Turning Back Time
About a month ago, we had some severe thunderstorms roll through the area, taking down tree limbs right and left. Many limbs that managed to stay connected to their trees are bent down and touching the ground, making mowing my yard a challenging exercise. (Ants in the hair, anyone?)
I have options, of course. I could call a tree service to trim up all the limbs. I could trim them up myself (if the chainsaw worked better). Or I could leave them and keep mowing into and around them.
What I really want though, is for the storms to have not come through and the tree limbs to be in their normal positions, high off the ground. Then I wouldn’t be dealing with any of this–not the decision, or the phone call or the work to trim them up and haul away the debris.
In Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go Les Edgerton mentions this desire.
Of course, what people really want–both in fiction and in real life–when a significant problem arises, is for the problem never to have happened in the first place. This is our true goal. To figure out a way to turn back time, to make it so the disaster never occurred. Think about your own life. Perhaps you were cheated on by someone you loved desperately. Wasn’t your first thought that you wished it was still last Thursday, the day before you learned of his infidelity? Wasn’t your second thought that you wished you’d never found out?
We can’t turn back time (unless you’re writing science fiction and are using time travel as a story device), but the desire to return to the world before the problem, or at least a world that doesn’t have the problem any more, is one that each of us experiences in the face of a devastating problem.
Your characters feel the same way. If you’re looking for a quick way to motivate your character (or plot your novel), have something devastating happen and then let the character work toward a world that doesn’t have the problem any more.
What quick methods of character motivation or plotting do you use?
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3 comments
Ubu on December 22, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Motivation comes in many forms. Maslow would have said we spend our life trying to meet needs (survival, safety, belonging, esteem, bettering ourselves). However any GOOD sales person or recruiter will tell you people are INTERESTED in and DESIRE to obtain the things they think will help them meet those needs.
If your story involves a quest to put things back as they were before the problem came up, you may want to be sure the nature of the quest is justified by the problem. It won't make much sense if you're heroin overcomes incredible odds to get the golden goose's egg if she and her family are all independently wealthy at the time she starts.
Ubu on December 22, 2011 at 6:17 pm
If your character is to join a quest, give some reason and evidence that he/she would have a desire to belong to a group on a quest. Also, be sure to consider why they would be willing to go at this particular time. If they always felt like an outcast, what catalyst finally launched them away from their shallow friends and ritual existence?
It also is important to consider that folks don’t usually have much sustained/long term interest in the “Higher Needs” when “Lower Needs” are unsatisfied for any significant time. For example, are you LIKELY to spend your last dollars on yoga class if you’ve recently been evicted from your home and haven’t eaten in two days? People focus less on bettering themselves, symbols of esteem, and social groups when they feel un-safe, insecure, threatened, or starved for food or love.
Ubu on December 22, 2011 at 6:17 pm
This does not mean that you can’t take a character who is barely able to satisfy even the lowest needs and have them show exceptional courage, strength & will by sacrificing what they have for another….but it does limit the likelihood that it will be believable without the proper set-up.
This does not mean that you can’t take a character who is barely able to satisfy even the lowest needs and have them show exceptional courage, strength & will by sacrificing what they have for another….but it does limit the likelihood that it will be believable without the proper set-up.
My Two Cents; Cheers!
-Ubu