Journal/Blog

10-17-22 - Motives

Motives.

When I hear the word 'motive', my mind immediately turns to crime stories. That's a natural occurrence since motives are often associated with why criminals commit a crime. But motives aren't just something that criminals have.

Motives are the things that motivate (gee, those two words look similar ) everyone - antagonists, protagonists, everyone from the main character to the support characters that appear but are only seen once and don't even have any lines!

Nearly anything can be a motive for a character, but the best ones are related to the things that matter to them most. Having a background story will definitely help clearly define the main motivation for a character, but keep in mind that as the story progresses, motives can change or be dependent upon the given situation.

Some motives could be: love, greed, power, revenge, jealousy, fear, approval, rebelliousness...

It is important to have these firm in our minds as we write because having a character not behave true to their motivation could cause discontinuity to the story. If it is worked correctly though, it could be a sign of growth for the character.