Make Your Protagonists Pay More to Achieve Their Goals - Bigger stories through better prices

I did a series on the value of identifying pivot scenes and using them to create focus for a story. One thought I shared was The gap between the price the hero expects to pay to achieve the goal and the actual price is the story.  This post will take a closer look at that premise, beginning with a few examples (many spoilers ahead):

Diehard provides a direct, simple example. John McClane wants to reconcile with his wife Holly and bring her and the children back to New York. A good, thoughtful conversation should succeed, right? John thinks he’ll find her adrift in LA.  Wrong. She’s thriving. But he makes his pitch anyway and botches it. It’s a small domestic drama at this point.  Then the super thieves show up. The simple answer? Call the cops and get some help. Or bring in the fire department. No way. The bad guys have those angles covered. And when help finally arrives it’s inept and makes John’s job more difficult. Before it's over, he has to risk his life, out thinking and ultimately wiping out a band of super thieves essentially single-handedly. It takes physical prowess, intellectual skills, and courage for him to succeed.

In Casablanca, Rick has lost his purpose and become a drunk. He also lost Ilsa, and, for a while, his goal is to settle things with her. Either by getting her back or by making her suffer. But his real goal, expressed through actions like helping a stranded couple, is to recover his purpose. To do that, he has to "stick out his neck" for others. Ultimately, this costs him his bar, his safe harbor, his position in the community, and the shell of protection he built around himself. He has to risk his life taking on the Nazis in Casablanca, and finally must sacrifice what’s most precious to him – letting go of the woman he loves.

In Apollo 13, the goal of landing on the moon is lost early in the story. But Lovell is only able to let go of that dream once the crew passes out of the moon's orbit. That's part of the price he pays for the real goal, getting home alive. The basic idea for returning home is to use the lunar excursion module as a lifeboat, travel back to earth, then returned to the command module for reentry.

But, there are obstacles along the way, including illness, carbon dioxide levels, completing thruster burns, calculating angles, and more. Some of these are anticipated but don't have answers. Some of them emerge over time and require imagination and courage. A key moment is when Lovell defies the flight surgeon and tears off the telemetry equipment. That's an act of rebellion very different from his nature and signals his willingness to recognize and pay unexpected prices to survive.

I think The Shawshank Redemption illustrates the value of price best. When you put a sympathetic character like Andy into prison, freedom is the assumed goal. Obvious dramatic choices are proving the protagonist's innocence, parole, and escape, and Shawshank doesn’t disappoint. The story’s poignant glimmer of hope is when the true murderer is identified, but this is crushed when the key witness is murdered. Ultimately the hero must escape to gain freedom. But, along the way, prices are paid. Any is brutalized. He's forced to collaborate with his ruthless and corrupt jailers.

He also has to escape from the prison he's built himself in his mind, at one point expressing his free spirit through daring to share music he loves. He has to transform his hobby, being a rock hound, into the serious business of creating a way to escape. The story vividly explores the idea of long-term prisoners becoming institutionalized, doomed never to truly be free. And the brilliant climax presents years of planning, sacrifice, and stealth in one rush of images as it shows the story, narrated by Red, of Andy’s escape. And it dots the Is by turning the tables on the warden. The hero is paying a price in plain sight of the audience, but this is only revealed near the ending.

So what kind of price should you exact from your protagonist? My advice is to do three things:

1. Make the goal bigger. Reconcile with a spouse becomes escape a life-threatening situation. Recover love becomes recover purpose and identity. Reach the moon becomes getting home. Stay safe and mentally free in prison becomes escape and save someone else. Note: The original goal (like reconciliation) may or may not survive the escalation.
2. Pick a price worth exploring. The easiest way to do this is by clearly articulating your story’s theme. The Shawshank Redemption explores the cost of freedom at many levels through several different characters. Consequences, including punishment and suicide, are vividly presented. Tools for freedom - including courage, ingenuity, knowledge, connection, and power - are put into play.
3. Make it personal. Primarily, this means digging into the needs and flaws of the protagonist. Price is relative to vulnerability. Price requires personal change, often at the deepest levels of identity. Secondarily, making it personal means choosing a price with which you, as the author, connect emotionally. If it's a price that horrifies you or embarrasses you or makes you profoundly uncomfortable, it's likely to make for a strong story.

In the pivot series, I provided a list of questions to help identify these critical scenes. And, with that list, you can find scenes in stories you love and use them to gain a better understanding of prices characters pay and how the simple answers fall away to reveal the real cost.

But you also can dig into prices you yourself have paid in your life that were larger and more difficult to pay than you imagined. Having these in hand will give you ideas and a sense of proportion for whatever you are asking your protagonists to take on.