How to handle non-apparent main character motivation

Hmm, I think it's exceedingly common for a character's goals to change or evolve as the story unfolds. It's also very common for a character's stated or conscious goal not to be what they're really after on a less conscious level. What they want may not be what they need.

Is that what you're getting at? Or are you talking more about an unreliable narrator--a first-person narrator (I suppose it could work in a very close or deep limited third too) who tells the reader what they're after (and that they know is untrue), but their actions contradict their stated goals?

Silva said:

I want to talk about unclear character motivation and how y'all handle it.

I guess normally it's straightforward, perhaps an external "thus and thus happened, so character obviously had to ___" or perhaps, more internal yet still made clear to the reader from the beginning (you killed my father, prepare to die).

Have you ever played around with a main character who doesn't reveal motivations (to the reader) until much later in the story? How did you handle making their choices believable if the reader doesn't know why they're doing the things they're doing? What prompted you to write such a character? Do you believe you pulled it off successfully?

Conversely, would you never write such a character for X reasons? (Do you feel like this is a writing rule that should never be broken? Do you think it's too likely the reader will lose interest before getting to the big reveal that ties things together?)

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As long as your character still has a goal, I think it's okay for your character's motivation to be unclear.

But motivation is important because it changes how a character's actions are perceived. Like... let's say you have a character whose goal in life to help raise foster children. Cute. That character is probably a very nice and caring person.

Then you reveal that character is a pedophile and their motivation for fostering children is so they can molest the children.

By revealing the character's motivation, you've dramatically changed how the reader perceives the character.

I like withholding character motivations. Usually I go the opposite way with it, though. I make a character who seems like a villain, then reveal their good intentions.

There are several reasons that a character might not want to reveal the reasoning behind their actions. All characters, just like all people, often obfuscate their thinking. Perhaps they believe that one or more of the other characters will not like what they see should they learn the truth, or perhaps they fear that if others knew their reasoning that knowledge could put them in danger.

Just like the characters they are going to be interacting with, it is not always necessary to reveal to the reader the reasoning behind their intentions right away. In fact, holding onto that information and revealing it only a little at a time or not at all until it is necessary to the story for it to be revealed can often add to the mystery of the character in question, making them more intriguing. Sometimes a person's reasoning might be too complex even for them to understand it themselves, which adds additional interest. The important thing isn't always what you reveal, it's sometimes what you don't. Giving the reader a question about an interesting character they want to answer will sometimes keep them reading just to find the answer, as long as there is enough to keep them interested long enough. If they know everything about the character right away, some people might not want to try to learn more.

I often reveal just a little at a time, enough to keep the reader hooked into wanting to know more. Leave a mystery for the reader to wonder at and you have a better chance at keeping them reading. Do it well and they will come back for later books as well.

I think it can totally work as long as you clearly show that character wanting something really hard, i.e. making desperate decisions and being emotional when something stymies them. The mystery of what they want even can serve as a hook to keep the reader turning pages. The point is the reader knows there are stakes, and they empathize with the person who is suffering.

I don't think you could keep that going indefinitely, but at the start of a book, it could certainly work.

Increasingly, I kind of like thinking about propulsion instead of motivation. Scenes should move. You never want to get to a point where the characters are sitting somewhere, talking about stuff, and none of it really has any kind of immediate impact. You need a reason to get from Scene A to Scene B. That's motivation, but it can come from a variety of directions and it doesn't have to be the same direction in Scene A and Scene B as Scene C.

I like working with weird characters who sometimes do things for no real reason, or at least, the reason is something along the lines of "I wanted to". And this plays into the conflict. I worry sometimes because sticking to a strict motivation of Character A wants X can sap a bit of that randomness, and frankly it's been showing up as I work on my query and that's a Problem. But as I've gone through the MS, it's more obvious that the scenes that don't work are the ones where I'm not moving the characters--maybe I was searching for something for them to do, maybe I was working through a bit of the world--and so the pacing goes. There's no reason to move on. Sometimes propulsion can come from small things, like chasing a rabbit down a hole, and sometimes the motivation is an overarching desire--to return home, to save friend, etc. All common motivations. You have to have both, ideally, but I'd like to think you can play with how much of each you have.

Motivation is a good thing to run past betas. See if they find places where the character seems static. Motivation is rarely it's own problem, but combined with lack of character development, lack of tension, or lack of stakes it can be. You need a story that's compelling. Motivation is a part of that, but it's not a science. Whatever is compelling the story should be obvious enough to show in a query. Sometimes that might be a goal, I've tried a couple attempts using voice to show my MC's approach to the world, you can also change focus to specific plots that are more strongly motivated. Throughout it all, though, there has to be a reason to keep reading.should know it.

Silva said:

Perhaps the character seems like he is jumping from one thing to another, saying they won't do something and then going and doing it later without explanation for why the change of mind, or overall appearing to be one thing while secretly doing something else that isn't revealed until the end.

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In some cases, the Desire line can appear random because the Hero is confused as to how to fulfill some inner Need. It simply means the Desire line is more complex. For example the Hero might want to fill her days with booze (Desire) to avoid thinking about her failures (Need) so the story revolves around the bizarre ways to get away from a crutch and face her destiny.

> you killed my father, prepare to die

Desire: Kill the bastard
Need: Cope with the father's death. Note how this is different from your 'revenge motivation'. Here the 'you killed my father' may not necessarily play a role in the ending. It's just backstory.

This Desire can evolve and lead to a multitude of climactic endings that solve the Need -- bad guy is killed, bad guy goes to prison, Hero forgives the bad guy, etc.


-cb

That's why I find Desire / Need a better way from which to derive the Hero's actions from than Motivation. I find thinking solely in terms of motivation leads to formulaic thinking - ex: the Hero must kill the bastard - so all the character's inner nuances and all his actions are focused on this one unavoidable conclusion from which any deviation becomes a hard sell. Because at the end the author has to convince me the Hero has no other option.

-cb

I'm thinking that the movie Usual Suspects could provide an example. Kaiser Sose's perceived goal was to make a quick buck as a handicapped thief but his real goal was something only a criminal mastermind could pull off. The change in this perception of the character's goals made the plot of the whole movie fall into place.

I want to know what the protagonist knows as soon as he knows it, or I'm going to feel completely cheated. I may not always know that I know, but unless I can look back when the story ends and realize I did know, it's obvious, but just missed the clues, it's a bad story, and the writer cheated.

With secondary main characters, this is different. I don't have to know their motivations because I'm not in their head, and the narrator isn't in their heads. This is largely what secondary main characters are for. But when you put me, or the narrator, inside a character's head, I need to know everything that character knows, or it's cheating.


A character who never thinks about his or her motivation is just not realistic in any way. A real person thinks about motivation constantly, and a good character does, as well. If a character thinks about it, the reader should know it.

And why hide a character's motivation, except for the surprise element? Most "surprises" are bad ones, and based on withholding information. They don't work. There's always a "big" reveal such as, "He was really doing it because he's really the antagonist's brother, and he's been after his brother since the day his brother murdered their parents!!!!!!"

When there's a reveal, the reader will either say, "Of course, it's obvious now" and be happy, or the reader will say, "Where the hell did that come from", and be angry.

Withholding information the protagonist has is just not a good thing, unless it is revealed, but in a way the reader won't put the pieces together until the reveal. This is tricky writing.

If you're inside a character's head, you should know whatever that character knows. This is why Doyle used Watson as the narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories. By using Watson as the narrator, he only had to reveal what Watson know, not what Holmes knew.

Omniscient can get around this, but even then it's dangerous to withhold information from the reader.

Anyway, main character, yes. Protagonist, no.

Well, I've seen it work when used as a cover to make another character seem more mysterious or frightening & I've seen something like it work well when a well-known character's motivations are temporarily masked or assumed through others, or even through the character being in denial themselves.

I don't know exactly how it'd work out in your story, though without seeing the situation. And with an MC, to boot. It can be slightly tricky to get the right balance for it, but I don't see why it can't.

EDIT: Of course, I would misunderstand what was being asked again... But, I would say keep it simple. Break things down scene by scene. Know the bigger picture & where you want to end up, then take the base elements of each scene- who is here, how do they interact, what do they want, where are they right now, etc, etc. Not all of this needs to be stated outright, just channeled in the right way- movement & dialogue. It also helps in creating more twisting & turning scenes because you're really taking action-reaction seriously.

If we're in a character's head, wouldn't the character be thinking about their motivation or about something connected to said motivation?

Unless we're in a secondary character's head, or the story is written in some kind of distant omniscient POV, then I would think we readers would have some of idea of a main character's motivation and thoughts, no?

Otherwise, to me, it feels like the author is purposely withholding information from me, and that tends to frustrate me as a reader. (I think it can work or make sense in a visual medium, like movies, TV shows, comics, etc, but not for a novel, where we can see a character's thoughts if the story was in a close POV.)