I worked on 5 projects today: Four screenplays and a novel.
What I noticed was that in order to keep each plot moving forward organically, each story required allowing the two or three main characters to have a clear set of answers to The Four Magic Questions of Screenwriting. However, for the story to really pop, the key was letting the first and second leads have DIFFERENT answers.
Give it a try for your own story and let me know how it worked.