from retaliation
All three are legitimate. All three conflict. The protagonist must choose which matters most.
Why This Works:
Each desire represents a different value system:
- Security/survival (Desire #1)
- Justice/integrity (Desire #2)
- Loyalty/protection (Desire #3)
When forced to choose, the character reveals their core values through sacrifice.
The Relationship Complication
Relationship desires create particularly rich conflict because they involve other people with their own needs.
Character wants:
- Deep romantic connection with Person A
- Career opportunity requiring distance from Person A
- Independence after years of compromising for others
These desires pull in three directions. No easy synthesis exists.
Advanced Variation: Incompatible Relationship Desires
Character wants intimacy but fears vulnerability. Wants commitment but craves freedom. Wants to be known but fears judgment.
These internal contradictions within a single relationship sphere create the psychological complexity of real romance and friendship.
Strategic Deployment Throughout Story Structure
Act 1: Establish the Desires
Your Goals:
- Introduce each major desire clearly
- Show character believing they can have everything
- Plant seeds of future conflict
Technique:
Show character successfully balancing desires early. This makes the later impossibility more painful.
“For three months, Jordan managed both the demanding residency and relationship with Alex. Coffee dates at midnight, stolen hours between shifts. It seemed sustainable. It wasn’t.”
Act 2: Escalate the Conflict
Your Goals:
- Make desires increasingly incompatible
- Force character to make temporary choices
- Show costs of pursuing multiple conflicting paths
The Pressure Cooker Method:
Each story beat should make one desire more urgent while making another desire harder to achieve.
Example Progression:
Beat 1: Work project requires weekend; partner planned special weekend Beat 2: Work promotion requires relocation; partner’s business is thriving locally Beat 3: Work opportunity-of-lifetime requires leaving immediately; partner’s parent just diagnosed with serious illness
Each escalation raises stakes for both desires while making them more obviously incompatible.
Act 3: Force the Choice
Your Goals:
- Create situation where character MUST choose
- Make both options painful to sacrifice
- Ensure choice reveals character’s true priorities
The Crucible Moment:
Your climax should present the competing desires as a binary choice—an impossible decision with no compromise, no delay, no having-it-all.
Example:
“The plane leaves in two hours. The job offer expires if she’s not on it. Her mother’s surgery begins in ninety minutes across town. She can make one. Not both. For the first time in her life, being clever isn’t enough.”
Practical Techniques for Building Competing Desires
Technique #1: The Value Audit
Identify 4-5 core values your protagonist holds. Then create situations where they conflict.
Example Values:
- Family loyalty
- Professional ambition
- Personal integrity
- Romantic love
- Self-preservation
Conflict Creation:
Professional ambition requires betraying family loyalty. Personal integrity conflicts with protecting romantic partner. Self-preservation contradicts helping others.
Build your plot around these value conflicts.
Technique #2: The Mirrored Want Structure
Create an external desire that mirrors an internal need, but fulfilling the external desire actually prevents meeting the internal need.
Example:
External desire: Win approval through achievement Internal need: Develop intrinsic self-worth
Every achievement temporarily satisfies but ultimately reinforces the problem—worth remains externally validated. Character must stop pursuing achievement to find real fulfillment.
Why This Works:
The character actively works against their own best interests while believing they’re helping themselves. Classic dramatic irony.
Technique #3: The Impossible Loyalty
Give your character multiple relationships or groups demanding exclusive loyalty.
Example:
- Family expects protagonist to take over business
- Mentor expects protagonist to pursue advanced degree
- Partner expects protagonist to relocate for their career
- Best friend expects protagonist to start company together
Each relationship represents a legitimate obligation. Protagonist can’t honor all simultaneously.
Technique #4: The Time-Limited Choice
Put character in position where they can have both desires—but not at the same time—and time forces the choice.
Example:
Character wants career success and wants to start family. Both are possible, but:
- Career opportunity is now-or-never at age 32
- Biological/adoption timeline creates pressure for starting family now
- Can’t do both optimally simultaneously
The choice reveals which desire is actually primary.
Technique #5: The Cost Escalation
Start with mild conflict between desires, then systematically increase what each desire demands.
Example: Journalist’s Escalation
Early: Truth-telling requires uncomfortable conversation Mid: Truth-telling requires burning bridges with sources Late: Truth-telling requires risking prosecution/family safety
As cost increases, the competing desire (safety, relationships, career preservation) becomes more tempting. The choice becomes agonizing.
The Psychology of Competing Desires: Why This Works
The Identification Principle
Readers identify with internal conflict because they experience it constantly.
Everyone has wanted incompatible things:
- Love person A, attracted to person B
- Want advancement, value leisure time
- Crave change, fear uncertainty
- Need truth, prefer comfortable lies
When characters grapple with these conflicts, readers think: “I’ve felt exactly that impossible pull.”
The Revelation Power
Competing desires reveal character in ways singular desires never can.
What single desire reveals: “This character values justice” (pursues justice consistently)
What competing desires reveal: “This character values justice above family safety, but not above their own child’s life” (pursues justice until child is threatened, then compromises)
The second tells us so much more about who this person actually is.
The Satisfaction of Resolution
Watching characters resolve competing desires satisfies our hunger for clarity we rarely achieve in life.
We constantly negotiate contradictory wants without clear resolution. Fiction provides the satisfaction of seeing someone actually choose, then live with consequences.
This vicarious decision-making helps readers process their own conflicts.
Advanced Applications
The False Choice Recognition
Sophisticated variation: Character believes they must choose between A and B, but the real growth involves recognizing a third option that transcends the binary.
Structure:
Act 1-2: Character agonizes over Choice A vs. Choice B Act 3: Character recognizes the choice itself is false Resolution: Character finds synthesis or discovers the real choice is elsewhere
Example:
Character believes they must choose between:
- Staying in toxic relationship (loyalty)
- Leaving and being alone (independence)
Real choice:
- Leaving toxic relationship AND building healthier connections
The competing desires were based on false premise that those were the only options.
The Cascading Desires
Create a hierarchy where choosing one desire automatically activates new competing desires.
Example:
Initial Choice: Choose career over relationship New Competing Desires:
- Desire for connection (now unmet)
- Desire to prove choice was right (ego protection)
The resolution of one conflict creates new internal conflicts, driving continued character development.
The Shared Competing Desires
In ensemble casts or romance, give multiple characters the same competing desires with different priorities.
Example: Two Partners
Both want:
- Career success
- Relationship priority
- Personal autonomy
Character A prioritizes: Relationship, Career, Autonomy Character B prioritizes: Autonomy, Career, Relationship
Same desires, different hierarchies create conflict and force negotiation.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Mistake #1: Easily Resolvable Conflict
Error: Desires conflict only due to misunderstanding or poor communication
Example: “She wanted to pursue her dream job, but he seemed opposed to it. Turns out he was just worried she’d overwork—he actually supported her career!”
Fix: Make desires genuinely incompatible, requiring real sacrifice
Mistake #2: No Real Stakes
Error: Character could easily live without one of the desires
Example: “He wanted to become CEO but also wanted to maintain his hobby of collecting stamps.”
Unless stamp collecting represents something deeper, this isn’t real conflict.
Fix: Both desires should be vital to character’s sense of self or wellbeing
Mistake #3: Last-Minute Desire Introduction
Error: Competing desire appears only at climax with no prior establishment
Fix: Plant desires early. Build conflict throughout. Climax is culmination, not introduction.
Mistake #4: The Have-It-All Resolution
Error: Character gets everything they wanted with no real sacrifice
Example: “She got the promotion AND kept the relationship AND maintained work-life balance perfectly!”
Fix: Real choices require trade-offs. Character should gain something and lose something.
Mistake #5: Authorial Judgment
Error: Writer clearly signals which desire is “correct”
Example: “She knew she should choose her family over her selfish career ambitions.”
Loading language (“selfish”) tells readers what to think rather than letting the conflict breathe.
Fix: Present both desires as legitimate. Let readers debate the choice.
Genre-Specific Applications
Literary Fiction
Focus on subtle, psychologically complex competing desires. Often the conflict is between different aspects of identity or competing philosophical positions.
Romance
Classic structure: desire for specific person vs. self-protection from heartbreak. Or: love for Person A vs. obligations/feelings toward Person B. Resolution often involves risk-taking or sacrifice.
Mystery/Thriller
Protagonist wants truth vs. wants safety. Or: justice vs. protecting loved ones from blowback. The investigation itself creates the conflict.
Fantasy/Science Fiction
Use speculative elements to create unique desire conflicts impossible in realistic fiction. Example: immortality vs. meaningful finite existence.
Young Adult
Perfect for competing desires around identity formation: who parents expect them to be vs. who they want to become. Peer acceptance vs. authentic self-expression.
The Competing Desires Worksheet
Identifying Your Protagonist’s Desires
External Desire #1 (Plot-Level): What concrete goal does your protagonist pursue?
External Desire #2 (Relationship/Personal): What do they want in their personal life?
Internal Need: What do they psychologically/emotionally require?
Creating the Conflict
How do Desire #1 and #2 conflict?
How does pursuing either external desire prevent meeting internal need?
What would it cost to choose Desire #1?
What would it cost to choose Desire #2?
Mapping the Arc
Act 1: How are both desires established?
Act 2: What event forces them into sharper conflict?
Act 3: What impossible choice crystallizes the conflict?
Resolution: What does the character choose and what do they sacrifice?
Case Studies: Competing Desires in Action
Case Study #1: The Immigrant’s Dilemma
Competing Desires:
- Honor family traditions and expectations
- Integrate into new culture and build independent life
- Maintain connection to homeland
- Seize opportunities only available by releasing the past
The Conflict:
Every step toward integration feels like betrayal. Every honoring of tradition limits future possibilities. Character must choose which heritage to prioritize.
Resolution Options:
Could choose full integration (lose cultural roots), full tradition (limit opportunities), or forge hybrid identity (requires rejecting both sides’ demands for exclusivity).
Case Study #2: The Whistleblower’s Paradox
Competing Desires:
- Financial security through keeping quiet
- Moral integrity through exposing wrongdoing
- Protecting colleagues who’ll face retaliation
- Maintaining family stability
The Conflict:
Exposing wrongdoing destroys security, harms colleagues, destabilizes family—but silence destroys integrity. Every option has casualties.
Resolution:
Character must decide which value is non-negotiable, then accept loss of others.
Case Study #3: The Artist’s Choice
Competing Desires:
- Create uncompromising art
- Achieve commercial success
- Maintain relationships with people who don’t understand the work
- Financial survival
The Conflict:
Uncompromising art rarely achieves commercial success. Commercial success requires compromise. Relationships suffer when all energy goes to art. But abandoning art destroys sense of self.
Resolution:
Character chooses which desire is identity-defining, accepts consequences for others.
Your Action Plan: Implementing Competing Desires
Week 1: Diagnosis
- Audit your protagonist’s current desires
- Identify which are actually compatible (no real conflict)
- List areas where desires could meaningfully conflict
Week 2: Development
- Establish at least two desires that genuinely compete
- Ensure both are vital to character (not superficial)
- Map how conflict escalates across story structure
Week 3: Integration
- Revise Act 1 to establish both desires clearly
- Strengthen Act 2 by escalating desire conflict
- Ensure Act 3 forces impossible choice
Week 4: Testing
- Beta reader question: “Could you argue for either choice?”
- If readers universally agree on “correct” choice, desires aren’t balanced
- Ensure resolution involves real sacrifice
Final Thoughts: The Humanity in Impossible Choices
Fiction’s power lies not in showing us heroes who always know what to do, but in showing us people who must choose between things they desperately need.
When you give characters competing desires, you give them the complexity of real human psychology. You create decisions that reveal character rather than plot convenience. You force protagonists to discover who they truly are through what they choose to sacrifice.
Readers don’t want to watch characters easily achieve singular goals. They want to watch people wrestle with impossible choices—because that mirrors their own experience of being human.
The protagonist who must choose between saving the world and protecting their child teaches us about priorities. The character who must decide between honest poverty and comfortable corruption reveals values through sacrifice. The person torn between incompatible loves shows us that having it all is a myth.
These impossible choices—and how characters navigate them—are where fiction transcends entertainment and becomes exploration of what it means to be human.
What does your protagonist want? Now ask: what else do they want that makes the first want impossible? If you can’t answer the second question, you’ve found your next revision step.
FAQ: Competing Desires in Fiction
Q: How many competing desires should a protagonist have? A: Start with 2-3 major desires that conflict. More than that risks confusion. Secondary characters can have simpler, singular desires.
Q: Should competing desires always be resolved by the end? A: Not necessarily. Some stories end with characters still negotiating conflicts, which can feel realistic. But readers typically want to see characters make at least one definitive choice that reveals character.
Q: What if my genre doesn’t emphasize internal conflict? A: Even plot-driven genres benefit from competing desires. Action heroes who must choose between completing mission and saving civilian lives face competing desires that raise stakes.
Q: Can desires compete but both be achieved through different means? A: If both can be fully achieved, they don’t truly compete. Genuine conflict requires that pursuing one significantly compromises the other.
Q: Should the protagonist always choose the “right” desire? A: Define “right.” Characters should choose what feels authentic to their development. Sometimes choosing the morally complex option is more interesting than choosing the obviously virtuous one.
Q: How do I avoid making one desire seem obviously more important? A: Give each desire meaningful consequences and emotional weight. Show legitimate reasons for choosing either path. Let readers disagree about the “correct” choice.
