on Fiction University:

If you have a great premise, but can’t figure out the protagonist’s goal to go with it, this little tip can help.

Every week, I get at least one message from a writer along the lines of, “This post is exactly what I needed today.” It always makes my day, and it’s the reason I tweet and post from the blog’s archives. There’s a ton of information on this site, and I never know who is going to need what when.

This past week, it was me.

I was doing my initial brainstorming for a new series, and I ran into a problem. I had no idea what the protagonist in book two wanted. Until I figured that out, I had no plot and no conflict. Utterly stuck, I set the notes aside and went to work on my blog posts for the week.

And I solved my own problem with my own post—and I hadn’t even written it yet.