Goals: An Important Role to the Story

Goals play an important part in storytelling. If there aren't any goals there really isn't a story to tell. In order for the story to remain focused, goals are very important to rely on. Just like in life, if you don't have any goals you don't have any direction, which can leave you with no place to go. Then all you do is stand still, spinning your wheels. In storytelling there are two types of goals:
There is the goal of the writer. What do you want to communicate to your audience? What do you want to say? It is the reason why you created the story to begin with.
Then there is the goal of the main character (s). Which comes down to what do they want to accomplish or solve. What are they going after that means something to them?
The next part is two take these two goals align them to merge so that everything can come together.
The goals themselves can be very simple. In the movie Shrek, a Prince, Faaguard, banishes the fairytale creatures from the land of Duloc, into the swamp. Living in the swamp is Shrek, a green ogre, perfectly content by himself. Suddenly Shrek is surrounded by fairytale creatures and a donkey which won't leave him alone. Shrek's goal is to find a way to get these fairytale creatures off his property, and so begins his journey. He does what he has to do accomplish this goal.
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, is the story about the Capulets and the Montagues, and their on-going battle which engulfs them so much to the point that if they run into each other blood is shed. Despite all these odds, Romeo Capulet meets by chance Juliet Montague and they fall in love and want to be together. How will Romeo and Juliet accomplish their goal to be together? All though all I did above is summarize the basics of these stories, you can see that there is more than one goal in both of these stories. Shrek is very simple in comparison to Romeo and Juliet, and if you've seen the movie you can't deny this movie is fun, while Shakespeare is known for his stories full of tragedy. Both stories have something to communicate from their creator's which is one goal. There is also the main goal for the characters in the story to follow through to accomplish what they need to fulfill the story and get to the goal of the writer.

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