Monday, March 10, 2008
Why do they do that?!
We make decisions everyday. From what time to get out of bed to what to wear to what to eat. We are always making choices. Even refusing to get out of bed and face the world is a choice. And what moves us to make these choices? Motivation.It's not something we always consciously think about. I sometimes decide what to wear to work based on who I might see that day. If the owner of the company is coming, the more professional clothes come out. If I know a particular guy I have my eye on is coming in, a different type of top goes on. And if I know the higher ups are all taking the day off, the jeans and tennis shoes work just fine.
Right now I'm working on my food choices which are motivated by my deep desire not to fulfill my potential of becoming as big as a house. Trust me, I have the potential to reach this condition with very little effort. I've maintained my weight within a 10 to 15 pound range since high school but I'm getting older and I can see that range stretching before my eyes. Fear, vanity, and the desire to live a long and healthy life motivate me to try to eat, if not better, less.
Since motivation is such an integral part of everything we do, you'd think finding the motivation behind our character's actions would be simple. Ha! Not so much. It's hard. Really hard. At least for me. And I think it's because my story is very character driven. I can't claim my heroine is running from a serial killer and that's why she's driving like a crazy person. I can't claim my hero is working for the British government to prevent a seemingly imminent war and that's why he's kidnapping French spies.
The best I can do is the fact my heroine wants a family but her fear of getting hurt is stronger than her desire not to be alone so she treats the hero like crap out of sheer self-preservation. That's motivation but it's much more complicated and sounds much less exciting.
In my quest for character motivation, I have purchased Goal, Motivation, & Conflict by Debra Dixon. I highly recommend this book and if you'd like to attend a workshop with Ms. Dixon in person, see me on the top deck. I can tell you how to make that happen.
So, Ms. Dixon recommends first time authors give their character one simple, strong and focused motivation. Yeah, I see my problem now. Back to lack of focus. She also recommends putting urgency behind the motivation. Whatever it is the character wants, make it urgent. I am so in trouble.
The trick is to keep asking "Why?" Why does he kiss her if he can't stand her? Why does she let him when she thinks he's an overbearing moron? Why does he give her nice things but refuse to let her go? Why does she go down the basement to investigate that crashing sound when she knows there's a killer after her? Really, I'm dying to know the answer to that last one.
Do you know exactly why your characters do all the silly, remarkable and dangerous things they do? Do you make sure you know the motivation behind every scene as you write it? Or do you just write and never even think about it? Have any tricks for finding it that you could share with the rest of us?
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24 comments:
I was attracted by the 'reward if found' notice. that's what I call motivation!
What do I get if I reveal the secret?
I think its really to do with creativity and thats one of nature's biggest secrets. I think of the mind as a steaming Christmas pudding. Below is the boiling water bubbling, full of potential for a delicious taste. Above is the pudding gradually warming up so that it can realise that potential.
If you are highly creative, like my Christmas pudding, its best not to over plot but to just write when intuition tells you there is something there. As you write, those half formed floating apparitions of the sub conscious will crystallise in words like magic.
Thats the secret my dears. Think Christmas pudding *w*
My characters are always surprising me. I don't know "why" they do what they do sometimes...and wish they wouldn't. *g*
I'm with Maggie, my characters never behave. My heroine is very disciplined and determined. She's emotionally driven in the opposite direction than your heroine. Reid is running away from family and the picket fence. I use her past life as her motivating factor.
If I can't use emotion I work in external factors that stir up conflict.
This really isn't a throw away question. When it comes time to write a synopsis, you need to know the motivation behind everything the h/h do. And that's where I lose it.
It's all fine to just write along and tell a story but I'm scared to death to get to the end and find out I can't sum up the story because I have no idea why they've made all these decisions.
Q - pudding? Interesting theory. I'll have to look into that. LOL!
I'm not very far into things but I believe I would have an easier time with the internal stuff. I tend to stay in the minds of my characters more than focus on the external happenings. I'm all about why people do what they do. Why they make the particular choices they make. It's how my mind works. If I stayed in school I probably would have gone into psychology.
It's kind of like Hellion always says that writing is like a sort of therapy. I suppose that's how I look at my characters. I also have the philosophy that everyone has something they're dealing with you just have to figure out what that something is and incorporate it into your story. Real simple, right!? LOL
Christmas pudding?
*shaking head*
I'm with Maggie. My characters are always telling me what's up. And then I have to make up reasons why they did what they did.
And since I like to kill people, well, I just have fun with it. I roll with the punches, so to speak.
And tricks? Ha. You gotta write first in order to have tricks. LOL
If I had any, I'd share. I need to get off the internet more often and just write. And by write, I mean with a pen and paper until my hand is cramping and it's 4am. Worked wonders this weekend.
If our characters behaved it would be too easy for us writers.
And ter, you write the story then worry about gmc... you can build it and tweak it along the line once you know the whole story. unless you become a plotter and write an outline and synopsis first?
No tricks to speak of. I am a third through my next book and I still don't know what makes my heroine tick... yes 30K and counting and she's got no real motivation... I figure at this rate it'll hit me over the head when the story is done? one would hope? and then I can sprinkle in the build up after the story is told... or so I keep telling myself.
Tiff - I haven't started writing the synopsis ahead of time but I am doing an outline of sorts. It's basically a list of scenes in order with what I want to accomplish in that scene and maybe a bit of dialogue here and there.
It's all written messily in a notebook but it helps me to see where I'm going and where I can tweak things and accomplish what I need to. It's also good for keeping the story moving.
I once heard JR Ward say in an interview that writing a book is like trying to build a house holding your nose against the wall. You can't see all of it from so close. Writing these scenes out sort of lets me see the entire story at a glance instead of blinding trying to build it.
Q apparently works organically. (That is if anything organic can be found in a Christmas pudding. I think that would totally defeat the purpose of Christmas pudding.)
I'm trying to remember which published author told me that *anything* can be motivation for why a character does something, but it's your job to make that motivation believable to the rest of us. So it took the pressure off that it had to be something convoluted or unique or even particularly interesting--but laid out a whole new pressure that I had to convince everyone that this particular motivation was believable, considering that 99% of the time, people *do* things under a motivation that doesn't make a scrap of sense to anyone but them.
That's the trick to fiction. Fiction actually has to be believable.
I have this book but I don't use it. It's too plan-ny, even for me. Who enjoys homework, grids, and filling out questionnaires. Talk about doing something that sucks all the creative experience out of writing--well, at least for me. Which I'm sure has to do with the fact that I can't make the techniques work for me, so therefore, it must be inferior. *LOL*
Then maybe the believability is what I have trouble with. Because when I ask myself "Why did she do that?" the answer I usually come up with is, "Just because."
The character interviews that we did ages ago on the EJ board (before trhe merger) helped me enormously with motivation. Answering the questions really pushed me to think about why my characters made the decisions they made. I used my answers as the nucleus of my character bios, and I have maintained a fairly firm grip on motivation since then. Making the motivation believable, as Hellion says, is more of a struggle.
Because why? *LOL*
I think Deborah's big point was that motivation was internal--and generally our actions are to AVOID dealing with our problems. Fear is a huge motivator. Fear of commitment, fear of intimacy, fear of being hurt, fear of success (I always thought this was funny), fear of failure. I don't think everything has to stem back to childhood in some big story of why she fears spiders and the unknown because she was locked in a closet.
She fears success because she'll have to keep it up--and what if she's a one-hit wonder; she fears failure because what if everyone is right about her and her relationships--what if all the reasons men leave IS because of her?
Motive is your neuroses. Goals and actions usually stem from what it takes to keep the status quo, to avoid whatever it is you're scared of. And "inaction" is also an action. Refusing to take action in hopes troubles will go away is just as relevant.
And as for WHY he kissed her? Because she looked like she needed to be kissed. I can name a boy or two I loathed who I still would have kissed if the situation presented itself. I didn't loathe them because they were repulsive, but because they were damned annoying.
So Celi's fear of getting hurt is enough? And where does the reason for that fear of getting hurt come into the picture? Because if you keep asking the "Why?" question, you could keep asking it like a three year old on a roll. LOL! When do you get to the final answer?!
And then there's the urgency aspect. There is nothing urgent about a fear of not getting hurt except maybe that she urgently needs to get away from him before she falls for him and ends up hurt.
Did I just answer my own question? Gah! This stuff makes me crazy.
Janga - those interviews were terrific in helping me figure out who these people are, but I'm not sure their motivation come out of that. I'm sure it was in there, I'm only really getting deeper in the more progress I make.
You would have to give a reason WHY she fears getting hurt--everyone fears getting hurt--so why is her fear more debilitating than the average person's? It just has to be debilitating to her--and with your angst-love, I'm sure you could make it meaningful without 6 examples of why she avoids intimacy. It can her father walked out of her life; and her last two boyfriends have dumped her out of boredom--she's going to start avoiding relationships. ESPECIALLY IF there is something about *him* that reminds her of her father, however irrational it may be. The devil may care; the pick up and travel sort of lifestyle he has--if he doesn't plan to stay long, she won't want to get involved with him. *shrugs*
Urgency. This is another thing I had a problem with Deborah's plan. The urgency seems to work best in a plot-driven book rather than a character-driven book (though the book can be *both*). Two people who hate each other's guts must work together to accomplish a goal that has a 2-week time limit or everything goes to hell. Otherwise, if there is no time limit, there is no reason for these two people to work so closely together. Urgency gives your motivation, your goals, your actions and reactions a sharper edge...and makes the reader turn the pages to find out if they accomplish their goal in that time. Not all books are like this; but I would say the majority of "fast-paced" novels do have a urgency (or time) factor.
Aren't your people working together on a launch/advertising thing that is to occur in a certain amount of time? That'd be the urgency.
I have a hard time figuring out why my character's do what they do. It took two drafts to get close on my current WIP. Now this third time around Marnee(the most wonderful woman on the planet right now) has helped me see a whole new way of looking at my character's and their motivation.
Also: How can I get to that workshop?
My characters have to work together to plan the town 4th of July Celebration and so that would be a time frame. Silly to celebrate the 4th of July in October I'd think.
And last night I figured out Celi's job hinges on her pulling this off. I have to work out the details but keeping her job/getting a promotion will be the reason she won't quit the committee.
And I didn't really intend for this to be some giant workshop for my story. I hope someone else will get something out of this.
Teri, your story sounds really good. Is it possible Cely is having to make the 4th of july festival a success to keep her job because her work is sponsoring it?
Kelly - Deb Dixon is doing an in depth workshop at my local RWA chapter conference in November. It would be in Williamsburg, VA (which is gorgeous and uber-historical!) and the best part - it's cheap! LOL!
Send me an email if you want more info.
Terri, if it makes you feel any better, I never fully understand why my characters are doing what they're doing until the second draft.
If you are feeling your characters, you will just know what they'd do in whatever situation you dream up. Even if you can't articulate the motivation exactly as you write it, that doesn't mean there's no motivation there. Do you understand why you do what you do at the moment you do it? Heck, I don't.
My advice is, focus on writing a compelling story. Make sure the events are forcing your characters to make tough decisions and sacrifices - then allow your gut to tell you what they decide, what they're willing to give up, what's non-negotiable for them. Their actions will tell you who they are, at the core, and eventually you'll understand the primary motivation driving them through the book. Then you can go back in revisions and make that motivation consistent and clear, or change any scenes that contradict it.
Don't let an incomplete understanding of motivations hold you back from just writing the story, that's what I'm saying. Because we get to know people through witnessing their actions - and that includes fictional characters, too. Sometimes you just can't understand a character's extreme fear of water until you through him in the pool and say "swim".
Hmm, seems my pudding theory hasn't resonated with the highly creative writing pirates.
I'm fascinated with the workings of mind and believe that the root of creativity is in the subconscious. Support for this comes from comments by Maggie and Lisa at the beginning and similar comments from others: "My characters are always surprising me." and "my characters never behave."
The conscious mind works serially and takes one thought at a time. Perfect for logical reasoning. The subconscious is a highly parallel multi-tasking engine which interacts with the conscious mind. So when a character starts to do something unexpected by the reasoning conscious mind I think that the subconscious will have planted the idea.
So my tongue in cheek pudding model tried to capture this with the boiling water representing the subconscious and the pudding representing the conscious and the range of flavours representing the different ideas.
By looking for motivation in everything, aren't you assuming that people behave rationally? It seems to me that irrational emotion drives much of the world. If everyone behaved rationally in explicable ways all the time then they would become predictable in which case I reckon I could make millions on the stock market for starters.
Irrational emotion corresponds to the pudding exploding by the way!
OK I admit it. I'm obsessed with puddings. *g*
Fascinating Blog Terri
Tessa - funny thing is I didn't mean for this to turn into me overthinking the story. It just sort of went that way. LOL! I am my own worst enemy at this point. But you are right, of course. Just get the darn thing down.
Q - your theories are always appreciated. You just forgot you're talking to the one person who wouldn't begin to know how to make pudding. *g*
Great blog Ter! I was just pondering motivation for my heroine this weekend. :)
I do some tentative plotting so I have a pretty good idea (now, after much beating my head against the wall) what my two main character motivations are. Though, sometimes they act up during scenes and I have to go back and read it and make sure they're in line enough to keep the story going. It's really too bad when you have to strong arm them sometimes. I just put on my best mom voice and tell them I know what's best for them.
I love Q's pudding theory. Very nuanced, Q!
Kelly - awh, aren't you sweet? I'm so glad I could help! :)
Thanks, Marnee. I knew I could count on you to understand. LOL!
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