What are the goals and what is the motivation that keeps pushing your main character plot and/or character wise?
In terms of the story’s plot, what are the goals that your character must get to? What is motivating them to reach those goals? In terms of the character, are the goals that don’t really tie in with the plot, but some type of side thing that character must do, yet what is motivating to act on that?
Come on and let us chat about our main character’s goals and motivations!
Don’t have me just be the only one asking questions, because we all can ask each other questions.
I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but mine’s a love story where one guy just wants the love of the other. The other wants revenge for his parents’ murder, but it turns out the murderer is his lover’s father, and his lover loves his dad despite his crime. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
I go on and on. I guess I really needed to talk about this.
Since I was sick and couldn’t write, I had a good long think about Pinti’s story and her motivations. What is it truly? To save her race? Why would one individual care so much about her race when she was never a ruler of her race or anything?
It makes sense for lionkind princess Sovanna to care about her species Kaunlutha and their survival. It makes sense that she would try to do anything in her power to save her kind. Her father was the king. She was his chosen successor. It makes sense she wants to fight for her species.
But Pinti? I know people can be patriotic and care deeply about their country without being the president or top ruler. But Pinti really only would care about her own clan. Just her own clan. If she wanted to care about the other three clans (that are fighting with her) she would really have to dig deep inside of herself It would be hard not to dislike the others based on her experience even if some of them have shown kindness.
So, I had a good long think about what Pinti really values.
It’s family.
She knew from a young age that her biological parents abandoned her. She’s been deeply cared for and loved by her family and clan (even though there were some who didn’t really like her. You can’t please everybody). She only thinks about her family and her clan even when they go through rocky times.
As for her friends, yes, she cares about them, of course, but since they are also part of the clan, it’s a little different for her. She’s away from them a lot and so doesn’t feel as deep a connection with them (even with her best friend Kirlan, she guards herself) even though her friends might feel a deep sense of connection with her. There’s a bit of a power imbalance? They respect her as their leader and like her as a friend. They adore her, but keep a respectable distance.
Most of all, Pinti deeply cares for her little sister, Tendri. It was the first small, vulnerable thing she was able to take care of and pour all her love onto.
So, when her little sister’s peace and calm is disrupted with fights among clans, Pinti wants to stop it for her. When Pinti realizes Bloodstone is going to squish all the clans together, she knows it will upset Tendri. The clans that they are fighting are going to be closer now. She wants Tendri to live in a peaceful world free. That’s why she destroys the wall in hopes that her race will have more space to spread out and then not fight each other. But this ultimately leads to Tendri’s capture (and others, but Tendri is important here).
The goal for Pinti is to free her sister and give her a better life. Pinti and Tendri exchange many promises and one is that Pinti says she will come home. She promises to come home. It’s this promise that keeps her motivated.
It’s also this promise that turns into a dilemma because the shadow beasts, Ilvagis, tell her to come back with the moonstone and give it to them in two weeks. Pinti will learn they attempted this with someone else and that someone has not returned. She meets this someone and he tells her not to give the moonstone to them. Which means, he is saying she should not return and break her promise with her sister.
She will insist she can destroy the Ilvagis. So then her goal turns into “return home with the moonstone, destroy the Ilvagis, and save Tendri”. But this becomes difficult when she realizes the Ilvagis are after her to snatch the moonstone from her if she gets it and prevent her from returning home in time.
Family is an excellent reason for Pinti’s motivation to save her race, but what if she also belonged to a dying race? What if they’d been victims of genocide in the past or something, and their numbers were getting way too small? Or would that not work with your storyline?
Well, it IS a dying race. Pinti doesn’t see that. She doesn’t really know what the rest of the world is like. She doesn’t know where Kattalunae place in terms of population ranks in all of Elgana.
In the lionkind’s case, they were down to dwindling numbers. Less than fifty and they were having difficulty having children. Sovanna knew about this fact. There was also a disease caused by the frost curse picking them off one by one. Sovanna also heard Humans outside of her enclosure talking about how the lionkind are critically endangered. And she knew what that meant.
For the Kattalunae, each clan has over 100 members. As for genocide or anything like that, Kattalunae were threatened once fifty years ago. Pinti’s father would have been a little boy. It wasn’t enough to cause concern of race survival.
Hmm, but they were also attacked after Bloodstone went down. Their numbers reduced significantly and Ilvagis were threatening to kill them all. But Pinti, at that time, wasn’t aware of how bad the situation was. She was solely focusing on her sister and the proposition to fetch the moonstone came quite quickly, not giving her a chance to process what was going on.
Outside, she would find out that her race is considered endangered compared to all the other races of the world. It’s like hundreds compared to millions. She would find out that the story she had been told that the Kattalunae inside Bloodstone are the only ones left was semi-true. But then her hopes of a larger population are dashed when she meets the last remaining fifteen Kattalunae who live outside Bloodstone.
She could, at that point, possibly realize that she might be her race’s only hope for survival because of her magick. But before this realization, she would be focused on her sister. Would that make sense?
Well, it depends on the story as to how these things play out.
The thing I’m still deep in so I can get the worst of it out the way for next month is thwarted goals.
The MC is scared to be tangled up with the wolves, winds up being so, and has to live with the consequences of bad decisions. The ML wasn’t really living life, just allowed his position to live him, is technically an alcoholic, etc.
It’s not really until about 10 chapters in when they both really get serious about goals, especially as they’ve changed over time.
Honestly, never really thought about motivation for Amneris but I guess hers would be that she considers her people’s safety a high priority and wants to make sure things are good for them (even if it means dealing with morons). Killing bad guys is probably also a strong motivator
Xix’s motivation is she wants to make her world better and prove she’s nothing like her father.
I have to tomorrow to share my main characters goals and motivation, which I want to do today, but I just handwritten ten pages from front to back with no double spacing and i am tired.
For Geldrid it would only serve to spoil the end of the tale… For others (Other MC’s) it would also only lead to spoilers as the tale unfolds… However they have their own (Unknown outcomes in the end) reasons which they do indeed hold close to their hearts, except for Hal-en…
While he does indeed wish to save his township, he wishes to became more than that which he feels his father deems of his ability. He has a sense of Lordship that goes beyond his fathers, one that may be even equal to that of the highest known kingdoms. Yet we shall see where that leads him in time…
Isilynor’s (Renna reborn) goal is to unravel the mystery of what happened to her people and why her “loyal” fellow warrior betrayed her and had her killed, but she also wants to understand why she was reborn as an imperial heir to the Naivin Dynasty, the very same dynasty who she disliked because they are the direct descendants of the Firstlings and have divinity.
Her motivation is to simply learn the truth on what happened and to use her new family’s wealth to uncover the answers.
A personal motivation and goal that has to deal with her character is her wanting to get to know her new family, who are surprisingly way more loving and supportive than her real family. Even though Isilynor’s father when she was Renna a tough ass highly ranking soldier, he cared about her, however her goddess mother, Nirvana was never there. Isilynor/Renna wants to know what it is like to have a caring family, but more importantly have a mother she never had.
Isilynor’s actions in her past life is best described as a child trying to get her mother to notice her. She really only hates the gods because her mother was never there and her father struggled a lot.
That is all I got. Wanna ask questions about my MC?
No. Though Nirvana, I would not be surprised in the slightest.
As for her new parents, they may be divine, but aren’t on the same level as the First Ones or the group that Nirvana belongs to.
So, Renna’s new parents as Isilynor aren’t that godly, since they are a lesser part of the Firstlings.
In other words, no they do not know who she really is.
It would be hard not to dislike the others based on her experience even if some of them have shown kindness.