What does it take to go beyond the basic description of a character’s goal, motivation and conflict and make their deepest desires and fears come to life on the page? Brainstorming and critiquing with someone who knows your writing and is willing to put time into helping you dig down to the heart of your story is a highly recommended approach. And since Jenni and I are talking all things critiquing and brainstorming on How We Write Wednesdays, let’s take a closer look at how we’ve done that a time or two (BTW, check out the list of upcoming topics at the end of this post for the skinny on what we’ll be talking about next).
In each of our HoWW posts, we’ll start with the simple, then dig a little deeper–which, you’ll soon notice, is Jenni’s and my overall paradigm for growing your craft and asking other hard-working writers for their take on your work. You can always dig just a little deeper.
Pretty much anyone can understand the basic terms and techniques that fiction writers work with. There are countless experts to remind you what motivation is. There are great books to read. You can even take a class or two. But until you try to weave the concept of motivation into your characters and their stories, you can’t really understand how complicated and convoluted it can become, moving a character through a range of actions and emotions and the challenges of a tightly plotted story. Turns out…this writing thing isn’t so simple after all.
So, basic motivation is the following: (more…)