We’re moving on to Motivation. As part of developing your character, you need to mix in some motivation. Your character needs to have a reason to get up in the morning and a reason to go into that dark basement when there’s a serial killer on the loose and a creepy noise from downstairs.

This is also a good time to talk about motivation and goals. Your character needs both.

Motivation is the underlying reason your character does something. I go to work at my day job so that I can afford to eat food and write in my spare time. My underlying motivation is a need to eat. And my motivation for writing might be a need for social recognition.

A goal is what your character wants to achieve, like a new job so that she has more time to write. Or catching the serial killer who’s hiding in the basement. Because she’s motivated to restore order in her town.

In Steven Reiss’ book, Who Am I? The 16 Basic Desires that Motivate Our Action and Define Our Personalities, he defines the 16 basic desires that he’s identified. Any of these can function as your character’s motivation.

In no particular order, these desires or needs are:
1. Acceptance, the need for approval
2. Curiosity, the need to think
3. Eating, the need for food
4. Family, the need to raise children
5. Honour, the need to be loyal to the traditional values of one’s clan/ethnic group
6. Idealism, the need for social justice
7. Independence, the need for individuality
8. Order, the need for organized, stable, predictable environments
9. Physical Activity, the need for exercise
10. Power, the need for influence of will
11. Romance, the need for sex (or the need for beauty)
12. Saving, the need to collect
13. Social Contact, the need for friends (peer relationships)
14. Status, the need for social standing/importance
15. Tranquility, the need to be safe
16. Vengeance, the need to win and strike back

If you want to get really creative, try selecting one of the needs and keep your character unaware of it. Most people don’t spend any effort analyzing why they do things. They run through life on auto-pilot. But even if your character is unaware of his or her motivation, it will still color their actions and emotions.

Mix in a motivation with your character’s personality and see what interesting behaviors come from it.

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