Explore Your Character's Inadequately Satisfied Desires to Enhance Your Tale's Power
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In the world of storytelling, characters are often driven by unmet needs and emotional wounds, shaping their motivations and behaviors in compelling ways. This dynamic, when understood and utilised effectively, can lead to richly developed characters and captivating narratives.
The connection between unmet needs and emotional wounds is rooted in experiences of trauma, loss, or betrayal. These emotional wounds create a fear of being hurt again, which in turn generates unmet needs that drive the character's motivations and behaviors.
According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs, these unmet needs block the character's progress through the levels of the hierarchy, leading to dysfunction, dissatisfaction, and internal conflict that shape their personality and story arc.
Emotional wounds generate fear and unmet needs
When a character experiences an emotional wound, it creates a fear of being hurt again. This fear causes the character to hold back from fulfilling certain fundamental needs, like safety, love, or esteem, leading to unmet needs.
Maslow’s Hierarchy contextualizes these needs
Maslow's model arranges human needs from the most basic (physiological) to higher-level psychological needs (esteem, belonging, self-actualization). Emotional wounds often target the needs for safety, love/belonging, and esteem, creating blockages at these levels that the character struggles to satisfy.
Unmet needs manifest as core character motivations and flaws
The character's unmet needs become internal driving forces, creating tension, conflict, and often dysfunctional patterns. For example, unmet needs from childhood attachment wounds can create deep-seated insecurity affecting adult relationships.
Narrative impact
Characters start in a state of dissatisfaction or unfulfillment due to their unmet needs. Their development arc involves recognising, confronting, and healing these emotional wounds to gradually satisfy those needs on Maslow's hierarchy, leading to growth and resolution.
The Hierarchy of Human Needs and character development
| Maslow’s Need Level | Connection to Emotional Wounds & Unmet Needs in Characters | |-------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Physiological Needs | Rarely affected directly by emotional wounds but can be destabilized (e.g., stress affecting health) | | Safety Needs | Emotional wounds create fears undermining sense of security (e.g., fear of betrayal) | | Love & Belonging Needs | Attachment wounds lead to unmet needs for connection, affection, and acceptance | | Esteem Needs | Unmet needs for respect, recognition, and self-worth arise from emotional trauma | | Self-Actualization | Healing and fulfilling needs lead to actualization, often the story’s resolution |
This dynamic illustrates why unmet needs are a fundamental tool for deepening character development: they reflect internal emotional wounds stemming from past hurts and mirror Maslow's stages, showing how unresolved wounds keep characters stuck until addressed.
Examples of characters and their unmet needs
- Rodney, driven by the need to achieve a lifelong goal of summitting Everest, takes up his passion once more, even knowing the risks.
- Mary, fearing trust after a betrayal, struggles to seek love.
- A character may choose financial stability over universal admiration.
- Mary's need to share her life with someone pushes her to open herself to love again.
In conclusion, unmet needs in characters are emotional deficits caused by past wounds that block progression through Maslow's hierarchy, providing motivation, conflict, and growth opportunities central to compelling storytelling. Tools such as the "Character Motivation Thesaurus" and the "Emotional Wound Thesaurus" can aid in planning an unbelievably strong character arc based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Unmet Needs. Everyone has a "final straw" moment, after which they can take no more, and it is in these moments that characters often find the courage to confront their unmet needs and begin their journey towards healing and self-actualization.
- A writing coach can help writers better understand the relationship between emotional wounds and unmet needs in their characters, leading to more deeply developed and captivating narratives.
- By utilising the concept of unmet needs stemming from emotional wounds, writers can provide their characters with compelling motivations that drive their choices and behaviors throughout the story.
- In the realm of education and self-development, understanding how unmet needs and emotional wounds relate to characters can provide valuable insights into personal growth and relationships.
- A strong connection between a character's emotional wounds and unmet needs can influence various aspects of their lifestyle, including fashion-and-beauty choices, food-and-drink preferences, and social relationships.
- Storytelling techniques like fashioning characters based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Unmet Needs and using the "Character Motivation Thesaurus" and the "Emotional Wound Thesaurus" can add depth and richness to narrative writing.
- As writers delve into character development and storytelling, they can learn how to empower their characters by addressing and healing emotional wounds, fostering personal growth and emotional healing within the narrative.
