Paksworld

As mentioned, some alpha readers found “motivation holes” in the book.  Motivation holes arise when a) a character’s actions aren’t tied to a motivation or b) when the reader doesn’t find the motivations shown to be believable.   Motivation is a huge topic–critical to the success of any story–and it’s a fragile, brittle link between writer and reader.

Why, you may wonder, should characters’ motivations be so tricky and so fraught with breakdowns?   Because motivation itself rests on some shaky sociological legs.   Why we do what we do–and why we think other people do what they do–is both mysterious and misunderst0od.  Motivation is rarely singular (“I want a bowl of ice cream; I go get the bowl of ice cream…”)   Far more often, motivations are complex, and the actual behavior is a kind of vector sum of nonparallel influences:  biological, experiential, cultural, etc.

For fiction behavior to be believable, readers must attach a believable motivation to it.  If the writer shows a character who’s been marooned on a mountain for three days nibbling berries and roots wolfing down a big meal after rescue, the writer doesn’t have to offer a reason for that second helping of potatoes and gravy–readers of many backgrounds will infer “He was really hungry” from the three days lost on the mountain.   But what about a thin, health-conscious character who–two hours after their usual healthy lunch–runs out to a fast-food place and wolfs down a double bacon-cheeseburger with large fries?  What motivated her?   Is she sick?   Bulemic?   Over-active thyroid?   Greedy and self-indulgent?   Using food to soothe negative emotions?    What if, until this point in the book, she was presented as a strict vegan?

The writer will have to help the reader understand why Ms. Vegan suddenly gobbled up red meat and cheese.   Some readers will accept motivations that others (other vegans, for instance) would find unbelievable.

As we all know in our own lives, motivations are frequently misunderstood.    Did you just forget to put the trash out, or were you getting back at your partner?   Is your teenager really sulking when he has that expression on his face, or is he thinking hard about something he read?   (I was always getting in trouble for being “sulky” when I was thinking.)    Did that politician lie, or was he simply ignorant?    Misunderstood motivations are useful within the story–between characters– but between the reader and the story, they cause readers to lose their connection to the character.

Readers come to fiction with a suite of beliefs about how people function–what they do and why they do it–in a variety of situations.  Sometimes their beliefs derive from personal experience (someone who has been a nurse knows standard protocol for nurses, has worked with other nurses, has insights into a nurse’s motivation for–let’s say–insisting that a patient take that medicine.)    Sometimes their beliefs derive from family or cultural norms (that may not be fact-based)— “All Y are lazy.   That’s why they’re unemployed.”     Sometimes their beliefs derive from fiction:  movies, TV shows,  books good and bad.   Those fictions may or may not attempt to depict real-life motivations.    Readers also try to predict, from the way a character is presented, what range of behaviors he or she is capable of–and if a gentle, loving, law-abiding person who has done nothing violent for 387 pages  suddenly snatches a policeman’s pistol and shoots a row of first-graders, readers will rebel.

Faced with this variety of readers, what can writers do?   First, recognize that a perfectly reasonable behavior in response to a circumstance for one readership may be incomprehensible to another.   (Same is true with the writer–what seems reasonable–and thus requiring no mention or explanation–to the writer may be incomprehensible to most readers.)   Then, pick a midpoint between “Oh, yeah, sure, of course” and “Waitaminnit, NOBODY acts like that!”  based on the writer’s understanding of his/her readership…and choose a presentation of the motivation that will work for that readership.  Find a way to show it that doesn’t insult those who got it right away, or leave too many of those who didn’t, confused.

The writer must understand  the character’s motivation–in all the complexity for that character and that behavior–in order to present it.  Sometimes we writers don’t…we need another round of thinking about the character and what would/could possibly get that character to do that. Why does the character think he/she did it?   Is that the real reason he/she did it?   Did the character fully understand the situation?  Herself/himself?   The other people involved?

Then the writer can consider how much of the character’s motivation (pretended, believed, actual)  needs to be presented to the reader right away, and what may contribute to a good  discovery later.    Characters and readers can discover the same thing at different times.  In Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons, for instance, the protagonist’s selfishness and brattiness are made obvious to the reader long before the protagonist realizes what a rotter he’s been.    Choice of point-of-view and careful handling of characterization can allow a character to know something readers aren’t told until later.   Or they can find out simultaneously (the revelation of Stella’s real parentage in the Vatta’s War series comes at the same time to readers and characters in the book.)   Readers can be allowed to choose the most obvious motivation, with an alternative being revealed later.

But readers (including this writer with her reader hat on) don’t like being tricked.    (Surprised, yes.  Tricked, no.)   Show me that the sweet, gentle, law-abiding person is really a lunatic when not on her meds…or a terrorist reacting to another terrorist’s actions on another continent…and I might believe it.  But it better be set up right.