A great movie starts with a great story. In this post I’ll break down what you need for your movie story, and how to come up with it using examples from real films along the way.

(If you want to write a story for a TV pilot instead of a movie, you can learn that here.)

Now let’s get your movie story started!

What you need for a good story

There are a lot of ways to think about a story for your movie, but here is an intuitive approach I like. You need:

• A character who wants something and tries to get it
• But there are obstacles in the way causing conflict
• If they succeed, they get something important. If they fail, they lose something important
• Things escalate to a climax
• And then, in the end, you decide what kind of story this is

Those elements cover the beginning, middle, and end of your story. Let’s examine them in greater depth so it’ll actually be helpful.

A character who wants something and tries to get it

We start with a character who wants something and tries to get it. We call this character your protagonist. You’re telling their story.

If they don’t want anything there is no reason for anything to change, and you don’t have a story. The more they want something, the more force your story will have.

Most of the time they want something different from what they have at the start of the movie, but they could also want things to stay the same. Maybe they like their life just like it is. In those cases, you have the things around them change, and they try to resist.

So either they want something to change, or they are trying to keep something from changing. Either way there is tension.

External goal

The thing that they want in your story is called the external goal. The external goal is usually what the plot is about. Your protagonist wants to get married, get promoted, save the world, win the championship, etc. You can also think of this as the plot goal.

But wanting it is not enough, they have to try and get it. What they do to try and accomplish their goal is your movie.

Something needs to make them go after it. We call this the inciting incident. It can’t be undone, and it launches your story forward. Your protagonist can be reluctant or energetic, but you’ve got to get them moving.

Internal goal

If you want your story to really sizzle, you have to go a level deeper and figure out why they want it. What is the underlying psychological or emotional reason why they want this thing? That’s called the internal goal.

The external goal is what they want, and the internal goal is why they want it.

For instance, in Oceans 11 Danny Ocean wants to rob the casino. That’s his external goal: money! But what’s really motivating him is proving that he’s worthy to his ex-wife and getting her back. That’s his internal goal. It makes the movie about something more than money.

The internal goal is really important when the story isn’t about life or death because if the protagonist is trying to save the world or just not be killed, they don’t need a lot of extra motivation.

But even in those stories of survival or saving the world you should try to give the protagonist something deeper. This leads us to another way of thinking about the internal goal, which is what they need.

The external goal is what they want, and the internal goal is what they need.

By need I mean the thing inside of them that they’re missing and need to feel whole, or the lesson they need to learn. They might not even be aware of it, or they might be resisting it, but they need it.

Whether you think of the internal goal as the why or the need, it’s important because it gives the audience something to identify with and makes the story feel emotionally satisfying.

For example:

• In Jaws, Chief Brody wants to kill the shark, but deep down he needs to prove himself. The audience might not relate to battling a killer shark, but they can relate to feeling inadequate.
• In Armageddon, Bruce Willis’ character wants to save the world, but deep down he needs to be a good dad. The audience might not relate to blowing up an asteroid with nuclear bombs, but they can relate to getting a second chance.

This is also how I like to approach theme. The internal goal is what your movie is really about.

So ask yourself, what does your protagonist want? And why do they want it?

Or what do they want and what do they need?

If you’ve got this stuff figured out so far, you’ve got a great beginning to your story. Now let’s move into the middle.

But there are obstacles in the way, causing conflict

Wanting something is a good start, but it’s not enough. Whatever they want has to be hard to get, or the movie will be very short and very boring. You need to put a lot of obstacles in their path, making things hard. These can be all kinds of obstacles: the environment, society, themselves, or another character. We call that an antagonist.

The Lord of the Rings is a great example of the variety of obstacles your protagonist can face. You have mountains, swamps, monsters, villains, self-doubt, and society—all this stuff keeping Frodo from destroying the ring.

This is true for all types of movies, like Bridesmaids. Kristen Wiig’s character Annie wants to be a great maid of honor, but she has to face the obstacles of being broke, her own insecurity, an antagonist, her fear of flying, etc.

Most of your movie is going to be your protagonist dealing with these obstacles, so make sure to put them in situations where they are going to face obstacles, but not just any obstacles will do. They have to be really difficult. Not difficult in general, but difficult specifically for your protagonist. Fear of public speaking? They have to give a speech. Fear of flying? They have to fly. Intimacy issues? They have to be emotionally vulnerable.

Of course, your character would probably rather not deal with these obstacles, which means you need something to force them to deal with the obstacles. That brings us to stakes.

They have something really important to win or lose

Stakes are what your character stands to gain if they achieve their goal, but just as importantly, they are what your character stands to lose if they fail to achieve their goal.

This is important because it means that the character has to keep going toward their goal. If they give up, then they lose something important. So they can’t stop. This forces them to deal with the obstacles they’d rather avoid. You can probably tell how important that is to making your story work.

Dealing with obstacles they don’t want to deal with forces the character to evolve, for better or worse. This is where stories get delicious. It is so compelling to see characters have to change and do something they never would have done at the beginning of the story.

So how do you come up with the stakes? In some movies they’re obvious. If it’s about saving the world and they fail… the world ends! Pretty straightforward stakes. And the character obviously can’t give up because… the world will end!

But it doesn’t have to be life and death, it just has to feel like life and death to your protagonist. Like in Bridesmaids, Annie’s friendship with the bride is the most important relationship in her life. She can’t disappoint her. It’s not life and death, but it feels life and death to her.

So in your story what is the thing your character stands to gain if they achieve their goal and lose if they fail? And how does it feel like life and death to them?

Things escalate to a climax

I mentioned above that your character needs to face difficult obstacles that force them to change. As your story progresses, those obstacles should get bigger, more difficult, and more personal until finally you come to the biggest one as you near the end.

This is the most tense part of your story. It’s the kind of challenge that your protagonist would never have been able to deal with at the start, but now they’ve been through all this stuff and have evolved.

How they deal with this big challenge, and what they’re willing to sacrifice to overcome it, reveals who they are or who they’ve become.

Have they matured? Have they grown? Have they turned evil? It’s the culmination of their character journey. Try to make them reckon with that need I mentioned earlier as they deal with this problem.

So in your story figure out the biggest challenge the protagonist is going to face, figure out how they’re going to deal with it, and use it to show who they are and what they’ve become.

And then in the end you choose what kind of story it is

So to recap what we’ve covered so far…

• Your protagonist wants something, and there is a deeper thing they need.
• They’re out there trying to get what they want, but there are obstacles in their way causing conflicts.
• They’re motivated to keep going because if they succeed they get something really important, and if they fail they lose something really important.
• The obstacles are forcing them to change, and how they deal with the biggest obstacle reveals who they are or what they’ve become.

But how does the story end?

Well, we started with the idea of goals: what they want and what they need. We can break down the possible endings of your story using the variables of what the protagonist wants versus what the protagonist needs.

Warning! Movie ending spoilers ahead!

In a happy ending, or a sweet ending, they get what they want and what they need. In Oceans 11, Danny Ocean gets the money and his wife back. How sweet!

In a bitter ending they don’t get what they want or what they need. Like No Country for Old Men. Amazing, but bitter.

But then there are mixed endings.

They can get what they want, but not what they need. We call that a bittersweet ending. They’ve “won” but it feels hollow, like There Will Be Blood. Daniel Plainview is rich but alone and losing his mind. He hasn’t learned his lesson.

Or they can get what they need, but not what they want. We call that a semi-sweet ending. And that’s really common. They didn’t get the thing they were going after, but they got something more important. They didn’t get rich, but they found love. They lost the championship, but matured. That kind of thing.

And how you end it is really up to you and the kind of story you want to tell, and what the theme is. The ending tells you what it was really about. What the point was. What it’s saying about humanity.

Stories are ultimately about the characters. It’s what they go through and how it changes them. If your protagonist is the exact same at the end, then it probably wasn’t a very compelling story. But exactly how they changed… that’s up to you!