Saturday, August 2

Character Motivation

I recently read that there are eight types of character motivation. All actions can be catagorized into one of these motivation types. They are:

- Greed
- Love
- Duty
- Revenge
- Curiosity
- Self-Preservation
- Self-Discovery
- Boredom

I was really glad to find this. It's been a great help to me, when trying to figure out WHY a character does something. If you know that every action needs a motivation, it's great to know what those possible catagories of motivation are. I went through my manuscript, sticky-noting motivation types for major actions. It cleared up a lot of discrepancies and such that I'd had.

These types of motivation are a great tool to have around. Mine are sticky-noted to my monitor. :-)

4 comments:

Liana Brooks said...

You forgot boredom. Quite a few characters get into trouble because the big red button is there and so are they... oppurtunity and boredom. :o)

Jessica said...

Something overlooked :-)

I'll go add boredom now... you have a point!

Liana Brooks said...

Yeah! I thought you would argue greed could be boredom... being self-0centered is like being greedy and leads to boredom. Or maybe I'm overthinking things?

Jessica said...

I'd say you're overthinking things.

Technically speaking, greed and boredom COULD go hand in hand. However, I was looking for general groups to break up motivations into. Boredom doesn't really fit with greed if they're not commiting an act for self-gain.

So yes, boredom seems like a good subgroup.