CREATING CHARACTER MOTIVATION IN FICTION
Why do characters act the way they act? What drives Rick Lavelle to murder Dr. Soren, his psychiatrist? What’s the impetus for Sy Vallejo’s stealing money from the Citibank branch where his wife of twenty-five years works? Why does Samara sell everything she owns, cash out her retirement, sell her car, her home, and cut every one of her credit cards to bits? Is she planning on running away? Starting a new life? If she isn’t doing that, her reasoning may be as great a story as if she were planning on disappearing. As readers, we need to know why the characters in fiction do what they do. As writers, we also need to know why our characters do what they do. That, my friends, is character motivation. Character motivation is the why of why our characters do what they do. And that’s a critical element not only in fiction but in why we, as readers, we keep reading a book or story instead of putting it down.
Let’s dig further, shall we? Think of it this way. If a character doesn’t have reasons for why they act a certain way, or speak a certain way (yelling, whispering, etc.), engage with someone in a particular way, why they go to a certain location, and so on, then all we have is a bunch of characters walking around without a purpose (that’s also plot, or at least goes hand in hand with plot.
A character’s motivation contributes to the plot of a story (which, I’m sorry to tell you, have all been done already). Character motivation adds layers to your story. It creates the thread, similar to plot, that hooks your readers. Ask yourself this: Why did Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet kill his brother, the king? (Well, to become king himself, of course). Why does Mary Pat Fennessy in Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies continually approach members of the Irish mob given how much danger she’s putting herself in? (Because her daughter is missing and she knows the mob’s probably involved). Why does Boo Radley in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird do such nice things like leaving gifts for people? (Because he is a protector and, quite simply, a good guy). Which leads us into different types of character motivation.
CREATING CHARACTER MOTIVATION IN FICTION
Character motivation is generally broken down into two types: Internal character motivation (intrinsic motivation), and External character motivation (extrinsic motivation). But this sounds more complicated than it is.
Internal character motivation is when a character “acts” certain ways because of emotional or psychological needs. In Hamlet, Claudius’s internal motivation is greed. Is ambition. Is self-preservation and the desire for power, i.e., the power his brother possesses and that he wants. Which is similar to why Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother and King Hamlet’s wife, marries Claudius. If Queen Gertrude marries Claudius, Elsinore Castle and Denmark remain stable politically and Queen Gertrude’s safety remains intact. Internal motivations are typically thought of as intangible. Internal motivations are things a character has within them that need to be achieved or accomplished so as to ease or soothe how the characters feel: if I make it to CEO I’ll get the respect I’ve never received; if I forgive the man who killed my spouse I’ll be forgiven by God, and so on. You get the picture.
In Small Mercies, Mary Pat’s internal motivation is her maternal instinct and the love she has for her missing daughter, Jules. Other than Jules, Mary Pat has no family. Her son OD’d. Her first husband was murdered. And there’s no way Mary Pat can let the same thing happen to her last remaining family member.
Motivation drives our characters to do things, often dangerous or unethical or questionable things, because it outweighs the risks of our characters’ actions. If Queen Gertrude doesn’t marry Claudius, however distasteful the union may be to her and others, she knows she may be the next person to go, along with the kingdom itself. If Mary Pat doesn’t walk perilously close to the line with dangerous Irish mob guys like Marty Butler, she’ll never know what happened to (or find) her daughter. And without her daughter, life isn’t worth living anyway. If life isn’t worth living without her daughter, isn’t that a believable, understandable motivation for why she might risk it?
External character motivations are motivations driven by things outside of the brain, meaning in the physical world. In Jack London’s White Fang, a wild wolf-dog hybrid faces starvation, and so he hunts and battles predators to stay alive. When White Fang is in the Native American camp, the other dogs, led by Lip-lip, attack him for being mostly wolf. And so again White Fang must fight for his survival. Other physical tribulations ensue, ending with White Fang being shot multiple times while protecting his new family from an escaped convict. The things White Fang does are, at first, to survive the threats to his life, and then later to protect the people that care for him. Yes, there are internal and external motivations working in tandem in our characters, but the differences are relatively clear. In the case of White Fang, he is anthropomorphized so readers can better relate to him as the novel’s protagonist or hero.
Motivation is the why of why our characters do what they do, be it punching someone in the face to stop an attack, climbing a mountain to rescue a child, or jumping in front of a bullet to stop it from hitting a friend (external motivation), or showing your independence by disobeying your father’s wish that you go to law school because he did, joining the Marines to fight in the Middle East because you need to prove to yourself that you’re brave and patriotic, or donating a million bucks to Habitat for Humanity so you’ll feel good about the fact that you’re helping communities gain affordable housing. Heaven here we come!
The truth is this: without knowing why your characters do what they do, your readers will be lost. They’ll have nothing (and nobody) to follow. To make us want to read. To provide us with a reason for why the story you’ve read or written exists. Remember, plot is this happened and so this happened and because this happened this happened,” and so on. E.M. Forester: The king died and the queen died is a story. The king died and then the queen died of grief is a plot. The second example shows causality, and every plot, as we know, is about causality.
As opposed to plot, characters do this because they have a motive behind their action(s). They think, if I do this, I’ll cause this to happen. If I play the lottery, my motivation is to win, so that I can buy a house, or pay off my debts, or flash my cash around so everyone pays attention to me (all of which are motivations themselves).
Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who believed that we, as people, have a hierarchy of needs that must be fulfilled to achieve self-actualization. In other words, human beings have innate needs that must be fulfilled in order of a certain priority. This hierarchy of needs became known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Most of us have probably seen the triangle associated with this hierarchy of needs, but Maslow didn’t come up with it; its origin is unknown. That said, below is the pyramid we’ve all come to know and love:
Maslow’s hierarchy is a good reference point and tool available to us when creating character motivation. The hierarchy provides us with a clearer, more defined list of accepted character need “states.” As we see in the triangular representation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, people go from a basic, survival set of needs like food, water, sex, sleep, etc., all the way up to the top of the pyramid, which is the need for self-actualization. German neurologist and psychiatrist Kurt Goldstein was the first to coin the term “self-actualization.” Self-actualization is defined as the continual psychological process of understanding and fulfilling one’s full potential in order to become their most authentic self. The core characteristics of self-actualization are 1) a realistic perception of reality and human nature, 2) self-acceptance, 3) autonomy, i.e., having a sense of independence, 4) creativity, i.e., being problem-focused, and 5) peak experiences, which is an abundance of wonder, awe, and well-being. So the question is, what can you, as a writer, do with this?
My belief is that the hierarchy of needs is a great device writers can employ to zoom in on a more granular level of a character’s motivation. That is to say, if your character, let’s call her Anne, is trapped in a fruitless, suffocating marriage or job, her “goal” in your fiction might be to obtain freedom from that marriage or job. This assumes Anne has a home/apartment, which we know she does (physiological needs), that she has friends (love and belonging), that’s she’s alive and breathing (physiological needs), perhaps financially stable enough (safety & security), but may lack the confidence and recognition she’d like to have. The freedom, confidence, and recognition Anne seeks fall under the self-esteem, or psychological need/stage of Maslow’s hierarchy. So, if we know Anne’s goal is to reach the Self-Esteem level, we can jot down a list of the steps/elements of her current stage (where she is in the hierarchy) and then jot down the goals Anne has for herself (meaning where she wants to be on the hierarchy) to come up with actions that translate as Anne’s attempt to achieve her goals. Here’s an example, and since we already know Anne, let’s go with a hypothetical situation/scene.
Anne works for LeByeBye, an AI startup looking to compete with ChatGPT, Anthropic, and other end-of-the-world Artificial Intelligence companies. She applied to LeByeBye, and somehow, even though her undergraduate degree is in geology, she gets hired. She works diligently at LeByeBye for a year, but never gets a promotion, and never gets a raise. But all her colleagues, including those hired long after she’s been working there, do. Under Maslow’s hierarchy, Anne’s self-esteem suffers because her lack of advancement and recognition destroys her confidence. But Anne is determined to acquire both. So, what does she do? Bill, who just got promoted, has a master’s degree in artificial intelligence. So, Anne signs up to Phoenix University’s master’s program and acquires the same degree. Boom! Raise. But is that dramatic enough for your story? Probably not. So, what if instead of Anne getting the degree, the brakes on Bill’s new Porsche go out and he goes all Thelma and Louise off the PCH?
Now, we may get to the same place anyway, but the need for Anne’s improving her self-esteem and recognition drive her to spend nights studying for tests or, in a more interesting scenario, cutting Bill’s brakes. Voilà! Character motivation.
But not all of us want to stare at a chart. Some of us would rather just see a list of character motivations to kickstart the work of creating their characters’ motivations. So here are two lists—one for internal character motivations and one for external motivations.
Internal Motivations:
Validation
Internal Freedom
Personal Transformation
Happiness
Hope
Identity
Empathy
Self-Worth
Curiosity
Guilt
Inner Peace
Fear
Wisdom
Love
Courage
External Motivations:
Rebellion
Belonging
Protection
Curiosity
Legacy
Love
Recognition
Family
Honor
Freedom
Revenge
Adventure
Belonging
Success
Of course, these are not comprehensive lists for either internal or external motivations, but they’re good starting points you can focus on for creating your character(s) motivation. Personally, I home in on motivation while I’m writing. I’ve been writing for so long that motivations arise while I’m writing, and my process is to write the first draft as quickly as possible to maintain the story, the plot, the musicality and consistency of the voice, style, tone, and so on. Once I understand what the story is about, I can better elaborate on the character’s reasons for doing what they do and how that informs the story, the plot, and everything else I need in my fiction. Give it a go. If you’re struggling with character motivation, hopefully the above’s given you what you need to create compelling characters motivated by compelling needs, real or simply in the minds of the people walking around your fictional settings.
Cully Perlman is author of a novel, The Losses.
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