Picking a good story goal for a morally neutral character
A blogger with the name of Glen C. Strathy said the following:
The first and most important element of any plot is the Story Goal or Problem. This is the organizing idea around which the entire plot of your novel will be based.
Now, my problem is I want to try to create a character who is morally neutral, straight in the middle, but that restricts my ability to choose a good story goal for my novel.
Why? Well, I am not sure, but when I think of someone who is completely neutral (neither good or bad and right in the middle), I think of someone who only values his self-interest, because I am caught in this assumption that character who are neutral have to have this archetype, I can't really think of a good story goal.
Can these two objectives be reconciled, do you agree with my assumption, if not can you explain why, so I can pick a good story goal for my story while keeping my character as morally neutral as possible?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/43537. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
I think there are subtle differences between "not caring what is right or wrong" and "only caring about myself" and "only caring about my own interests".
A "self-interested" person sounds like somebody that can't love, or even have friends they care about. But a morally neutral character CAN love somebody. Just because they don't have morals about "right and wrong" does not mean they don't have emotions.
Consider my dog. Dogs are entirely emotional creatures. They have no morals (at least nothing remotely like human morals); they will fight, bite and kill a stranger dog that threatens them or anybody they love, even over a worthless toy. They do not feel guilty over hurting or killing.
But dogs are filled with emotion; they love their family, they love to play, they will risk their lives to protect or save their family without a second thought.
Dogs are not entirely self-interested. Dogs belong in a family, they love their family, and will kill for their family, and will die protecting their family. Right or wrong, no matter what their family member has done, because they do not distinguish between right and wrong actions.
Ramp that personality up to human intelligence, and you have a morally neutral character that is not 100% self-interested. They just regard right and wrong as rules imposed on them by outside larger forces beyond their control; so like my dog they largely obey these external rules (or for humans, are very intentional in getting away with circumventing them so they don't get punished and taken from their family).
Then you also have by this dynamic a built-in story goal. The MC can want something for her family, perhaps for her friends she considers part of her "pack". (My dog has many dog-friends in the neighborhood.) In order to get it, she has no qualms about doing (what the rest of us would consider) wrong things. Kind of like the Vikings on the TV show: You are in their tribe, or an ally, or an enemy that must be attacked, or you are worthless and can be robbed and killed without a second thought.
It doesn't have to be that she enjoys the things she does. Metaphorically speaking all she sees is an obstacle she cannot walk around, so she attacks it. Burns it, shoots it, stabs it, or pushes it over. And unlike a dog, she is smart enough to anticipate reactions and do this without getting punished for breaking the rules.
Like all good characters, your morally neutral character can be driven by love, not self-interest, and she doesn't have to be selfish. Her sense of "right and wrong" is 100% whether it "helps or harms" the people she personally loves. Nothing higher than that.
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