Salt & Pepper and the Main Course

By Joe Moore

How often do you watch a movie with the sound turned off? Not too often, I’ll bet. Not only would you be missing a key sensory ingredient of the story, but you would have to guess at what is motivating the characters actions. Without the sound or dialogue, motivation is vague, ambiguous, and downright impossible to determine. And without motivation, there’s little or no story to enjoy.

Last month, I blogged about plot motivators. Today I want to discuss character motivations.

In general, motivation directs a character’s actions and reactions. When someone reads a book, they rarely go digging for motivation, but they know when it’s missing, or worse, when it’s present but farfetched. For instance, motivation becomes unbelievable when it’s cliché such as the old, worn out white hat-black hat characterization. The bad guy must be bad because his appearance is that of a stereotypical bad guy.

Another stumbling point is when the protagonist’s actions go beyond the realm of reality to the point of stopping the reader cold. The motivation didn’t provide the justification on why a character acts in a certain manner. This is critical when a character, especially the hero, deliberately risks his own life. If the motivation hasn’t been sold to the readers in a convincing manner prior to the protagonist taking a dangerous risk, they won't buy into the scene and will consider it manufactured. That’s where they stop reading and put the book down.

A character’s motivation can be an obvious goal that must be achieved in order for survival or it can be a series of ever-building events that propel him forward into an inevitable conflict. It’s the writer’s job to develop motivation to a point that the reader won’t question the character’s actions, especially by the time they reach the climax of the book.

First, let’s talk about external motivation. I believe there are two types: I call the first salt & pepper and the second I think of as the main course.

Salt & Pepper motivation is the seasoning of events that occur in and around the character at the scene level of the story. He’s late for work. She’s annoyed by the neighbor’s barking dog. He spills his coffee on his business report. She has an argument with her mother. He gets cut off in traffic. She loses her earring. In and of themselves, these salt & pepper events don’t motivate the hero to run into a burning building to save a stranger or the heroine to spend years tracking down the murderer of her child. But they all add up—or at least they should. They are part of the bricks and cement of character-building that must augment and support the grand motivation that kicks off the story. And that motivation is the Main Course.

Main Course motivation is the biggie. A classic example is the “Death Wish” scenario. An ordinary guy becomes a one-man vigilante squad after he witnesses his wife murdered by hoodlums. The main course motivation—the brutal crime and ensuing obsession for vengeance—shapes a character into taking action outside his comfort zone. And because he’s such a “Mr. Everyman”, the reader will probably consider what he or she would do in the same situation. The protagonist gets sympathy and support from the reader even though he’s committing acts of violence just as bad as the original main course motivation.

Another factor in believable character motivation is matching the actions of the protagonist with his personality. A 95-pound, soft-spoken computer geek shouldn’t try to physically take on the 300-pound former linebacker henchman in a fist fight. But he can use his fine-tuned intellect and problem solving abilities to bring down the bad guy in the arena of the brain, not brawn. The actions of the character fueled by motivation must be consistent with his personality. This is not to say that an ordinary guy can’t take on an extraordinary situation and win, only that it must be consistent with his makeup and therefore believable in the mind of the reader.

There’s also the issue of motivating growth. The protagonist should grow or change over the course of the story. And this growth must be the result of internal forces in opposition. For example, greed and generosity, anger and patience, or caution and boldness. The protagonist is a highly cautious individual and shows it while reacting to a number of salt & pepper events. But when the main course comes along—perhaps a direct threat to his family’s safety—he steps forward to become a bold defender of what he treasures most.

When dealing with motivation, we can’t forget that the antagonist needs his share, too. It’s a given that conflict and tension are what keeps a reader turning pages. So not only does the protagonist need the appropriate amount of convincing motivation to be propelled through the story, but the antagonist must meet the challenge with an equal amount of motivation to push back. It’s not good enough to say that the bad guy is insane or wants to rule the world. There has to be motivation that is undeniable in the mind of the reader.

It’s the writer’s job to create the main course motivation and then season the story with enough salt & pepper events to keep both main characters at odds as they develop from start to finish. The result should be that two (or more) forces are motivated to reach a climactic ending in which only one will persevere.

How do you react when the motivation doesn’t match a character’s actions? Have you ever put down a book because the hero or villain went beyond the believability of what should motivate them? Do some genre demand more character motivation than others? And was there ever a book so good that you suspended your doubts about character motivation and kept reading?