Stop me if you’ve heard this one: you’re having a story assessed by a teacher or critique partner, and they’re nodding along encouragingly. They say “I love the setting and the premise, but what’s this character’s motivation?”
Motivation, or drive, is one of the most important elements of creating complex and relatable characters. If it’s not there, a story can seem lackluster and tired.
Don’t worry—we’ll help you understand what character motivation means, the different ways motivation can manifest in a character, and how to nail the right one for your characters.
What is character motivation in a story?
Motivation is the driving force that pushes your character to make the choices that they do. These interconnected, evolving choices are what create your plot. Motivations can come from within, from external forces, or both. Without strong motivation, it will seem like you’re moving your characters around for no purpose other than to tell a story.
Why is character motivation important for writers?
Readers can tell when a character is acting only in service of the plot (i.e. the writer) and not out of nuanced, authentic character development. Your goal as the storyteller is to make it seem like the characters are acting by their own inner natures, and they would never have done anything else.
You’ve probably read these kinds of books before: when a character goes on a dangerous, reckless adventure “to see what happens next,” or “because they have nothing better to do,” or “because there’s some money involved and they’re broke” (they have to be really broke for this to work—death’s-door broke, my-child-needs-expensive-surgery broke, our-entire-neighborhood-has-been-bought-out-by-a-cruel-developer broke, the latter being the plot of The Goonies).
Stories with weak motivations feel lazy and unsatisfying to the readers. We’ll look at the kind of motivations that work well next.
Types of character motivation
There are two key kinds of character motivation you can use to develop your story. Here’s a quick deep dive into each one.
Intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation, also known as internal motivation, comes from the character’s inherent emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs. Some of these will be universal motivations everyone can relate to; others will be part of your character’s unique makeup.
Universal intrinsic motivations include things like love, stability, acceptance, fear, or powerlessness. These are needs or feelings that drive everyone forward on their journey at one point or another. More specific character traits that act as motivations might include ambition, restlessness, creativity and creative validation, guilt, forgiveness, redemption, or a need to understand one’s place in the world.
Extrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation, or external motivation, is something that comes from outside forces in the character’s life. For example, a job loss, natural disaster, or any other new problem to be solved creates external motivation for your characters.
Extrinsic motivation is less about the universality we talked about above than about moving the plot forward. Great storytelling will have a blend of external and internal motivation. In other words, a balance of plot-driven and character-driven elements.
Sympathetic vs. empathetic motivations
When developing your character’s motives, spend a moment thinking about sympathetic and empathetic character motivations.
It’s easiest to remember the difference like this: sympathetic means you understand, and empathetic means you feel. A character with sympathetic motives will make a reader go, “Okay, I see why they did that now.” A character with empathetic motives will make a reader go, “I know exactly what that’s like.”
Sympathetic motives are most important when developing villains, antagonists, anti-heroes, and any other character that makes some dubious choices. While your readers (hopefully) wouldn’t commit arson or mass murder in pursuit of their goals, if you’ve developed your character motivation strongly enough, the reader will at least understand the villain a bit better and where those character’s actions have come from.
Empathetic motives are most important for protagonists, traditional heroes, and “everyman” characters. This is because readers want to follow heroes that they can relate to in some way. So if your protagonist’s driving motivation is the need to be seen, valued, or loved, your readers will empathize with their journey because they know what it feels to need those things.
How to find your character’s motivation
Ready to dig into the motivations behind your characters? Here are some tips to keep in mind as you go.
Examine your character’s backstory
We are all a product of our experiences, and nowhere is this more true than in your character’s motivation. What we’re given in our pasts—and more importantly, what we’re deprived of—will influence what we strive for later on.
For example, someone who didn’t receive any support from their parents early in life may shower their own child with affection and care (i.e. “helicopter parenting”). And/Or, they may seek out that support elsewhere, from friends or potentially unstable relationships.
Spend some time thinking about what your character has experienced in their distant and less distant past—their childhood, teenhood, and young adulthood (depending on how old they are). It may help to do some free writing and brainstorm specific memories that have been especially impactful. Think about family, schooling, economic status, early jobs, and any other formative experience that shaped who they are in the present day.
Then, ask yourself what coping mechanisms, priorities, or beliefs may have come out of these experiences. This will give you your character’s driving motivations.
Explore your character’s relationships
Next, look at who plays an important role in your character’s life when the story begins. This could include family, friends, romantic partners, colleagues, authority figures, and so forth.
How is your character affected by these relationships? Are they positive, negative, one-sided, draining, inspiring, concerning, or uplifting? Each of these dynamics will make your character react and adapt in different ways.
Remember that your characters will probably have several different relationships across the spectrum of their lives. Sometimes, these relationships will give your character more than one contrasting motivation—for example, to be a responsible parent in one relationship and a fun best friend in another. This contrast can create some really interesting and complex characters.
Determine your character’s obstacles
Because without obstacles, there’s no story! As your character is motivated towards a goal, what’s preventing them from attaining it? For example, if your character’s motivation is the safety and security of financial success, there should be a reason they haven’t managed to get there yet.
In general, intrinsic motivations will have internal obstacles, and extrinsic motivations will have external obstacles. If your protagonist is motivated by a desire for true love, they may be thwarted by their perfectionism or fear of commitment. If they’re motivated to catch a crime boss, their obstacle may be a corrupt justice system.
If you’ve already mapped out your plot, the twists and turns you’ve outlined may give you some hints as to the underlying motivations already present in your characters.
Establish your character’s stakes
Finally, consider what your character has to lose if they don’t achieve their primary goal. Something like “validation” or “ambition” doesn’t power a story forward very effectively if there are no stakes. But if their driving motive is ambition, and they’re on the precipice of being blackballed in their industry, that motive is suddenly going to become a lot more urgent.
If you’re struggling to establish the stakes in your novel, it may be that you’re not entirely clear on what your character’s motivations are. See if you can do a bit more brainstorming with the tips above.
Some useful character motivation examples
You may be getting a sense of what your characters’ underlying motivations are. But if you need some ideas, here are some examples to give you a place to start.
Intrinsic character motivations
-
Ethics and morality
-
Creativity
-
Curiosity about the world
-
Validation and recognition
-
Human connection
-
Control over one’s circumstances
-
Ambition
-
The search for inner peace
-
The need to love and be loved
-
A need for belonging or community
-
A need to escape emotional constraints
-
Guilt and redemption
-
Self acceptance and self knowledge
-
The search for identity
-
Personal transformation
-
Empathy and compassion
-
Hope
-
Fear
-
Stigma or ignorance
-
Insecurity
Extrinsic character motivations
-
Survival
-
Financial stability
-
Peer pressure or societal expectation
-
Adventure
-
The pursuit of inspiration
-
A desire to develop a new skill
-
Social or political power
-
Revenge
-
Physical escape
-
Justice
-
Family obligation
-
Protection of loved ones
-
Pursuit of knowledge or information
-
Enhanced status
-
Desire for social change
-
Reconciliation and reunion
-
To return to the status quo
Motivation helps you write realistic characters
Character motivation is one of the most important elements in developing any good story. It keeps your audience engaged, and ultimately makes for a more compelling narrative journey.
So whether your characters’ motives are to save the world and protect innocent people, to aw their way to the top of the social food chain, or simply to survive a cold and uncaring world, make sure you spend some time planning out what these people are fighting for—and the consequences if they fail.
