Which Of Crusoe's Feelings Motivations

What Is Character Motivation?
Why Are Character Motivations Important?
- 1. Relatability
- 2. Realism
  - Example Report: The Marvel Cinematic Universe
- 3. Characters Will Write Themselves
What Are the Unlike Types of Motivations?
- Motivations Are Not Goals
- Realistic Motivations? Not Necessarily
How to Bear witness a Character's Motivation

A writer needs a lot of dissimilar edifice blocks to tell a practiced story and create believable characters.

That said, there are few components more important than a grapheme's desire and their motivation to exercise what they do.

In this article, you volition acquire:

What character motivation is
Why it is important
What are some practiced examples of character motivation
How to build believable characters with conceivable motivation

What Is Character Motivation?

Character motivation is the driving force behind everything your characters do. It is the thoughts, dreams, wants, needs, and fears that give your characters life.

We all want something. In fact, we desire many things. Nosotros desire to succeed in life, we want to dearest and be loved, we want to avoid burning ourselves on the kitchen stove.

In brusque, everything nosotros exercise is motivated by something. That something unremarkably takes the grade of an inner desire that draws us to something, or a fear that pushes us away from something.

Well-written characters are the same fashion. They are driven towards or away from something. They should never do something but because the story dictated it.

Whenever a reader says a character feels "apartment", the reason is likely to practise with their motivations. If all your graphic symbol is doing is moving from i place to another, doing whatever the plot dictates, then your reader will not feel anything for that grapheme.

Why Are Character Motivations Important?

There are a number of reasons why you must include character motivations for as many characters as possible.

1. Relatability

The get-go, and most important reason why a character'south motivation is important, is relatability.

As mentioned in a higher place, nosotros all have motivations that drive whatever nosotros practise. For case:

Nosotros'll eat because our trunk is telling us that nosotros're hungry.
We'll take a task because nosotros desire financial security, even if the job isn't necessarily something we like.
Nosotros'll pursue a relationship considering nosotros value emotional intimacy with another person.
Nosotros'll avoid a person because we don't like the manner they brand usa feel.
We'll work harder in order to receive a promotion or an increase in money.
We'll donate our fourth dimension or coin to an organization that promotes a cause nosotros believe in.

In that location's, essentially, null that nosotros do without some motivation backside it.

Therefore, if a reader picks upwardly a book, and the main character has no explainable reason for why he/she behaves, then the reader is likely to not care. Considering nosotros can't relate to someone with no bulldoze.

The reader might not be able to explain why a character feels off, but someone with a trained center, like an editor or experienced beta reader, would be able to point to your character's lack of motivation.

2. Realism

Similar to relatability, nosotros want motivations because it's realistic to have them (though not all motivations are realistic, and we'll talk about that more below).

There's not a person alive who doesn't have motivation.

That is why every one of your characters (aye, all of them) should have some kind of motivation, something pushing them to do what they are doing.

You don't have to develop a rich and complicated backstory for everyone, just yous should develop and write down the basics for each. What are they in information technology for?

This is peculiarly true of villains. Let'south wait at one prime instance:

Case Study: The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Ane of the biggest criticisms of the otherwise acclaimed Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is that nearly of the villains are one-dimensional. They show upward for a few scenes and are obviously evil, with little evidence to propose why they are the way they are.

Merely in that location are 2 BIG exceptions to this dominion:

Loki
Thanos

In the case of Loki, we know of his want to have over the earth, merely over the course of the MCU, we learn of his inner desires to be loved past his begetter, and have the aforementioned acclaim equally his blood brother. Loki has easily been the virtually popular MCU villain, and has shown up more than any other, complete with his ain television show.

For Thanos, we see his want to end half the life in the universe, only as we acquire the story of his own planet (one that is relatable to most of u.s., as it touches on climate change), and nosotros acquire why he does what he does. We don't have to agree with his methods, but it does brand Thanos more realistic, which only increases the satisfaction of that graphic symbol arc'south ultimate fate in Avengers: Endgame.

3. Characters Will Write Themselves

A third, and hugely important reason to include character motivations, is that information technology volition make writing easier.

Have yous e'er heard the phrase, "the characters merely wrote themselves"?

This is a common occurrence when you've got your character'southward backstory laid out. When you understand what makes them tick, you will sympathize how they would react in any given situation.

This creates a highly coveted dynamic: a graphic symbol-driven plot.

Trust me, you lot want that.

What Are the Different Types of Motivations?

There are a TON of different scenarios that yous can utilize for your story. In fact, One Stop for Writers has a fantastic list of potential motivations to get you started.

However, when you dig deep into the science of motivation, yous are nearly certain to run across Maslow'south Hierarchy of Needs.

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who published a newspaper on the field of study in 1942, entitled: "A Theory of Human Motivation".

This theory presented 5 tiers of demand that motivate the states:

Physiological: These are actual necessities of life, similar food, h2o, sleep, etc.
Safety: Though non quite as urgent as the physiological needs, security, health, shelter, employment, etc. all autumn into this category, and are high on the list of priorities.
Belonging: Anything to practise with a relationship, particularly of the non-sexual kind (though that is included) goes here.
Esteem: Motivations of esteem brand the states strive for confidence, achievement, the respect of others, etc.
Self-appearing: Finally, terminal on the list are needs like morality, creativity, and other things we might consider indulgences if the other needs are not met, but are still important to u.s..

Here is a handy chart to get an thought of what these look similar.

In mod times, this strict hierarchy has come into question. For example, in that location are multiple instances throughout history when privately-held moral motivations have superseded almost anything else.

However, this is still a useful style for writers to film motivations pertaining to their characters.

Y'all may also encounter these needs categorized under three categories:

Basic Needs (physiological and safety/security)
Psychological Needs (love, relationships, belonging, esteem)
Self-fulfillment (cocky-appearing and creativity)

The important takeaway here is that some motivations volition trump others if they are not met.

For example, it doesn't matter how important your hero's quest is, if they can't notice water to drink and they are dying, all other things volition accept to look until that need is fulfilled. Once the hero has met the basic needs, they can plough their attending on whatsoever comes next.

In a story, motivations of morality or idealism are bully, just bear in mind that they volition ofttimes come up secondary to the other things on this list. This is not always the case, but it'south a proficient rule of thumb to alive by. If you plan to break from these norms, make sure you lot accept idea almost it, and have a reason to do so.

Motivations Are Not Goals

Information technology'southward easy to confuse motivations and goals as the same matter, since both center on the wants and needs of a character.

The departure is that motivations are the underlying reasons why a character would set a goal in the beginning place.

Allow's look at an example:

In the first book of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, the main characters set out on a typical fantasy question from their domicile in the Two Rivers, to a place called Tar Valon.

They all share the same goal. Yet, the reasons for each of them going vary wildly.

Three of the main characters all want to become for their own self-preservation, and to protect the ones they dearest.

The guide character is there to protect the boys and keep them from falling into enemy easily, while her protector is there because he has sworn loyalty to her.

Another character comes because she wants to learn from the guide character, and still some other character comes only because she thinks that the main characters were misled by the guide character.

In short, they all had different reasons for being there, but their underlying motivations are clear. Together, they bring a wide spider web of desires into an otherwise straight forrard fantasy quest.

Realistic Motivations? Not Necessarily

Merely every bit all humans have motivations, nosotros are also (almost all) irrational at some level. Take phobias for example. In almost all cases, the fear of something taken to backlog can exist very irrational, but all the same a skillful motivation.

And our motivations don't have to exist rational or realistic. In fact, an irrational internal motivation can lead to some incredible external action.

This is especially true in villains, where the motivations are frequently irrational to our perspective.

The Joker is a great example of this. Once we accept his motivations to create chaos wherever he goes. This is not something we tin can relate to, but in one case we accept that as his motivation, his deportment become more clear, and we are suddenly more emotionally invested.

On the flip side, Adrian Monk from Monk has an irrational fearfulness of almost everything. But when nosotros come up to empathise that this is (largely) agitated by losing his wife, we come up to sympathise. Additionally, when Monk's other desires to get a detective once more begin to supersede his fearfulness-driven motivations, we really brainstorm to intendance about what he wants.

How to Show a Character's Motivation

Okay, so we've covered why motivations are useful, and what they wait like. Then how do we incorporate them into our protagonist, antagonist, and and then on?

Here are the steps I recommend to become started:

Step 1: Examine your basic plot and character. What needs to happen, and what kind of character would be best in this kind of state of affairs.
Step 2: Build your grapheme with the plot in listen. What will the character need to practice in the story? What kind of motivation would urge the character to practise those things?
Step 3: Examine the graphic symbol's fears. Meet if you tin find a way for them to face those fears through the plot.
Stride four: Create a motivation that supersedes their basic fear instincts, then that they are able to not only face their fears, but also overcome them.
Step 5: See if y'all tin have your character motivations change through the course of the plot. Mayhap they tin be motivated by a want at the commencement. Then have them realize that the thing they need is actually something deeper. This is prime textile for plot twists by the mode.
Pace vi: Find ways for motivations to disharmonize. There's nothing more interesting to a reader than a hero with internal conflict over two very potent external motivations.

Once you've made it that far, here are some additional tips to better improve the motivation for your characters:

Utilize backstory: Make sure that each character has at least a piddling backstory in heed. You don't have to outline everything in their past, just plenty to explain certain character traits.
Have multiple motivations: Don't limit things to but one motivation, otherwise your character will turn out like Michael in Lost, always interested in one matter and never having whatever other depth of grapheme.
Show, don't tell: Yeah, yes, you lot hear it everywhere you go. But finding ways to testify a character'due south motivations in their thoughts, dialogue, and actions is much more constructive than a simple paragraph telling the reader what their motivation is.

Examples of powerful character motivations include:

Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games
Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Joker in The Dark Knight
Monk in Monk
Rambo in the Rambo series
Walter White in Breaking Bad
Both Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice
Elle in Legally Blonde

To Sum Up

Alright, and then it'south fair to say that character motive is important. It determines the characters' actions, makes them more relatable, and creates believable characters.

We learned that motivations are tiered, so ane may trump another. For this reason, it is important to take multiple motives that conflict with each other to create conflict.

Lastly, nosotros learned how to bring all of this together into your plot and characters. I hope this has been informational for y'all, and if it is, I highly recommend yous check out some of our other posts, starting with these:

How to Develop Characters
Types of Characters
Character Interview Questions
How to Edit a Book