Goals

Story goals should be both measurable and explicitly defined.

Jimmy joins a boxing league.
So?

Jimmy joins a boxing league because he wants to impress a girl.
Defined, but not measurable.

Jimmy joins a boxing league because if he *wins*, Susie will go out with him.
Whether Susie goes out with him or not is measurable because it’s visual, clear cut, obvious. Either she does, or she doesn’t.

Scene goals should work the same way. Don’t just have your characters sitting around the coffee table yapping (or worse, laying in bed ruminating on their lives) when you can have them striving toward an unambiguous goal.

Where there’s goals, there can be opposition—and where there’s opposition, there’s conflict. Conflict turns pages. Conflict is good.

GMC

GMC stands for Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. This term was popularized by Deb Dixon, who does workshops and published a book on this topic.

Basically, the theory is this: All primary or secondary characters worthy of appearing in your story should have GMC, which can change over the course of the story and which can be expressed as follows:

[Character] wants [Goal] because [Motivation], but [conflict].

This is also one way to set up your story pitch when querying editors and agents.

EX: Susie wants to marry Johnny because she just found out she's pregnant with his baby, but she's engaged to Johnny's scary biker brother and the wedding's tomorrow morning.