Want, Need, Ghost, Lie
- Chad Manley
- Jul 14, 2022
- 12 min read
Updated: May 14
Among the myriad methods that writers use to create fictional characters, one popular technique involves four elements that will define a character’s arc and build themes throughout a story. Those four elements are the Want, the Need, the Ghost, and the Lie. Here are their definitions.
Want
What the character wants to get out of the journey, or their personal motivation for continuing from one scene to the next. It can be deep (a character who wants to experience a spiritual awakening or become an adult) or it can be shallow (he just wants the money).
Need
What the character actually needs, meaning the personal, internal growth they have to make in order to complete their journey. Maybe the main character has to learn to be more mature to understand that she can’t grow if she doesn’t take on more responsibilities. Maybe he needs to learn not to take his friends for granted and to put others before himself. This is typically a deeper change because if it’s too shallow (he needs to get better at paying his rent on time) it just becomes a want. This will make the character seem flat and shallow, and the story won’t be very moving for the audience.
Lie
This is something the character believes about the world or about themselves that prevents them from achieving their Need. For example, a character who thinks he’s too weak and uncoordinated and could never join the baseball team, or a young woman who thinks that she’s too inherently bad to ever do anything good again. The Lie has to be created by the writer to specifically act as an obstacle to the character’s Need, otherwise it’s just an unrelated false view the character has about the world or themselves.
Ghost
This is the reason that the character believes the Lie. Maybe that young man thinks he’s too weak because he’s small, has never been good at sports, and he routinely gets made fun of for his size. So he thinks he must not be good enough to try out for a sports team. Maybe that young woman has made too many mistakes in her life that she believes she is beyond redemption.
The Ghost needs to be believable, but the character must realize at some point in the story (typically at the beginning of the third act) that the Ghost is in fact a Ghost; it’s not a true reason to believe the Lie. Which means that the Lie is wrong, which means that the character can make the inner change that’s required of her to finish her journey, which means she can, after all, get that Want.
Let’s take the previous example of the young man who thinks he’s too small for a sports team. We’ll name him Brady.
So in this story, Brady is a short, pretty skinny kid. Let’s say a freshman in high school. Moving from middle school to high school, he decides that it’s time for some changes in his life. He’s always been a bit of a loner, and he would like some new friends. He thinks the guys on the football team are really cool, and if he’s changing his image, he’d like to be a jock. Wouldn’t it be nice to be a local celebrity? Wouldn’t it be awesome if girls wanted to date him just because he played football? And maybe if he practiced a sport with other guys his age for two hours a day, then he could make some friends and he wouldn’t have to spend another weekend all by himself. Great! We know Brady’s Want. He wants to earn a spot on the football team.
But that isn’t a Need, is it? There has to be some deeper personal reason that is nudging Brady towards trying out for the football team. He is a loner after all. He probably needs friends. That would make sense, right? A fourteen-year-old kid who’s thrown into high school, is small, gets picked on. I bet he needs friends, but that could be mistaken for a Want, so let’s make it a little deeper. Brady needs to learn that he’s worthy of having friends. He needs to learn that just because some people pick on him now doesn’t mean they will forever. People can change and he can too.
Okay, now for the Lie. What is the Lie that Brady believes about himself? It goes hand-in-hand with the Need. He must believe that his classmates that pick on him don’t like him now and they will never like him. He must think he doesn’t deserve to be friends with them and he never will. While we’re here, let’s find the Ghost. Why does Brady think that? Because those jocks pick on him now, they've always picked on him and so therefore (this comes back to the Lie) they always will.
Just to recap, let’s lay out the four elements of Brady’s character...
Want - to earn a spot on the football team, and the social status that goes with it
Need - to learn that he is worthy of friends
Lie - he is unlikable and people who have never liked him never will
Ghost - those who don’t like him now have never liked him in the past, he is constantly bullied
Let’s suppose that this idea got picked up right now by a production studio in Hollywood to get made into a movie. How would the story go? Let’s use the standard three-act story structure.
ACT 1
Introduction - Brady is new at the high school, we see him get picked on, shoved around, etc. He doesn’t have friends and more than being alone, he is lonely.
Inciting Incident - Brady sees a flyer about tryouts for the football team. At first he thinks he’s not cut out for it at all, but then a teacher makes a comment about how he used to be really skinny and lanky, but joining his school’s football team changed all of that. Whatever the case, something convinces Brady to tryout. So Brady goes to the football coach to sign up for tryouts, but the coach tells him no. Coach says to Brady that he’s too small and too skinny and there’s no way he’d actually make the team. This only lights fire under Brady’s butt and now he’s even more determined. He gets his physical exam and his parents sign a waiver, and then he shows up to the first tryout practice.
Conflict - Tryouts last a week and Brady is working his butt off every day to make a good impression on Coach. He barely has time for his homework since he gets home and falls asleep almost right away. He’s eating a ton and he’s sore all over. There’s a hotshot on the team named Sam who’s the social leader of the football team, kind of the queen bee if you will. He says something to Brady about how he doesn’t have a chance in hell of making the final cut. Brady meets two other young men who are trying out for the team: Mark and Josh (look, I’m not creative when it comes to names, okay?) The three of them bond pretty quickly, maybe they have the same sense of humor or they’re all in the same chemistry class or something. Whatever, they stick together and help each other out and Brady starts to think that even if he doesn’t make the team, at least he has new friends.
Building Tension- Coach tells everyone on Friday that the final cut will be posted on Monday morning. Brady, Mark, and Josh aren’t feeling very optimistic, but at least they found some new friends in each other. They hang out over the weekend, but come Monday morning, Brady is nervous as hell. He goes straight to Coach’s office to read the final cut when he posts it to the corkboard. Mark isn’t on the list. Josh isn’t on the list, but Brady is.
ACT 2
New World - Brady is now at the players-only practices and once again he’s all alone. He also gets access to the football team’s fancy locker room now (Ooooooh!). The other players don’t like him and Sam gets them to pick on him. They shove Brady into his own locker, take his towel when he’s in the shower, etc. But Coach likes Brady because he earned his spot on the team, even when he said he couldn’t. Mark and Josh are excited to hear what it’s like on the team, but Brady still suffers from imposter syndrome. He can’t really be good enough, can he?
Fun and Games - Brady continues to obsess over football and working out. His grades start to slip, he ends up distancing himself from Mark and Josh, and the guys on the football team still don’t like him. But at least he’s self-motivated this time. He wants to prove them wrong. He wants to earn their friendship and he thinks he can only do that by becoming a better athlete.
Midpoint - It’s the first game of the season and Brady is nervous and spends most of his time on the sidelines. Coach decides to give him a chance and sends him in. Brady does okay, but after just a few minutes, he misses a block and Sam gets tackled. Worse still, Sam breaks his leg and has to be taken to the hospital.
Reversal - After the game, the other players beat up Brady as revenge for missing the block. He gets beat really bad and Coach has an opportunity to break it up, but instead turns a blind eye. Brady turns to Mark and Josh for support but they tell him that he’s barely talked to them in weeks (he’s been sitting with teammates in class and at lunch, even though they treat him like crap) and they tell him he’s on his own. Brady starts to think that maybe he doesn’t really deserve friends. Coach also sidelines him for the next two games. Brady feels helpless and he begins to wonder if he should just quit the team entirely. 5rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrra (Sorry, my cat sat on the keyboard. I’m leaving that in though.) Brady decides that what he really needs to do is apologize to Sam, so he goes to Sam’s house and they talk. Brady says he doesn’t know how he can play again. Sam yells at him to get it together and play the effing game. Everyone messes up, but that’s not an excuse to quit.
ACT 3
Trials - Now that the team has a reason to hate Brady now, they hate him even more, but motivated by Sam’s speech, he pushes through the bullying and he trains harder and harder. He gets a tutor to keep up with his classes and he tries to make time for his older friends Mark and Josh, but they’re still mad at him - he hasn’t fully redeemed himself yet. The only person who’s actually willing to spend time with Brady is Sam, and mostly because his broken leg makes it too difficult to go somewhere else.
Darkest Moment - At the next football game, Coach lets Brady go in during the first quarter. Now that the whole team hates him, one of Sam’s friends misses a block on purpose and Brady gets tackled hard. He hurts his ankle and he has trouble getting off the field. Even worse, none of the other players offer to help him. They just fold their arms and turn their backs, seeing this is as a just punishment for a kid who never belonged on the team in the first place. Then, just when he thinks he’s going to have to hobble off the field by himself, Sam, still on crutches, hurries out onto the field and helps Brady back to the sidelines. Mark and Josh run onto the field because Sam and Brady are struggling so much. They help Brady so Sam doesn’t have to, but they let him carry Brady’s helmet instead. The audience slowly claps as all four of them make it back to the bench.
Power Within - Brady immediately ices his ankle. Later in the game, another player gets injured and has to sit out. The opposing team is up by three points and the home team is close to getting a touchdown, they just need someone small and fast enough to slip past the other team’s defensive line. Brady begs Coach to let him play because he’s small and fast enough. He swears his ankle is feeling better (although it’s actually still a little weak). Sam persuades Coach and he lets Brady play again.
Battle and Climax - Brady steels himself, his ankle causing him more pain as he gets out towards the end zone. The play starts, Brady darts past the defensive line by ducking underneath a bigger player, then catches the ball in the end zone just as his ankle gives out. He can’t walk now, and his ankle is definitely sprained, but he caught the ball and won the game for the team. The other players lift him up in celebration for that true Hollywood ending.
Resolution - Sam and Brady are basically crippled assistant coaches for the rest of the season. The other players now like Brady since he and Sam are friends, and Brady introduces Mark and Josh to the team too. Now everyone is friends and everything is great. Roll credits.
Okay. Hopefully that didn’t sound too bad. I came up with it as I was typing it out and I’m not going back to revise it since I don’t actually want to write this story. This is just a rough outline so there’s certainly more to be added, but we covered the Want, Need, Ghost, and Lie. Brady got what he wanted (a spot on the team and social status) but only after he got what he needed (learning that he is worthy of having friends, but he has to work for it) by discovering that what he believed about himself was a lie (the jocks will never like him or consider him a friend) because of his past experiences (the jocks picked on him a lot).
Cool. We got a nice little character arc out of it, although I don’t expect anyone to actually turn this into a movie. But I’ll keep my eyes open for Intercepting Dreams in theaters near me.
So now that we know the rules and how to apply them, how do we break them? Certainly we should not be lulled into thinking that all four of these character elements are absolutely necessary, right? Can any of them be removed? Let’s find out.
What happens if we have a character without a Want? Well, the plot would just be happening to the character, but she wouldn’t be doing anything to push it forward herself. What if she has no Need? I think this is worse than not having a Want. If there’s no Need, the character doesn’t have any inner flaws that are keeping her from her Want, which means she’s a perfect character (often referred to as a Mary Sue or a Gary Lou). What if she has no Ghost? Well, if the Ghost is why she believes the Lie, then the absence of a Ghost would mean that she knows the Lie is a lie, and she wouldn’t believe it in the first place. So that doesn’t really work either. And finally, what is there’s no Lie?
Hang on. No Lie? So, a Truth? So that horrible thing the main character believes about the world or herself is actually true, then the Ghost is actually evidence and/or proof for that Truth, then the character can never make the internal change necessary to get her Need.
So, if there’s no Lie, a character can get what they want, but they can never get what they need. So how would our story about Brady be different if the Lie were actually true - that Brady really is unlikable and not worthy of friends. Well, his character might be portrayed a little differently. He might be a bit more of a jerk to Mark and Josh, but I don’t like that idea. I think for the emotional gut punch to really work, Brady has to be likable to the audience, but hated by his teammates. Maybe the moral of the story changes from working hard to earn the respect of your peers to learning who to make friends with, but regardless, let’s rewrite the third act of our story for the scenario where the Lie is actually a Truth.
ACT 3
Trials - Same as above.
Darkest Moment - At the next football game, Coach lets Brady go in, teammates let him get hurt. His ankle is hurt bad. Even worse, no one will come help him. All the other players fold their arms and turn their backs, seeing this is as a just punishment for a kid who never belonged on the team in the first place. There is a tense silence throughout the entire stadium as Brady gets up to his shaky, uneasy feet, and hobbles off the field.
Power Within - Brady ices his ankle to keep the swelling down. Later in the game, another player gets injured and has to sit out. The opposing team is up by three points and the home team is close to getting a touchdown, they just need someone small and fast enough to slip past the other team’s defensive line. Brady begs Coach to let him play because he’s small and fast enough. He swears his ankle is feeling better (although it’s actually still a little weak). Coach doesn’t have an option so he lets Brady go back in.
Battle and Climax - Brady steels himself, his ankle causing him more pain as he gets out towards the end zone. The play starts, Brady darts past the defensive line by ducking underneath a bigger player, then catches the ball in the end zone just as his ankle gives out. He can’t walk now, and his ankle is definitely sprained, but he caught the ball and won the game for the team. The crowd goes nuts, but the players begrudge Brady the applause. We see a close-up of Mark and Josh in the stands and they aren’t cheering either.
Resolution - It’s announced that the home team wins and the stadium is showered with confetti and fireworks burst over the field. Among the immense excitement, Brady hops on one foot over to Coach and quits the team on the spot. The crowd starts to cheer BRA-DY!! BRA-DY!! BRA-DY!! and instead of staying to bask in the glory, Brady limps out of the stadium and calls his parents for a ride home.
Jeez. Certainly more poignant, but as I stated earlier, the absence of a Lie changes the entire moral of the story, and therefore the themes as well. trffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff (Sorry, cat again.) Did I break the rules of character building? Definitely. Is the story better because of it? Maybe, maybe not. That ultimately comes down to personal preference. I wish more stories had bitter endings like this one because I think it’s truer to life and a welcome deviation from the paint-by-numbers storytelling we see today, especially in Hollywood.
So, what do you need to build a character? A Want and a Need. A Ghost and a Lie might come in handy, but only if that’s the kind of story you want to tell.
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