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This thread is inspired from the topic about villainy made by arcanist. There are some excellent responses to the questions, and while this is related, I didn't want to usurp that topic with my tangential opinion. I also realize we've probably had a dozen topics and hundreds of posts about character development, but for my money, it's always worth repeating.
[begin opinion] Simply: Nearly every character in a story should have credible motivations for their actions.
I say 'nearly' because there are rare times when people do things for no discernable reason (though they may well indeed have a good reason). Nevertheless, everyone has motivations for most everything they do, and so should your characters, whether good, bad, a protagonist or antagonist. All of them. Even the lesser characters, like waiters or taxi drivers (note: that doesn't mean you need to write those motivations into your story, but it goes a long way towards creating utterly believable characters for you to KNOW why someone waits on tables or drives a taxi). The lot. Without them, your characters will likely not be believed by your readers.
Let me illustrate that by giving a ficitionalized example based on a real world scenario.
A group of like-minded folk get together to effect change through activism. Let's say they believe that milking cows is cruel. They start off with their "noble" cause and begin the process of convincing people to squeeze orange juice onto their cornflakes rather than using milk. Fairly harmless.
But they aren't winning their war. People like milk on their cornflakes, and for many of those, orange juice on cereal simply seems wrong -- others find OJ on cornflakes gross and vomit-worthy. So the "no milk" group changes tactics by spreading misinformation about milk. They believe that the ends justify the means. Pretty soon, they realize that misinformation isn't enough, and they plot to liberate all of the cows at various dairy farms throughout Michigan, for a start... a test project. The leaders chant the mantra: "Do whatever it takes to succeed!"
They carry out their plan, and succeed, but in the process they've killed off many dairy farmers who fought to protect their cows -- cows that are now homeless on the streets Kalamazoo and elsewhere (those brave cows that made a break for it, for some couldn't be bothered to leave their milking stalls), and they have no grass or hay to eat, etc.
The "no milk" group never intended to kill humans when they formed, nor did they think through what to do with the cows once they set them free. But they had "good intentions" which formed their basic motivational set. "Stop the Milking! Do whatever it takes!"
They weren't evil, but the dairy farmers certainly saw them as evil bastards. Right?
And what about those dairy farmers? Were they good people who took care of their cows, or did they force them to live in poor conditions, force-feeding them antibiotics so the cows wouldn't die of horrible disease. Well, I don't know. But for the dairy farmers, whatever they did were means to an end. They had families to consider, businesses with employees who had families, customers to consider, contracts, and everything. They're cows, they told themselves. Not people. And people NEED milk (debatable? Who cares.)
So, which side is good and which is evil? Is it ever black and white? Both sides had credible motivations for their actions, for the decisions they've made. That's how it works in the real world. It is also how it should work in your fiction.
Without credible motivations, the characters in your coolest story idea will fail to come alive. I thought I'd share this because while editing for Shimmer, I've seen a good many stories that fail to give characters believable reasons for doing stuff. Instead, characters are put through the paces that the author thinks is cool (and they may well be cool), but really, have little place in that story without the proper character development.
posted
"Black and white," hm -- are they Holsteins?
:-)
I think this works in real life, too.
OSC, in Characters & Viewpoint, says: give your characters multiple motivations (important characters, I'm sure) -- in real life, people often have multiple motivations all the time.
posted
Not "kinda like", tofu IS soy. It's not weird either. I would venture to guess that soy and soy-based products are more widely used on the planet than milk or milk by-products.
Now back to the topic at hand. HSO, I agree. But, I might go one further and say that every character in any story needs proper motivation, or they are not doing anything for the story. Characters that do not move the story along are just dead weight, and might actually slow the progression.
Although, there are times when it isn't exactly clear what the characters motivation is at first. You should always show that motivation or purpose eventually. I will use a Weis & Hickman character for an example. The character is Simkin in the Darksword Trilogy. At first you don't know what his motivation or purpose is. You think he is just comedy relief. But eventually you find out that this trickster is much, much more than that. I really love that character, one of my all-time favorites!
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I read once that Marlon Brando asked Charlie Chaplin what the motivation of his character in "A Countess from Hong Kong" was. Chaplin replied that he didn't know but he was sure it didn't amount to much.
In the last short story I've actually finished to date (though I've revised others since then), I peeled off two or three layers of explained motivation to force the central character to reveal something else. One might want to bury something deeper than the surface, to be told at the proper time in the story, to keep the reader guessing...
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I like giving my characters starting motives, and have them change direction midway through the story. For instance in my current WIP, my MC's motive is to deal with a family problem, so he can get back to the life he loves. Somewhere along the way he begins to question all he's worked for. He ends up finding a new motive along the way.
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posted
I'd have to disagree that all motivations are "credible". Perhaps within the minds of the individual they are, but judged against the greater context of humanity, they are not. I think though that that really doesn't make a difference in the context of story. A writer could make just as compelling a character out of a Hitleresque individual whose motives would seem monstrous to the vast throng of humanity, as that same writer could make of a Mother Teresa like character whose motive would seem "credible" to society at large. A believable character then, must have motives that are credible to him, and we as the readers need to believe that he believes in those motivations. When we ask ourselves how can a person think that way? the writer needs to give us some indication of how that character got from point A to point B in his or her philosophy of life.
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quote:They weren't evil, but the dairy farmers certainly saw them as evil bastards. Right?
Oh yeah they were, and this coming from a vegan.
The example you gave made no sense to me. First, OJ is no substitute for cows milk. Soy milk is. Calcium rich vegetables are. Not having cereal would be if what they want is for people to not put cows milk on their cornflakes.
Then you try make it seem like both the farmers and these murderous activists are in the wrong. The farmers have done nothing wrong, except in the eyes of the activists. At no point are their motivations credible. One second they're passive activists with an organization for their own ethical beliefs, the next they want people to put orange juice on their conflakes instead of cow milk, the next their killing farmers to break out cows. Where are these cows even going to go?
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One of the things that's always really hard for me is remembering that my minor characters have goals too. I mean, the MC is usually someone very close to my heart - not hard to give him or her good motivations. But the minor characters too easily succumb, becoming either extensions of the MC's goal or extensions of my, the writer's, goal.
I think this last is why one ends up with so many unrealistic villains. Because they're villains. They exist to fill a slot in the story, and therefore are too likely to become what the storyteller needs them to be. They don't act like real people because they're puppets, automatons dancing out the steps required to get from "Chapter 1" to "The End".
For me (since I don't write villains as such) this tends to come out in the minor characters. Some are helping the MC - why are they helping? It has to somehow fit their goals, not mine. Those can be perfectly simple goals, like "because she's my superior officer and I'm trained to obey her", but they have to exist, and I have to know exactly how far they'll push the character. Even within such a simple motivation, there's shades of gray: an ambitious character may stop being obedient if his officer starts breaking rules, suspecting that his own career may be at risk; a loyal one may find herself in a position of conflicting loyalties.
For characters who are hindering the MC, directly or indirectly, I must again ask why, and how far they'll go, and what the MC might do to get them out of the way - or make them even more impassioned about hindering her.
I've started making up character sheets these days - not for the major characters, but for the minor ones. It's tedious, but it's helped immensely in making me remember that everyone has their own goals that they're working towards, and that not everyone's goals are black and white, for the MC or against her.
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