Problem examples Consider an entire story that doesn't move forward. Petrov is a Russian immigrant to Brazil. His father is a farmer and relocates his family to a section of rain forest. Petrov is dissatisfied with his existence, but is isolated from others by geography and language, so he lives a mundane life and dies. Petrov has a need, to be satisfied with his existence, but has no way to ever express it.
Nothing ever moves the story forward.
Sometimes writers create poignant character studies about characters like Petrov, in which we feel his pain. But stories like these are character studies, not stories. Alphonso moves with his father to a farm in the rain forest, and is dissatisfied with his life there. His older brother has found a job working with a civil engineer. When his brother visits, Alphonso talks to him about engineering and some of the problems they are having with water drainage.