When doing a character bio the trickiest thing to do is to create a protagonist with a misguided belief and opponents (the characters who obstruct, impede, challenge, the protagonist). It means you have to know the difference between what they actually need, and what they believe they need.
If a character is motivated to act because he is “barking up the wrong tree,” then this will cause him to act, but soon he will realize that the antagonist blocking him from getting what he wants is precisely why he must re-evaluate what it is he wants. If he can get closer to that core truth about what he really wants, then the action will be ramped up a notch. The desire will increase to obsessive desire. This is where audiences witness character change through story. The ramped up desire also increases narrative drive, which in turn increases conflict. This “barking up the wrong tree” is the basis of all desire in your characters, and desire is the motive energy behind all action.
The protagonist will also think: What will happen if he doesn’t get what he wants?
In books (and to a much greater extent in movies) the protagonist’s obsessive drive is wanting something more than we do. In our lives we make compromises. We usually follow the path of least resistance because we can’t endure the conflict. We generally want easy lives. In stories, characters want stuff so badly that they actually go about getting it, doing whatever it takes to get it, in ways we probably wouldn’t.
If a protagonist doesn’t want something badly enough, he or she won’t do anything about trying to get it, and then there won’t be any story!!
Great stories that transcend the normative beats are the stories that audiences love, precisely because the protagonists are going after a goal/want/desire that is almost impossible to achieve. And if the protagonist succeeds and gets to the goal line, the audience cheers! Even if the ending is not a “happy ending” but rather a failure for the protagonist, if the story contained earned plot beats which put the protagonist in the most difficult of circumstances, the cathartic takeaway is why great books, movies, and stage plays transcend time.