Motives

The most recent Nathan Bransford blog is about characters needing motives. You can find it here: clicky

It got me thinking: do you have clear motives for your MC? Are there things you'll have to change later, if you agree with what's said in this post?

What is the motivation for your MC?

Feel free to let conversation stray from those questions.

I read this earlier. It was a great post. My MC has a clear motive but it doesn't become clear for a few chapters. I'm wondering if this will be injurious to the story at all. I might consider making it clearer earlier, like in Chapter two or so. Something to ponder anyways!

That really was a great article. And now I'm more concerned about the small characters in my novel. I am positive about the motivations for my main characters but I have a few minor characters that haven't quite defined what it is they are trying to get out of life.

Great point to think about!

When I was meeting with my writing mentor last week, we did an exercise in which I was supposed to identify the main motive for each of my characters (no matter how minor). It was hard! When I'm writing, those aren't exactly the types of things I think about. It is helpful to identify motives, though.

Noelle, i don't suppose you could tel us alittle about the exercise? or gives us an example of what it was about? i'm really finding it dificult to find my MC main motivation

Of course. It's basically just a character outline with a purpose tacked on the end. But when EVERY character's purpose is laid out, it's much easier to see connections and create plot twists.

Example (from my MS):

Quote :

MC:
blonde hair, gray eyes, muscular, starts 15 years old- ends 17

Doesn’t like to show emotion, volatile aggression, realistic

Parents and brother were assassinated, became gov't agent, meets MMC, leaves CIA

Main struggle (purpose) is to stay human through inhumane things she has to do.

Oh this is sort of similar to the exercise in a book (first draft to final) i'm reading - i'm in uni at the moment but i'll post up the character sheet which includes internal and external (which is internal - how they view themselves and external - how others see them)

I think mine would be harder to write out a whole list for like that, because their purposes & motives changes over the course of the story.

My characters don't have clear motives. Well, it's hard to explain. I guess that is probably why I do have problems writing summaries for my stories because the motive can't be explained fully.

But I love that kind of exercise Noelle. I have to try it out on my characters--maybe it'll help me out a bit.

Sometimes I have a hard time determining motive. I like to have my plots clearly outlined, and I don't stop to think: why would somebody do this? What's their motivation? So I really have to go back and think about it.

Anybody else have that problem? The whole putting so much on plot when you start that you don't develop characters enough until you're forced to thing?

No, and that is one of the main reasons why I don't put as much into the plot before writing the novel out. I like to have a basis of my characters, but i learn the majority about them as I write. I watch them through their journey and see how they change from the beginning to the end. My characters develop themselves and I just watch.