How To Craft Powerful Character Motivations - Well-Storied.

Imagine you enter a room to find two men fighting. You don’t know the men, and neither shout anything that reveals who they are or why they’re exchanging blows. So when one man delivers a knock-out punch to his opponent, you don’t know what to think.

Did a violent aggressor just harm an innocent man? Did the victor disable a criminal who’d intended to injure others? Are both men equally nefarious? Or equally righteous in their intent?

As an ignorant observer, the altercation and its consequences mean little to you because you don’t understand the context in which the event took place. Instead, you’re left with questions. Who were the men? And more importantly, why were they fighting?

Understanding the reason the men came to blows would not only lend context to the conflict; it would help you understand your place in it. Should you join in the fight, helping one man defeat the other? Should you run for your life, call for aid, or roll your eyes at the men’s petty squabble?

Actions may speak louder than words, but the motivations behind one’s actions will tell you everything you need to know.

As a writer, the motivations that drive your characters hold just as much power and importance. Though conflict may attract readers’ interest, it won’t hold their attention for long. Not unless readers understand the context behind the conflict and their place within it—that is, the emotional stake they have in the conflict taking place.

For readers to care what happens next in your story, they must first care about your characters. It’s your job as a writer to foster this reader-character connection, to build the bridge that encourages readers to invest in your characters’ stories.

Establishing your characters’ motivations isn’t the only way to encourage this reader-character connection, but it is a surefire way to lend context to your characters’ actions. With context in place, readers can then decide whether your characters and their journeys are worth their emotional investment.

How Motivations Act as a Characterization Tool

Motivations lend context to the action in your story by helping readers better understand who your characters are. Is the woman sneaking into the castle late at night trying to prevent an attack on the royal family, or is she the one perpetrating it?

If she is the assassin, why is she set upon killing the king and queen? Is she trying to free her people from oppression, or does she simply need the money from the hit? Or does she need the money because her people are being oppressed, thus lending complexity to her motivations?

More often than not, it’s also a character’s motivation that determines their role within a story. Is the assassin a hero worth rooting for or a villain that readers want the hero to defeat? The intent behind the assassin’s actions can make all the difference.

Notably, a character’s motivations can also reveal additional information about who they are, such as their personality and flaws (e.g. a cynical character tries to avoid intimate relationships), their values and beliefs (e.g. an honorable character strives to do what’s right despite grave danger), and key events from their past (e.g. a character who was bullied as a child strives to avoid conflict).

The Importance of Crafting Believable Motivations

In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow published a paper in the Psychological Review called “A Theory of Human Motivation,” in which Maslow outlines five tiers of need that drive human behavior. These tiers are more commonly known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and can be broken down as follows: