Chapter 7

The Web of Characters with Competing Goals

“When two characters with opposing agendas meet, you have built-in tension.”

—James Scott Bell, Plot & Structure

The fuel of a page-turner is conflict, and you build in conflict by giving your characters competing goals. Once you’ve assembled your cast of characters, it’s time to think about them in relationship to one another. How is each one going to help or hinder your protagonist in reaching his goal?

To get some perspective on this, create a character web.

Write your protagonist’s name and his goal in the web’s center. On the outer end of each web spoke, write the other characters’ names. For each spoke, draw an arrow that indicates whether that character is pulling for or against the protagonist reaching his goal.

Characters who pull in opposite directions add tension to the story. Even more interesting is when a character is pulling in two directions at once. In the character web example above, the villain obstructs, the sidekick assists, while the adversary both obstructs and assists. For example, the sleuth’s boss (adversary) might theoretically want the protagonist to find the killer, but at the same time he needs to protect a personal secret that could come out as a result.

For an example of a more complete character web, below are brief descriptions of the main characters in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon.

The cast includes:

• Sam Spade (protagonist): PI; his goal is to bring his partner’s killer to justice; in order to do so, he has to find a priceless artifact, the Maltese falcon
• Brigid O’Shaughnessy (a.k.a. Miss Wonderly): hires Spade and Archer to find a sister whom Archer is killed looking for; she really wants Spade to find the Maltese falcon (she doesn’t have a sister); she does not want him to find out who killed Miles Archer
• Joel Cairo: a thief who wants the Maltese falcon
• Iva Archer: Miles Archer’s widow, who was having an affair with Spade
• Effie Perrine: Spade’s loyal secretary
• Sgt. Polhaus: an honest cop who is investigating Archer’s murder

The diagram below illustrates the web created by these characters and their conflicting goals. Brigid O’Shaughnessy, for example, wants Spade to find the Maltese Falcon for her, but she does not want him to find out who killed Archer.

On Your Own: Creating a Character Web for Your Novel (Worksheet 7.1)

1. List your characters and their goals. (Keep going until you run out of characters.)

2. In the web diagram below, write your protagonist’s name and her goal in the center; write the other character names in the other blocks. Draw arrows to show which characters are helping the protagonist, obstructing her, or both.

3. Assess. Have you built in enough conflict and enough tension? Think about how you can add more.

Download a printable version of this worksheet at www.writersdigest.com/writing-and-selling-your-mystery-novel-revised.

Complete the Character Web section of the blueprint at the end of Part I.