Meeting your characters (part 2)
Welcome back to the second part of meeting your characters! Last post, we talked about physical descriptions. Hair and eye colour, height, identifying features, and right down to the little habits that make us all unique!
Today, we’re delving a little deeper, and looking at how to flesh out your character’s motivations. These are the internal traits, ones that don’t necessarily show up right away, but play a crucial role in your story.
It’s obvious that your character will need a motivation of some kind. This will tie into your plot, and likely help spur it on in a major way, so it’s important to figure it out and get it right early on. Take your time with this step, and find a strong motivation that will be the driving force of your character. Of course, this is not to say that you need to have it all figured out now, but it is helpful to have a main idea of what’s going to drive your character as you move forward with writing.
This is where we turn to the questions… What is your character afraid of? Have they been hurt in the past? Do they struggle with a repeated issue or consistent problem in their life? What do they want most? Money, power, fame, belonging, love? Those are a few of the common driving forces, but obviously there are many more! What spurs your character to take action? Is there something that bothers them deeply? What do they view as injustice?
We could choose to look at the list more positively too… What does your character love more than anything in the world? What do they desire? Do they have a goal in life, somewhere they want to be in 20 years? Who are the people that support them? How do they find encouragement? Is there a love language (there are 5 commonly accepted ones: gifts, words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, and quality time) that impacts them the most? Is there a recurring place that brings them joy, or a memory that never fails to bring a smile? Where do they find their hope?
Now, I realize this list was probably overwhelming, and that’s ok! You don’t need the answers to every one of these questions before you start writing. In fact, you may not even KNOW the answers until you get going. Allowing the story to flow and the characters to express themselves is a part of the writing process. The answers will come. However, motivation is huge driver of plot, and so I suggest having at least a rough idea of what your characters’ will be before you dive too deep into the plot. Knowing this up front can help you weave those details in throughout, creating a continuous narrative that allows for realistic character growth.
All this to say… there is no formula! You’ll hear me say this again and again: everyone writes differently, and that’s perfectly all right. However, answering questions like these about your character can help you flesh them out as you begin to write, and allow for a better plot as you go.
