Character motivations

A writing post for once.

I had been chugging along pretty well until today, at about 40,000 words, but suddenly I find myself avoiding the keyboard. That's because I'm in one of those really annoying moments where I don't know what happens next. Oh sure, I have my outline. I know what the characters are supposed to be doing. I just don't know why they would do it.

One of the surest signs of a poorly plotted story is flimsy character motivation. We come across this a lot in the movies -- moments where we say, "Hang on, why would he do that?" In order to be effective, characters need to resonate with us on some level, and that means we need to understand the decisions a character makes (even if we don't agree with them). Quite simply, what a character does needs to make sense.

Right now, I can't figure out why one of my characters would want to stay with the group. What's in it for her? I need to give her a stake in the outcome. It's not enough that I need the character to do X or Y. She needs to have her own reasons for doing it. Reasons that go beyond that ridiculous fantasy staple: BECAUSE SHE'S LOOKING FOR ADVENTURE!!! That drives me nuts.

Moments like this call for creative thinking, for the writer to throw a curve ball into a carefully plotted outline. Sometimes that's hard to do, though; it's easy to get boxed in by your original idea. Usually, that's a good time to take a step back and do something else.

On that note, off to clean the apartment. Yippee...