Does your plot hinge on primal drives like survival, hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, or fear of death? By making what drives your characters more primal, you’ll not only ground everything that happens in principles that connect in a visceral way, you also make it easier to sell your story all over the world.

This can also go for little fixes of minor characters or subplots in a script that’s not working. Are these characters motivated by primal drives? It’s another way of saying: Are these characters acting like recognizable human beings? At their core, they must be. Or else you are not addressing primal issues.