Motivating your characters/personalized rejection

So about a month ago I submitted a short story to a local magazine which is just starting up (my submission was for the second issue, and it comes out twice yearly). The editor of this issue is a professor at the local college. I have never met her, though I do attend the college.Yesterday I finally got my answer from her! Aaaand it was a no.

But that's fine, I was actually very happy with the response. My very first personalized rejection letter! It contained some nice compliments, like that "This story starts in a gripping way, and it develops its theme in suspenseful and compelling language" and "I think you're a genuinely talented writer, and I'd encourage you to try us again in the future". But of course the most useful part was in stating exactly why she didn't think my story was right for the issue! She mainly talked about the motivation (or lack thereof) of my characters, and she definitely made some good points.

In general, my writing tends to be rather dark, and my characters often go to extremes when they are in the height of their passion/misery/anger/whatever. However, I have always felt that I struggled with shaping realistic motivation for these extreme actions. I've often fretted over various stories thinking "nobody will believe a person would ever act like this or do that, the reasoning presented is too weak!" But, these struggles were always in my head, and none of my readers ever commented on them, so I tended to forget and just keep on writing as I write.

Now that this editor has pointed it out, it's like I can't ignore it any longer. The truth has reared its ugly head and is laughing in my face. I am realizing it's something I'm really going to have to grapple with if I want to get my writing to the strongest point it can be. So the question is, how do I learn to ensure my characters have believable motivations?

I suppose the answer is just to think it through more deeply, brainstorm more fully, put myself in the shoes of the character and think what it would really take. How about the rest of you? How do you make sure your characters are properly motivated and not just doing crazy things for the sake of it?

Libbie said:

As for me, I absolutely do get into my characters' heads when I write them. Or rather, I let them inside my head, completely and totally. I'm one of those who very much believes that every character I write is a part of my personality -- even the ones who are abhorrent, even the ones who want things I really don't want (children, for example, or religion). Even if I can't sympathize with a character's specific motivation, I can sympathize with the feeling of desire, unfulfillment, insecurity, etc. that makes them reach for their goal.

All of my characters are made up of the things that are inside my own head. When I write them, I let all the parts of me that need to be in them out, absolutely and without restriction. It took a few years of practice to get comfortable with doing it this way. It's a scary thing, to bare one's inmost feelings for the whole world to (hopefully) read. Especially when writing characters who are meant to be contrary, aggressive, or otherwise unlikeable. But when you do let go of your inhibitions and take a risk or two -- fully explore what YOUR brain is like in all its dark corners as well as its sunny patios -- your characters become much more real in all areas, including motivation.

Click to expand...

I read this part of your comment, thinking it sounds exactly like me. I feel like I do absolutely get into my character's head, and I do feel like their "spirits" are deeply imbedded in my own. My first reaction was a despairing "So what's my problem!", and then it sort of clicked in my head.

At least for the story in question, it wasn't the motivations of my MC that seemed off, but the motivations of the other major supporting character. I feel like one of my novels has the same problem. I write with a pretty strong focus on the emotions of the viewpoint character, and I'm thinking it's difficult to understand or accept the actions of a character you *don't* see the full extent of emotions and thought processes in. Or, I should say, I definitely have trouble expressing the motivations for them.

Hmm...

You make excellent points, although in general I don't think I play favourites with my characters. They are all very real/close to me, but when a story is told all from one characters POV, all events are filtered through his or her perspective. So how does one get the same level of understanding with the other characters?

I think the problem with this particular short story was a matter of writing it too quickly and too focusedly on the MC. Especially where it was such a short short story, there wasn't alot of room for anything but the story, and I didn't even think about how the motivations of the supporting character were coming across. A mistake to learn from, for sure.