Character Motivations

 I am sorry. I don't normally miss doing my weekly blog. I've been having worse than normal headaches hitting, so I decided to take last week off. I feel so much better for the time spent off. 

However, I'm not here to dwell on that. So this week, I want to talk about something near and dear to my heart that I haven't talked about in a while.

Motivations.

In my estimation, as an author, there is nothing quite as important to the construction of a novel as your character motivations. If the reason your character is doing something isn't well thought out or the answer comes down to some version of "they have to for plot reasons", then that isn't a good motivation. Think about changing your plot if you can't make the motivations work, or changing the character if you really need one who will work in your plot better. Why? Well, I find that it is usually incorrectly motivated characters that end up seeming to not fit in their worlds or they end up coming across as stupid, which is a faster way to kill any connection your character even when compared with a character kicking a dog after stealing candy from a baby. 

So, how do you figure out the motivations? Look for reasons why your character is doing something. Talk to your friends about it. If at any point one of them tells you, "that's dumb, why would they do that", look long and hard at your characters and figure out what they really want and whether you have inserted the wrong character into this draft. 

Personally, I take it a bit far, making sure that even my "mindless" monsters have a reason and motivation for their actions, even if the readers never end up seeing it. You don't need to go to this level for your book, but I can guarantee that taking it that far will only improve how realistic your characters seem.