Motivation - Debbie Bennett
What do your characters want? Every major character in your story has a purpose – a need to gain something or go somewhere. It may be as simple as finding true love, or escaping a bad relationship, or it may be more complex – finding peace after some inner turmoil, or finding his or her place in a new world after some life-changing event. It’s these desires and motivations that drive your story and often push it off into new dimensions. Even your minor characters need a reason for being in your story, although your walk-on people may not have much of a motivation other than serving your character in a shop! When the desires of character A directly conflict with the motivations of character B is where the fun starts, especially when B’s motivations are not necessarily apparent form the start. B may not even realise what he wants, although it might be obvious to everybody else! That’s why many novels – and this probably applies more to genre fiction than literary fiction – have a...