I have already talked a little bit about getting your character to grow (you can find that post here). In essence, having your protagonist be a different (hopefully better?) person by the end will make your story more enjoyable for the audience.

Do they have to change? No. In Die Hard, John McClane isn’t really a different person by the end of the movie. Does he reconcile with Holly? Sure. But did he go through a lot of emotional work to get there? Um… no. Let’s be honest, he talked a lot more to Alan Rickman’s character than to his wife over the course of the movie.

Still. Fun story, exciting movie, not a lot of change.

But it is also the case that lots of different kinds of stories are more enjoyable when a special kind of math happens: adding together the kinds of problems the protagonists have to face with the kind of personal change you want to see in them.

In Jaws, Chief Brody has a problem with a shark. But he is also afraid of water (the Chief, not the shark). In the end, he tackles both. That’s because facing the outside-world problem (a.k.a. Mr. Bitey) forces Chief Brody to face that inside problem.

To make it clearer: if you can make the kinds of problems you throw at your protagonist connect with the kind of change you want to see in them, you will elevate your story dramatically (pun intended).

In our earliest story—the one where the girl has to go to the store but she drops her money on the way—we can do this same thing by connecting the problems she faces with how we want her to change.

If we make her shy at the beginning, it makes the most sense for her to overcome the outside problem of dropping the money down the sewer by having to go to someone and be bold and outspoken, which would (start to) solve her inside problem. Solving the outside problem pushes her personal development.

If we make her ashamed about being clumsy all the time, we probably won’t be able to convincingly change the clumsiness; but we can change how she feels about it. So, we give her a set of problems that force her to think about being more accepting of the kind of person she is.

But she should also get the money out of the sewer.

Just sayin’.

Happy writing, young writer.