Motivation.
This is the powerful emotion that inspires people to get off the couch and grab a tub of ice cream. It’s the only thing that is strong enough to pull me out of a very warm bed when it’s still dark and cold outside. It’s what inspires Harry Potter to defeat Voldemort in Harry Potter, Elizabeth Gilbert to find food, meaning, and companionship respectively in Eat Pray Love, and Frodo Baggins to make the long walk to Mordor in The Lord of the Rings.
UPDATED 5/17/19
Your characters have to want something
Every good book begins with a protagonist who wants something. There’s a reason you don’t generally see books about characters cast about by the whims of fate without any sense of purpose or desire, or, worse, characters who are aimlessly wandering about trying to find their purpose. Even Odysseus, essentially a powerless character blown about by the gods, has a rock-solid motivation: he wants to get home.
Wanting something is what makes protagonists interesting. It’s what makes readers invested in finding out if the character is going to get the things that he or she wants. It’s what makes these characters feel like living, breathing humans. After all, we all want something at any given moment.
Your character does not have to know what he or she wants on page one, but it should be conclusively clear by page 30, preferably earlier. Every step that your protagonist takes after this point should be a step toward this goal, though the forward progress will be thwarted by obstacles and other characters, who have their own set of desires and motivations.
Make what they want complicated
Many stories, especially genre novels, have a built-in motivation that’s kicked off at the beginning, like a parent whose child was kidnapped or a save-the-princess fantasy novel. The character’s motivation is immediately apparent based on the situation they find themselves in.
Better yet is a novel where a character wants more than one thing and these two things are at odds. The main character might want to save the princess, but he might just have his eye on the king’s throne as well, and so he has to decide by the end of the novel which of these two motivations are more important to him.
Better still is a character that wants things that are internally contradictory, so that the character not only has to battle exterior obstacles to get what he or she wants, but the character also has to battle their own conflicting desires.
Competing desires
Here’s a way of illustrating that in A Game of Thrones style.
- Good: Ned Stark wants to help his friend, King Robert, protect the realm.
- Better: Ned Stark wants to help his friend, King Robert, while also protecting his family.
- Best: Ned Stark wants to help his friend, King Robert, while also protecting his family and maintaining his personal sense of honor, but he may only be able to do one of the three.
When I was crafting the plot of Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow, it was important to me that Jacob should have competing desires in the climax. He isn’t just trying to figure out how to get home to Earth, as he isn’t even sure if he wants to go home. He isn’t sure at all about what to do in the end.
Before the climax, I steadily built up the idea that perhaps Jacob’s dad was in outer space. Jacob could continue looking for his dad in space or he could return home with his friends, but he couldn’t do both. He had to overcome his own internal battles to make this choice. He had contradictory motivations.
The desires of your characters will help shape these crucial choices in your novel. Every time you introduce something a character wants, either internal or external—regardless of whether they want to save a princess, seek acceptance from their parents, or snare a white whale—you’re introducing a plot arc.
Hone your plot arcs
A plot or character arc is basically a drawn-out process in which a character wants something and then tries to get it. The arc closes when they succeed or fail in getting what they want.
Every single character you introduce, major or minor, from your protagonist to the pizza delivery robot, should have their own plot arc(s) with defined goals and motivations.
If you’re a planner, write these arcs down and know them by heart. Map them out from beginning to end. You should be able to create a spreadsheet of everyone’s arcs, which are shaped by the things they want and their high points and low points as they try to get them.
If you’re an improviser, make sure that when you’re finished with your draft, you can trace these arcs from start to finish. Look for moments when characters don’t display enough motivation, and consider rearranging some events to make the arcs fit together more cohesively.
The more important the character, the longer and more complex the plot arc(s). For instance, your main protagonist’s and your main villain’s plot arcs should be introduced early in the novel, and you will probably have a rather nuanced view of their desires and contradictions.
We probably don’t need to know about the existential crises of the pizza delivery robot, but it should still show some sort of motivation if it is to be an interesting character.
Why your characters are flat
Motivation is often where writers miss opportunities. Their characters seem flat because there’s nothing beating in their hearts. A character without motivation is an automaton. They’re just going through the motions.
Instead, at every step of the way, on every page, with every exchange of dialogue and every action, the best characters are actively trying to achieve their desires. Every character is motivated. Always ask yourself what they want. Then construct obstacles, whether internal, external, or both, that stand in their way. They’re encountering characters or monsters or inanimate barriers that want something different than they do and that are stopping them from getting what they want.
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
For my best advice, check out my guide to writing a novel (now available in audio) and my guide to publishing a book.
And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!
Art: Désirs by William Kendall
Vonnegut addressed this in his rules for writing – Every character should want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.
This is one of your best posts ever. Donald Maassesque in scope.
Maass has an exercise. “What would your character never do?”
I thought it was silly at first and then when I tried it, I was astounded at the depth it added to the character. The conflict rose dramatically, just as your Mario description does.
Good job, Nathan. Thanks for posting this on Twitter, btw.
Awesome post. Love the Mario plot example!
Oh Nathan! You’ve stolen my heart with that Mario Bros. reference, I love it!
But seriously, great post. It really got me thinking about my novel and whether it had those character aspects in it. It also got me thinking of a brainstorm for another novel to write, so thanks a bunch for the inspiration!
Off to the drawing board 🙂
Crystal
As silly as it sounds, it’s easy to lose sight of what characters want, to get sidetracked. This post is a great reminder, Nathan. Thank you.
I’m listening to Harlan Coben’s The Woods right now. It’s a great illustration of what you’re talking about. The main character, Paul Copeland, wants to find out what really happened the night of his sister’s muder some 20 years ago. That point is hammered home over and over again by Coben through out the book. Everything Paul Copeland does, somehow relates back to that desire.
My characters want caffeine.
So simple in principle, but so important. I’m starting a new book and you’ve definitely given me a focus for the next few days as I try to flesh out my main character. Thanks Nathan!
Someone read me one of my stories the other day, and hearing my words in their voice took it right out of my head. And I realized that the reader doesn’t know what I know, doesn’t have the correct cadence of voice, doesn’t have anything that I don’t give him. The reading happened by accident, wasn’t something I ever would have asked someone to do, but the story arc issues you speak to instantly crystalized for me.
It’s sort of related, although I can’t remember who said it first (I’ve read it lots of places), but every character should think he/she is the hero of the story. Even the bad guy. So any writers out there who want to make a secondary character’s motivation “He really wants to help the hero win!” should rethink that.
I highly recommend–in addition to Nathan’s excellent description of this issue–L. Rust Hills’ book Writing in General and the Short Story In Particular. Reading his description of the difference between a sketch and a story was one of those “duh” moments for me that get me kick started.
There’s a reason I fight my way through 5000 to 7000 readers a day to get to this blog. This is a great post, Nathan, thank you. I’m bookmarking it so I can come back to it again and again as I navigate my way through my characters’ lives (from start to finish).
Janet
Motivation was one of the first elements I mapped out when creating the profiles for my characters. It helps define how they will interact with the other characters. This is another great informative post, Nathan, leaving us hungry for Thursday’s post on conflict.
Determining what the conflict will be is one of the things I enjoy most about characterization – whether internal or external. The article Alan Rinzler has on his site about ‘loving your characters’ relates to this somewhat.
Very happy to see this week will include writing topics, since your posts always seem to be right on point.
I love that you introduced a topic on writing! Wow, nothing like a writing topic to get writers enthused and chatting like crazy.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to plot arcs recently. On page 217 of the science fiction novel I’m writing, I’m trying to pay very close attention to how the arcs of all the characters, including the minor ones, are progressing. That’s allowing me to move the novel forward much more quickly, and to feel like I’m getting to the heart of the overall story.
One of my favorite novels, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, holds great examples of plot arcs. Every character is unique. Even though an entire family struggles through life in a difficult environment, each one has very different motivations, and their lives end up quite different as a result.
Such a great post, even if it IS on the one element of writing a book which gives me the worst heebie-jeebies. 🙂
Wonderful post.
I mean, come on… Who DOESN’T want to work with an agent who uses Nintedo-based examples?!
It just doesn’t get much more awesome than that.
Good post.
Nathan, Thanks for the great post!
I’ve critiqued a number of manuscripts, both short stories and novels that suffer from this weakness. Without character desires, the story has no plot. It’s just a series of connected events that don’t lead anywhere. As a young lady of my acquaintance once said of her relationships: “If it’s not going anywhere, why am I involved?”
I’d also stress that wanting something is insufficient by itself. The characters have to take action. They can’t just wander through their lives waiting for chance or fate to drop it into their laps… unless they’re a tragic figure whose inaction leads to the tragedy.
On an unrelated note: Via this blog: http://somanybooksblog.com/2009/03/16/are-we-headed-toward-a-post-literate-world/
A fascinating academic study about the future of writing and reading with some unsettling conclusions. The author of the presentation maintains a web site with more information:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~mridley/PostLiteracy.htm
Wow. I’ve been writing for ages and was comfortable with plot, character, motivation, and how to make it all fit together and that every single thing has to count, but “plot arc” I’ve never heard of, and it suddenly became visual and so much easier to see in my head. Awesome advice. Thank you. wow.
This post came on the day before my query goes off to my agent of choice with the first three chapters and all my hopes and dreams (keeping it all in proportion as you see!).
The questions you ask are so pertinent and have helped me give myself a little credit for all the work I put in on backstory for all my characters – pages that will never see the light of day but which, hopefully, shine through in everything they say, and all they leave unsaid.
Thank you for this post, much more constructive than the ANTM repeat I was watching. Back to reading, reading and rereading synopsis. Scary times 🙂
Every character has to show agency? But it’s so hard to get an agent!
Constructing a good story around what your characters want takes a lot of work. I’m constantly fixing and fine tuning the motivations of my characters; sometimes I have to make them more compelling because they don’t always come across that way.
Awesome Mario Bros. reference too. 🙂
Intriguing post to think about deeply!
I just pulled out from some writing and have a really big question for anyone:
If a character starts to think they won’t get what they want and gets depressed, loses hope, etc., is that dangerous (for the writing, the reader, etc.)?
(too much of a downer?)