Motive

Proverbs 25-27

Proverbs 25:2 "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter."

Our characters need reasons for the things they do in our stories. Even something as common as eating can be used to move the plot along depending on the character’s motive: is she eating because she is hungry or because she is angry and uses food to calm herself down?

When our stories begin, we need a motive for the protagonist to begin the pursuit of his goal. Even if we write a story where a character ignores the compelling need to begin the story quest, we will need to show why the character spends the story in denial.

Most readers will identify with a character’s initial resistance to pursue the changes forced on him by the story’s inciting incident. Or we could write a story about a person who likes change and whose motive is a desire for something different or more exciting in his life.