Fantasy With Attitude

I'm a characterization nut. I admit it. Although I enjoy all sorts of literature, the books that I just can't put down-regardless of genre-are inevitably the ones with characters that seize my attention and won't let go.

When I sit down to write, the characters are almost always the first element that gets developed. Everything else flows directly from what I know about them-after all, I figure that if I know enough about their back story and their personalities, what they'll do next should seem clear.

But unfortunately, memorable characters don't spring full-blown from my forehead (well, I thought they were going to once, but it turned out to be a migraine). It takes time and effort to uncover the "truth" about each one of them. In this article, I'm going to talk about how to find your character's motivation, then I'll give you an example of how it works.

OK, get a pencil or open up a new window in your word processor. Ready? Write down what you know about your plot at this stage. It doesn't have to be much, but you should at least have a vague idea of what your character is going to do in the story. "Defeats the bad guys" or "goes on a quest" is good enough at this point.

Now ask yourself why your character is doing whatever it is he or she is doing. What is their motivation? Write that down. Now get ready to throw it out.

What? Am I nuts? I just told you to write down something, but now I don't want you to use it? Why would I do that?

There's a simple reason. If you're anything like me, you probably read in whatever genre your story is in-a LOT. And as a result, nine times out of ten the first thing you think of is going to be a cliché. There's always the possibility that you'll come up with something special right away, but chances are you could do a lot better with just a little effort.

OK, now write down five other reasons your character might have for fulfilling his or her purpose in the story. Don't just do variations on your first idea if you can help it-really put your brain to it. Go wild. After all, you don't have to use what you come up with, so give yourself permission to experiment. You can even combine ideas if you want-after all, people usually have multiple reasons for doing the things they do.

Now for the example. I'm going to use one from my book Tyrant Moon, primarily because I'm the only author whose creative process I know well enough to talk about.

Plot: A barbarian warrior must help a dying mage stop a rogue wizard who is instigating a war.

That's pretty flimsy, but it's all I had at the time. To me, plot and characterization go hand and hand, anyway, so I knew that the plot would be developing along with the characters. There were also two other pieces of information I knew when I started: the barbarian's name was Arrow, and she was a Champion-a warrior selected to engage in ritual combat on behalf of her clan.

OK, so why would Arrow want to stop this rogue wizard?

Motivation idea #1: He killed her clan and she's out for vengeance!

Wow. Can we say "hackneyed?" That idea is about as stale as they come. See what I mean about not using your first idea?

Motivation idea #2: Her clan wasn't totally destroyed, but they were hurt, and Arrow feels guilty because she failed in her role of the clan's protector, so she's out for vengeance!

Obviously, that's just a variation on idea #1. It takes me a while to get a good one.

Motivation idea #3: Her clan was working with the rogue wizard-they're the bad guys. If Arrow was the Champion, then she would have been in the thick of things, and probably would have done some awful stuff. Eventually, though, her basic integrity was enough-or conditions got bad enough-that she turned her back on her own friends and family and is now trying to stop them the only way she knows how.

At this point I felt like I was on to something. This idea has potential. For one thing, I believe that one of the reasons that people read fiction is to get an understanding of the human condition. By telling the story of someone who was originally one of the bad guys, I could explore the reasons why basically good people so often passively go along with really atrocious things. Also, it would make the conflict of the story a very personal one. After all, these aren't some faceless bad-guy drones the heroine has to face-they're her family and friends, people she's known all her life. And from their point of view, she's the one who betrayed them by trying to stop them. The stakes are suddenly much higher than they would have been if I had gone with idea 1 or 2, and the ultimate potential for pathos and suffering is much greater.

Instead of being just another "I'm out for vengeance" clone, Arrow suddenly becomes a character that is going to stand out to the reader. With any luck, they'll remember her a long time after they put down the book.