Quick definition
A character who wants something cannot stay neutral. The want automatically divides the scene into things that help, things that block, people to trust, people to resent, and choices that reveal character. That is why a useful scene objective often generates the opinions and behavior that writers otherwise try to manufacture as “personality.”
In one line: Want generates opinion. Opinion generates action. Action generates story.
The tabletop note hiding inside screenwriting craft
Dungeons & Dragons runs on players voicing characters while a Game Master plays the world back at them. No script. Everyone invents in real time.
Brennan Lee Mulligan, the Game Master behind Dimension 20 and an improv-trained performer, has given players a deceptively simple note: care about something. Form opinions about the people and places in front of you. Like, distrust, resent, and want.
Emily Axford gives the practical version: “Consciously care.” Decide what the character feels about the person across the table, then play it.
That sounds like role-playing advice. It is also a scene note.
The thing that lets a player generate an opinion on demand is the same thing that lets a screen character breathe: a want.
A want does the work personality gets credit for
Weakly defined characters often drift through a scene waiting for the plot to hand them something to react to. They treat the other characters like vending machines for information.
The moment a WANT appears, the world reorganizes.
Things either:
- help the character get what they want, or
- block the character from getting what they want.
Opinions form around that distinction.
You do not always have to invent the opinion first. The want invents it for you.
That does not mean every character becomes a single-note machine. It means the objective creates a lens. The same person can emphasize compassion, ambition, recklessness, loyalty, jealousy, or fear depending on what they are chasing and what is standing in the way.
Wants divide the world
The original essay uses The Social Network as an example.
Building Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg’s strategy. Underneath it sits a deeper want: prove I’m worth something.
Now look at the people around him through that lens:
- Erica rejected him.
- Harvard clubs will not let him in.
- The Winklevoss twins look down on him.
- Eduardo should have his back but keeps becoming a source of friction.
The opinions flare out from the want. Whatever supports the want attracts him. Whatever blocks it becomes charged.
The writer does not need a separate “interesting opinion” generator. The objective creates the conditions for opinion.
A diagnostic for flat scenes
Ask:
What does every character in this scene have an opinion about?
If the answer is “nothing,” check the objectives.
A room full of characters who want nothing has very little story oxygen. Actors often feel this immediately and ask the questions writers should already be asking:
- What am I playing?
- What is my objective?
- What am I trying to get out of this person?
- What do I want?
The chain is simple:
No want → no opinion → no behavior → no scene.
And check both sides. When only one character enters with an agenda, you may have written a speech with a witness rather than a dramatic exchange.
Let opposing opinions collide
This is where the WANT Framework becomes especially useful.
In Jaws, Brody wants the beaches closed while Vaughn wants them open. Their opinions are not decorative bits of characterization. Their opinions grow directly from incompatible objectives.
That is tension: opposing wants with nowhere to go.
The scene works because both men care about the outcome and because both cannot get what they want at the same time.
Read: The WANT Framework for Screenwriting →
Let the audience solve the equation
Tabletop role-play and screenwriting diverge at an important point.
At a game table, a player may need to voice an opinion clearly so everyone has something to build on. On screen, the audience often enjoys discovering the want through behavior.
The original essay points to Michael volunteering to kill Sollozzo in The Godfather and Rick putting Ilsa on the plane in Casablanca. The action carries what a speech could have flattened.
Nobody has to narrate the want. The choice reveals it.
That is also the N in WANT: Never Stated Outright.
Opinion is useful when it becomes behavior
An opinion that never affects behavior is trivia.
Once a character wants something and forms an opinion about whatever helps or blocks it, the next question is:
What do they do because of that opinion?
That action may be tiny: move closer, shut a door, conceal a phone, withhold a name, refuse a chair. Or it may launch an action sequence.
This is where the cluster moves from character into scene mechanics:
WANT → opinion → action → consequence.
Read: How to Write Action Scenes: Decisions Under Pressure →
The character-opinion diagnostic
When a scene feels emotionally neutral, ask:
- What does each character want right now?
- Who or what helps that want?
- Who or what blocks it?
- What opinion does the character form because of that help or resistance?
- What behavior grows out of the opinion?
- Can the audience infer the want from the behavior without being told?
If the scene still feels flat, check whether the characters’ wants actually clash.
How this fits the larger story engine
Wants and opinions operate inside individual scenes, but those scenes do not live alone. A scene creates a result. The character reacts to that result. A new decision follows. That rhythm is the bridge to Scene, Sequel, and Sequence.
Read: Scene vs. Sequel vs. Sequence →
Try it on your own scene
Scribbler’s Scene Doctor
Use the Scene Doctor to identify character objectives, opposing wants, behavior, conflict, and what changes by the end of a scene.
See it in a real page
CRACKERJACK · FULL PITCH DOCUMENT
Eli struggles with trust and delegation, butts heads with Myles’s aggressive approach to action, can’t contain Jason’s showboater style, worries about Zoe’s prosthetic prowess, and is reluctant to put Katy in jeopardy.Read the full annotation →
One want — complete the mission, protect the team — and five distinct opinions fall out of it, one per teammate, in a single sentence. None of it is invented personality; it's the same objective refracted through five different obstacles.
Source note
This maintained reference page develops ideas first published in “Wants Invent Opinions” in Scribbler’s Toolbox on June 22, 2026. The original essay remains part of the editorial archive; this version is structured as a durable character-and-scene reference.
Related pages in the WANT knowledge cluster
- How to Create a Distinct Character Voice — carries WANT and opinion into agenda, worldview, rhythm, disclosure, and pressure.
- Character Relationships and Opposing Wants: How to Write Conflict Between Characters — expands opposing wants into a six-part relationship engine of bond, leverage, history, tactics, and change.
- The WANT Framework for Screenwriting: How to Give Every Character a Playable Scene Objective — Cluster hub: defines the core WANT diagnostic used by the other four pages.
- Scene vs. Sequel vs. Sequence: How Screenplays Build Momentum — Structural rhythm: explains how scene objectives and consequences accumulate into larger dramatic units.
- How to Write Action Scenes: Decisions Under Pressure, Not Just Spectacle — Pressure application: applies WANT and Scene logic to physical action and state changes.
- What Is the Modular Story Method? A Four-Reel Approach to Screenplay Structure — Macro architecture: scales the cluster’s scene-level mechanics into four connected story arcs.
About the author
Jesse Alexander is a screenwriter, showrunner, and narrative designer whose work spans film, television, games, and transmedia storytelling. Scribbler’s Toolbox collects practical frameworks developed from professional story development and production.