(Did you miss part one? You can find it here.)

This second part of this series is what I believe is the most critical component of if a story works or not: Character Motivation.

Do you have plot holes? A theme that isn’t resonating? Flat characters? My guess is that these are probably just side-effects of poor character motivation. Fixing character motivation–or making sure it doesn’t need fixing in the first place–is the surest way to fix a broken story.

But first, let’s review last week’s post:

Last week, I shared how I met with a talented writer at a conference earlier this month, and she told me she doesn’t know how to answer the question, “Does my story work as a whole?” when it’s her own. On a small scale, it’s easy for her to see that the writing is good, but she doesn’t feel confident when evaluating her stories in their entirety.

Her question made me examine my own process in a deeper way. Last week, I detailed a list of tasks that I now do before I write a novel but I used to do them afterward. They are:

• Identify the core of the story in one sentence
• Write about the story in a paragraph or two (kinda like back-cover copy)
• Write a few chapters
• Write a synopsis

Back in my days where I discovery wrote, or “pantsed” my novels, I did all of these things afterward because I didn’t know yet how to effectively brainstorm a novel ahead of time.

Now that I do so much brainstorming ahead of time, I’ve noticed a whole list of vague phrases that I use:

But a shocking discovery leads Piper to…

When a turn of events prompts Piper to…

Meanwhile, Piper discovers this big secret, and then goes to…

The language is vague, because I don’t know the answers yet. I know what I want my character to do, I just don’t know yet WHY she does it.

I can’t speak for other writers, but I’ve found that I can do some work with character motivation before I start, like developing my character’s backstory, but the majority of the magic happens while I’m writing.

Character Motivation Rooted In Backstory

Backstory is a fantastic tool to prod our characters forward.

The most notable of this is identifying the lie our character believes. (Or sometimes I’ve found with YA and Middle Grade books where characters are younger, the lie is more akin to a misbelief or misconception than it is a strong lie they believe.) In The Lost Girl of Astor Street, Piper believes she’s “trouble” because she’s been told that for most of her life.

This is a lie that sometimes empowers her during the story. (Why not do this thing they’re telling me not to do? Everybody thinks I’m trouble anyway.) At other times, the lie lays a heavy burden on Piper. (Whatever happened to Lydia must be my fault because she’s the good one and I’m trouble.)

While very little of that may make it into the book itself, this misbelief is part of what motivates Piper when she makes decisions, so it’s critical that I know and understand what she believes.

There are other pieces of Piper’s backstory that come into play. Like that her mother died from the Spanish Flu five years before the book begins, and that Lydia was the friend who got her through it. That does two things: It increases Piper’s fear of losing people she loves because she’s gone through it, and it also shows the strong friendship between the girls and why Piper is so determined to find Lydia. These aren’t just girls who shop together and braid each other’s hair. They’ve been through hard stuff.

Character Motivation Born Out Of The Events In The Story

While the backstory often motivates our characters in ways they don’t fully recognize or understand, we also get to play with decisions the characters make as a result of what’s happening over the course of the story.

I talked about this in a post in 2017, 2 Ways To Be Sure Your Scene Really Matters, but a light bulb moment of mine was the discovery that when a scene wasn’t working, my characters weren’t making decisions.

Your characters need to be reacting to what’s happening to them, but often our first drafts read more like:

• This happens.
• This happens.
• This happens.

Instead, we should think of it as:

• This happens.
• And so this happens.
• And so this happens.

Characters need to feel logical to our readers. Their logic might be wrong, but readers should at least understand why the character is choosing what they’re choosing.

Let’s look at a couple key decisions from bestselling novels:

In Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry chooses to believe Hagrid that he’s a wizard and he goes with him to Diagon Alley, even though Hagrid is a complete stranger. Why? Because what Hagrid tells him about his parents and Harry’s abilities brings clarity to confusion Harry has had throughout his childhood. Also, because Hagrid is kind to him and the Dursley’s are abusive. As a result, Harry choosing to leave with Hagrid makes complete sense.

Or in The Hunger Games, Katniss chooses Rue to be her ally. Aside from thinking Rue is clever, she also feels sad for her because she’s so young, and Rue reminds Katniss of her younger sister.

Out of context, these decisions sound like bad ones. Leaving your guardians in favor of shopping with a strange man you’ve never met, and picking a 12-year-old girl as your partner in a literal fight to the death scenario. But in context they make total sense because the authors set up the character motivations so well.

Character Motivations For Not The Main Character

The character motivations we often overlook are those of the other characters, and this is another place where enormous plot holes can open up like a Florida sink hole.

After my first attempt of writing The Lost Girl of Astor Street, my agent asked, “What’s your villain doing at this point in the story?” And I realized NOTHING. My villain was doing NOTHING and for no reason other than I needed Piper to have time and space to do something else. Whoops! (It also inspired me to write a post about thinking through your Villain Action Plan or VAP.)

Determining one primary goal for each of your important characters is so valuable to writing a story that works. This doesn’t have to be something that then has its own arc, just something that’s motivating the other characters.

In The Lost Girl of Astor Street, while Piper’s main goal is to find Lydia, her friend Walter’s goal is to be a starter for his minor league baseball team. That has nothing to do with the book, other than show the division that has started to happen between Piper’s life and the lives of her other friends. But it keeps Walter from obsessing over Lydia, which he would have no reason to do other than his connection to her through Piper.

Sometimes other characters might share the goal of your main character. This is especially common in a quest novel or a heist novel. Even then, often characters have different motivations for being on the quest or for stealing whatever it is they’re stealing.

Character Motivation Is Directly Linked to Stakes

Two weeks ago, one of our jugs of milk leaked in our garage refrigerator. When I noticed, I put “Clean up garage fridge,” on my to-do list.

It’s still on there.

Yesterday, I learned Connor had a low balance on his school lunch account. I stopped what I was doing, wrote a check, and popped it in his backpack.

My motivation to clean the fridge is low because it’s the garage fridge. I only open it a couple times a week, and it being gross isn’t currently interfering with my life. In other words, the stakes are low, so my motivation to act is low.

But I have more motivation to put money on Connor’s lunch account. I want to avoid repetitive phone calls from the school reminding me to pay his balance, I want him to continue eating lunch, I want to save the embarrassment since I have a personal relationship with our school’s lunch lady, and several other reasons. The stakes are higher, so my motivation to act is greater.

Your character’s journey should be hard, and the stakes should be high and personal. There needs to be a reason they stick with the hard journey. You never want your readers thinking, “Why’s this character even doing this? Why not just walk away?”

Read Part Three!

Let’s practice now! What’s motivating your character to stick with their journey?