Motivation Thesaurus: Stopping an Event from Happening

What does your character want? This is an important question to answer because it determines what your protagonist hopes to achieve by the story’s end. If the goal, or outer motivation, is written well, readers will identify fairly quickly what the overall story goal’s going to be and they’ll know what to root for. But how do you know what outer motivation to choose?

If you read enough books, you’ll see the same goals being used for different characters in new scenarios. This thesaurus explores common outer motivations so you can see your options and what those goals might look like on a deeper level.

Goal (Outer Motivation): 
Stopping an Event from Happening

Forms This Might Take: Stopping…

• a bomb detonation
• an assassination
• the killing of a captive
• someone from killing himself
• a war from being started…

Human Need Driving the Goal (Inner Motivation): Safety and Security

Methods for Achieving This Goal:

• Infiltrating enemy ranks to gather information
• Gathering allies by identifying those who would benefit from stopping the event
• Removing, disabling, discrediting, or otherwise undermining any competition
• Calling in favors to gain resources…

Possible Sacrifices or Costs Associated With This Goal: 

• Getting killed in the process, because of the inherent danger or by the opposition
• Those in close emotional and/or physical proximity to the hero being threatened or killed
• The character losing credibility with loved ones due to their single-mindedness and passion…

Roadblocks Which Could Prevent This Goal from Being Achieved: 

• The person, corporation, race, or group of people the character is opposing
• The character’s family and friends who want to dissuade them from pursuing such a ridiculous or dangerous goal
• Physical boundaries (if the character needs to travel)
• Incompetent allies…

Talents & Skills That Might Help the Character Achieve This Goal: A knack for languages, Blending in, Photographic memory…

Possible Fallout For the Protagonist if This Goal Is Not Met:

• Living with guilt and blame for failing
• Being unwilling in the future to try and stop a harmful event from happening
• The character losing their job (if the job was tied to their goal)…

Clichés to Avoid: 

• The government going to any length to protect its biological weapon
• A madman at the helm of a country’s nuclear controls…

We hope you’ve found this sample useful. To access the complete entry and our full range of thesauruses, head over to One Stop for Writers.

What does your character want, and how far will they go to achieve it?

On the surface, the protagonist’s goal seems to be the most important, but the inner motivation driving your character toward this goal (despite pain, suffering, fear, setbacks, and sacrifice) is what really draws readers in. Understanding the four cornerstones of character arc and how they frame a story is paramount for today’s writers. To help with this, we have integrated this Character Motivation Thesaurus into our online library at One Stop For Writers.

Each entry has been enhanced to provide even more information about your character’s motivation and is cross-referenced with our other thesauruses for easy searchability. We’ve also included a must-see tutorial on Character Motivation.

Interested in seeing these expanded entries? Head on over and take advantage of our FREE TRIAL!