Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be writers.

[truepenny]

So, one of the things I've learned how to do in the eleven years since starting the Ur-manuscript of Kekropia is character motivation. More specifically, I've learned to be aware of it from three sides.

1. A, who wants B to do something
2. B (viewpoint character), who may or may not want to do what A wants
3. me, who needs A to want B to do something and needs B to respond in a particular way--generally not quite the way A intended.

I don't know if it works this way for all writers, but I know for me, #3 is pretty obvious, assuming I've figured out what I need the plot to do, and #2 isn't all that hard to figure out. But #1 is a bitch.

It's very easy to let a created world become solipsistic, to exist only in relationship to a particular character or characters. In this particular example, given that I know B, and I know the situation I want, it's much easier to simply write A in such a way as to produce the correct reaction in B. But this leads to moments of extreme embarrassment, when someone asks me, or I ask myself, "Why is A behaving like this?" and the only answer I can give is, "Because I need her to."

And that's not good enough. If plot, characters, and world are going to be believable, A's got to have reasons and motivations and plans of her own. matociquala likes to say that everyone is the hero of their own movie (and sorry, Bear, if I've got that paraphrase a bit off). So in setting up a scene like this, you've got to jump from B's movie into A's movie and figure out what's going on. What does A want? Is what she says she wants actually what she's after? If, hypothetically, B were to respond exactly as A expects, what would A do then? A's got a plan, just as much as I do, and I need to know what it is.

That's the hard part. That's the thing I hadn't woken up to when I was writing the Ur-manuscript. And thus the moment of oh shit today, 961 words on from yesterday, when I hit a plot-critical moment and realized that I'd left A out in the cold (metaphorically speaking, of course, since none of the characters in Kekropia are named A). Her motivations in this scene are Because Truepenny told me to. And now I have to fall back, scratch everything I thought I knew about A's gambit to B, and start again.

Dammit.

Comments

[larryhammer]

It's very easy to let a created world become solipsistic, to exist only in relationship to a particular character or characters.

Indeed -- that way lies Mary Sue.

I've been spending the past six months scrubbing external motivations into a novel.

---L.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I hate that.

Writer smash!

[necessaryspace.livejournal.com]

Do you find that the only way to discover things like this is to write the characters? You actually have to write them? You can't just sit around and think about their motivations?

Only rough drafts truly let me learn about characters. And as exciting as it is to realize what the characters are really like, it's also frustrating because you find yourself staring at the rough draft with all those obsolete characters and wondering ... "who on earth are *you* people?" =)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Um. Yes and no. I don't have to write actual scenes from A's PoV (thank goodness, since this particular A is a nasty piece of work), but I do find it works much much better if I write down my thought processes as I go.

I've also been known to talk to myself when working out a problem. *g*

[necessaryspace.livejournal.com]

**I've also been known to talk to myself when working out a problem** I do that. And somehow, a family member always manages to catch me.

Me: "Oh, hi! When did you get back?"
My Mom: "Just in time to hear you talking to yourself."