Character motivations can be tricky to convey thoughtfully but clearly. Readers need reminders often enough to feel their main character’s drive, but that can quickly lead to a broken record situation if you’re not careful. Here are some tips to help you strike the right balance:
Start Early
Find ways to actively show what drives your character from the very first pages without coming out and saying it. The first section of your novel is all about what life looks like before the inciting incident changes their situation forever. So, if your main character is going to be fighting to protect their family as tensions rise, show their closeness and reasons why they’re so committed to it now. If they’re going to have their dreams challenged, show the MC working hard for them before everything comes into question. This plants a seed as the first impression a reader has of your character that will stick with them throughout the story and minimize your need to bring up why they’re here to take on the complications that stand in their way.
Vary the Intensity
If you’re hearing from beta readers that they’re tired of reading about what drives your character again and again, it may be best to reconsider the methods you’re using to convey character motivations. At the beginning, it’s most effective to be relatively heavy-handed with your mentions of what drives a character because there’s so much a reader needs to take in as they’re first becoming acquainted with your world. But as the book goes on, it slowly makes more sense to create subtle reminders of this. Slowly, eventually, the character and reader should almost forget this drive. That’s what creates a high-intensity inner conflict. Then when they remember why that drive is important at the climax, it leaves a big impact.
Interweave Symbolism
By establishing a symbol of your character’s motivations, you create a sort of shorthand for their reason to drive in a way that the character can interact with regularly without bringing so much attention to it. One of the most common ways this is accomplished is through something as simple as a locket or a gift given to a character by an important person in their life. These kinds of symbols can even be used to build mystery, similar to the Book of Eli, if you wait to reveal their origins. But more abstract symbols can be used in this way as well with even fewer intrusions to the narrative.
Use Sensory Shortcuts
Finding ways to incorporate your character’s motivations through sensory experiences will help readers feel fully immersed and connected to their character’s drive.
Sights
While sight is the easiest sense to include in a story, it’s also the least effective. So, it has to be laid on pretty thick. This is easiest to accomplish when you’re describing something in great detail, which is often part of introducing a new setting. By using a space that is uniquely theirs to demonstrate what’s most important, you can easily slip in visual motivation cues. For example, if your main character’s dream is to become a pilot, they could have colorful post cards from all over the world pinned to their wall.
Sounds
Sounds are the next most common pieces of sensory input for a story. And it’s partly because there are two ways to use them. You can either describe a sound and compare it to something your character feels strongly connected to or you can keep it simple and incognito with a comparative onomatopoeia. For the pilot, this could be hearing a jet fly overhead and looking up at it longingly, or it could be as simple as the sound of a screen door being caught by its slow close with a whoosh.
Feelings
Internal feelings show us how connected a character is to what drives them. How do they feel when they grow closer to their goals? How do they feel when something gets in their way? Don’t just name it. Describe the sensations in their body. Or, if you’ve designated a physical manifestation of your character’s desire, what does the object feel like? How do they feel when they touch it?
Taste
The sense of taste is probably the least utilized sense in storytelling, but because of that it can create a huge impact on readers and characters. Not only describing the dish itself but also its flavor can send a reader or character back in time to when they felt a strong connection to it in the past. This can set a wronged character back on the right path by reminding them what led them to where they are today. One of the most famous examples of this is in Ratatouille, but it exists in other works of literature as well.
Smell
Smell is the sense most strongly tied to memory and is more easily achieved in storytelling than taste, which makes it a great candidate for motivation. An unfounded scent has the capability to drive a character mad searching for it and everything it reminds them of. Make sure to use thoughtful sensory words like rich, sharp, unctuous, bright rather than a list of ingredients to draw readers in.
Keep it to Structural Scenes
Right now, it’s likely you’ve mentioned it every time during writing when it feels like it’s been a while, but a while to a reader is a lot longer than a while to a writer simply because of the amount of time spent consuming the story. A great way to space out your mentions and place them where they’re most impactful by limiting their use to essential structural scenes only. This starts with a natural frequency that is more often at the beginning and slowly fades out as readers begin to remember and then allow you to bring it back in focus for your climax.
Hopefully this list gives you an idea of how to improve character motivations communications in a way that still reflects your authorial voice. If you’re not sure if your character motivations are being conveyed clearly, a good beta reader should be able to get you an answer and help identify when they’re feeling motivation fatigue. But if you’re still wanting help balancing your motivations, that’s a great focus to bring to a line editor. Asking for help doesn’t make you less the author of your story.
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