More on the Story Equation'�

Now, we've got two equations to deal with (or one if we substitute the second into the first).
S(tory) = C(onflict) + A(ction) + R(esolution)
C(onflict) = W(ant) + O(bstacles)
Combined:
S = W + O + A + R

For years, I was under the impression that readers related most to the characters. That's why I 'created'� the personality types. Well, not really. The personality types were used for getting the best out of teams ' motivating people, determining what they saw as the most meaningful rewards, where to use them, how to use them. Using the types to understand characters was just an extension of how I used the ideas in real life situations. If it worked in real life, then it had to work in fiction.

The prototypes are useful in that they determine the trends in a character's actions and reactions to situations, whatever the mix of HAVE, FEEL, THINK, DO, BE they have in them. The main characteristic will decide on how strongly they want something, and why they want it. But the READER doesn't care about personality type: if there is any relation or connection, it would be based on the READER having the same personality type as the character, and, as writer, I DON'T know whether this is true or not.

I might assume that something like 60% of readers will be HAVEs, so I'm more likely to 'capture'� the reader if he/she is a HAVE when the character is a HAVE. The reader is more likely to 'understand'� and 'like'� the character if there is a match in personality types. But it doesn't always work ' not all readers are HAVEs! In fact, I've found that readers relate to all kinds of character types, although they prefer that the characters behave consistently according to their type.

In other words, as with PLOT, there is a need for a further level of abstraction: what DO the readers relate to when they read a story, if not the character types?

The answer is in that second equation: the WANT. The more powerful that WANT, the greater the OBSTACLES can be; the greater the OBSTACLES, the more powerful the story can become.

The WANT is what adds emotion to the story. With strong emotions, the WANT becomes a NEED. The reader senses the NEED and its associated emotions, and THAT's what they are looking for, to connect to the character. It is this NEED that makes a character easier for the reader to connect to the story being told, even when the character is essentially unlikeable, and totally the wrong type for the reader.

Using my character prototypes, a HAVE person, when faced with a BE person, will find him/her impossible to understand, or to motivate, or to underminein any way. The BE just doesn't have the same value system as the HAVE, and what is important to the HAVE might be meaningless to the BE. In essence, the BE is invulnerable to what the HAVE can use.

But, if we strip the BE person of that invulnerability, the HAVE can identify with him/her, and relate to his/her emotions.

So, there's the 'secret'�: strip your characters, especially your main characters, of their invulnerability. Make them as needy as they can be. Make their needs become the at-staked-ness in your story. Raise the stakes to as high a level as is meaningful. Don't give them a 100% chance of success, but lower those chances ' never to zero, but to well under 50%.

Apply Gumperson's law to your characters: 'The probability of a successful outcome is inversely proportional to its desirability.'� Increase the desirability 'the emotional value ' of a successful outcome, and then create the obstacles that will reduce the chances of getting the result the character wants.

It sounds simple, but'�.

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