50 Character Motives For Your Story

If you’ve been looking around my blog for any length of time, you’ll have noticed that I often bang on about giving characters strong motives. That’s because it is very important to do so. Motives are what get your character up in the morning and form the basis for all the specific things your character is trying to achieve. For this reason, they are essential for making your audience understand and care about your character’s goals.

Often your character’s motive will be a deep seated hunger, or longing, which your character hopes to satiate by achieving their goals. Alternatively, they may be driven by some chronic fear, past trauma or intense feelings towards another person or persons. Some motives will have obviously dark overtones, while others may appear more positive or neutral. Don’t let that restrict you though. ‘Positive’ motives can still be turned to darkness in the hands of a well written bad guy and the reverse is also true. For instance, a man motivated by love for his family might murder his teenage daughter’s boyfriend. That’s a positive motive gone bad.

I’ve listed a few possible character motives in the image below and I would encourage you to play around with different ways of interpreting and applying them. Most motives (including those not on this list) can be used in a variety of ways, giving you an almost limitless pool of material from which to create character after character, and therefore, story after story.

Have you tried experimenting with any of these motives? What gets your characters out of bed in the morning? Share your own insights and experiences in the comments below!

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ATTENTION AUTHORS:

I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.

You can check out our previous interviews here:

• Sharleen Nelson, Author of The Time Tourists [2]
• D. Wallace Peach, Author of the Shattered Sea duology [2]