Character Motivation

[Senkusha]

I'm toying around with a story that I want to write, and I'm really excited about it. So I tell my roommate about it, and while she's not into anime, she understands the thrilling sensation of putting words on paper. Anyway, she told me about one of her favorite authors (whom I have totally forgotten the name of), and she said that one thing you need to focus on is the motivations of your characters. What drives your character? Because without this needed piece of information, your story lacks direction.

So I'm thinking about all the characters that are going to be in my story. And I also got to thinking, but wait, classically, some of these characters would have different motivations based on the genre they're in. For example:

• Skuld (Ah! My Goddess), her motivation is to keep Belldandy away from Keiichi, because she's jealous of Belldandy's time and attention. But this is a Romantic Comedy. In a Drama, Skuld's motivation would probably be focused more on computer forensics or system operation, being that she's a Tech Genius (to put it in Big Eyes Small Mouth archetypes).
• Fate Testarossa (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha), her motivation was to do what ever it took so that her Mother would love her again. Of course, beyond that, her motivation is to ensure that no child ever has to endure the abuse that she had to, which is why she's gone on to working for the Time and Space Administration Bureau.
• Nanoha Takamachi (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha), her motivation is literally to befriend everybody, but she wishes to become a full mage, with the power to seek justice against people who use their abilities to do harm.

These are only three of the canon characters that I've thought to entangle in my story. So now, I need to think about the motivations for the cast of five characters I've created from FARTS. I do know the following character's motivation:

• Quinn Harper, all he wants to do is retire and enjoy life. But maybe I can dream up of a secondary motivation to help drive his character while he's still participating in the FARTS unit.
• Matilda Weber, she's literally a vampire. Her motivation is typically cliche, but I know that she also loves blowing stuff up. Yeah, she's immature. That's a consequence of being turned into a vampire as a child.
• Avery Fairchild III, all she cares about is tech. But beyond that I'm not sure what her aspirations in life are going to be.
• Kai Hart, just kinda goes with the flow. I really need to think about this.
• Hikari Amaterasu, the main character. She's naive. I need to work on her too, obviously.

Anyway, when you write, do you explicitly write out your character's motivations?

 

[Sailor Marin]

I definitely have motivations in minds for my character, but they're actually secondary in my process. I first start with their personality (what they are), and then get into their motivations (why they are that way). This is perhaps the roleplayer's perspective though, because thinking about how characters interact with others (their personality) rises in importance when you can't know how other characters will interact with them. A regular author can twist the arm of the narrative and contrive reasons for things to happen, but a roleplayer's more limited control necessitates a bit more care there I think.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I have a few fan characters I made for Teen Titans. I only really fleshed out one of those characters, the other one was unfortunately a self insert character... I'm not too happy to admit that though. :S His brother has a better backstory and a motivation to be better than my self insert character, since their parents loved and treated my self inserted character better than him. :V I'll have to see if I can find the backstory I wrote for Scorpio, who is the brother of Blaze who's my self inserted character. :V

 

[Sailor Marin]

Ah, who hasn't made a self-insert at some point? Nothing to be ashamed of I think. But yeah if you can find it!

 

[Senkusha]

The first fan-fiction I wrote, I had an idealized version of a self-insert. Brings back fond memories of getting to be the hero in the story to help the protagonist out of a difficult situation.

 

[Sailor Marin]

Mine was an anti-idealized version of a self-insert. xD

I took a character nominally based on me and amped up her personality flaws to create a rival type character. Someone who isn't necessarily evil, but a total brat you can beef with.

 

[Senkusha]

That's actually a pretty interesting idea!

 

[Sailor Marin]

People really liked her the first time around, so I consider her a success!

I usually try to judge characters based on the reactions of people I RP with. Lots of 3rd party writers will say lots of things, but it runs into the "You can't please everyone" problem where if you're serious about writing well you'll always be able to find someone who doesn't like your writing to make you feel like you're bad at it no matter what you do!

 

[Senkusha]

As long as YOU'RE happy, then that's really all that matters!

 

[Sailor Marin]

I'm too much of an empathetic dweeb to prioritize myself too much. >w< But I getcha.