As mentioned, some alpha readers found “motivation holes” in the book.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 Motivation is a huge topic–critical to the success of any story–and it’s a fragile, brittle link between writer and reader.<\/p>\n
Why, you may wonder, should characters’ motivations be so tricky and so fraught with breakdowns?\u00a0\u00a0 Because motivation itself rests on some shaky sociological legs.\u00a0\u00a0 Why we do what we do–and why we think other people do what they do–is both mysterious and misunderst0od.\u00a0 Motivation is rarely singular (“I want a bowl of ice cream; I go get the bowl of ice cream…”)\u00a0\u00a0 Far more often, motivations are complex, and the actual behavior is a kind of vector sum of nonparallel influences:\u00a0 biological, experiential, cultural, etc.<\/p>\n
For fiction behavior to be believable, readers must attach a believable motivation to it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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?\u00a0 What motivated her?\u00a0\u00a0 Is she sick?\u00a0\u00a0 Bulemic?\u00a0\u00a0 Over-active thyroid?\u00a0\u00a0 Greedy and self-indulgent?\u00a0\u00a0 Using food to soothe negative emotions?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What if, until this point in the book, she was presented as a strict vegan?<\/p>\n
The writer will have to help the reader understand why Ms. Vegan suddenly gobbled up red meat and cheese.\u00a0\u00a0 Some readers will accept motivations that others (other vegans, for instance) would find unbelievable.<\/p>\n
As we all know in our own lives, motivations are frequently misunderstood.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did you just forget to put the trash out, or were you getting back at your partner?\u00a0\u00a0 Is your teenager really sulking when he has that expression on his face, or is he thinking hard about something he read?\u00a0\u00a0 (I was always getting in trouble for being “sulky” when I was thinking.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did that politician lie, or was he simply ignorant? \u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes their beliefs derive from family or cultural norms (that may not be fact-based)— “All Y are lazy.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s why they’re unemployed.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes their beliefs derive from fiction:\u00a0 movies, TV shows,\u00a0 books good and bad.\u00a0\u00a0 Those fictions may or may not attempt to depict real-life motivations.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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\u00a0 suddenly snatches a policeman’s pistol and shoots a row of first-graders, readers will rebel.<\/p>\n
Faced with this variety of readers, what can writers do?\u00a0\u00a0 First, recognize that a perfectly reasonable behavior in response to a circumstance for one readership may be incomprehensible to another.\u00a0\u00a0 (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.)\u00a0\u00a0 Then, pick a midpoint between “Oh, yeah, sure, of course” and “Waitaminnit, NOBODY acts like that!”\u00a0 based on the writer’s understanding of his\/her readership…and choose a presentation of the motivation that will work for that readership.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
The writer must understand\u00a0 the character’s motivation–in all the complexity for that character and that behavior–in order to present it.\u00a0 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.<\/em> Why does the character think he\/she did it?\u00a0\u00a0 Is that the real reason he\/she did it?\u00a0\u00a0 Did the character fully understand the situation?\u00a0 Herself\/himself?\u00a0\u00a0 The other people involved?<\/p>\n Then the writer can consider how much of the character’s motivation (pretended, believed, actual)\u00a0 needs to be presented to the reader right away, and what may contribute to a good\u00a0 discovery later.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Characters and readers can discover the same thing at different times.\u00a0 In Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons<\/em>, 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Choice of point-of-view and careful handling of characterization can allow a character to know something readers aren’t told until later.\u00a0\u00a0 Or they can find out simultaneously (the revelation of Stella’s real parentage in the Vatta’s War<\/em> series comes at the same time to readers and characters in the book.)\u00a0\u00a0 Readers can be allowed to choose the most obvious motivation, with an alternative being revealed later.<\/p>\n But readers (including this writer with her reader hat on) don’t like being tricked.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Surprised, yes.\u00a0 Tricked, no.)\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But it better be set up right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As mentioned, some alpha readers found “motivation holes” in the book.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 Motivation is a huge topic–critical to the success of any story–and it’s a fragile, brittle link between writer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[62,33],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-motivation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}