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. Through this thesaurus, we’d like to explore these common outer motivations so you can see your options and what those goals might look like on a deeper level.
We hope the sample list of ideas below helps you better understand how your character’s motivation drives the story. For a much more detailed entry, follow this link to the official Character Motivation Thesaurus.
Character’s Goal (Outer Motivation): Obtaining Shelter From The Elements
Forms This Might Take:
- Breaking into a vacant home or building
- Breaking into a vehicle
- Building a lean-to, tent, or structure with the materials at hand
- Going door-to-door in a neighborhood and asking to be let in
- Sneaking onto a boat that is anchored and vacant
- …
Human Need Driving the Goal (Inner Motivation): Physical Needs
How the Character May Prepare for This Goal:
- Gathering materials one needs to build a shelter
- Travel whatever distance necessary to find adequate shelter
- Strike out alone in reconnaissance to see what one’s options are
- Pick a lock or break a window
- …
Possible Sacrifices or Costs Associated With This Goal:
- Draining one’s finances or other resources
- Becoming lost as one seeks out shelter
- Having to give up one’s resources to obtain shelter (leave one’s belongings behind to go on foot, etc.)
- …
Roadblocks Which Could Prevent This Goal from Being Achieved:
- Opposition in the form of police, owners, or security guards protecting the property
- Competition for the shelter
- Being mugged or assaulted
- Running into a scam artist or violent individual looking to take advantage of the situation
- …
Talents & Skills That Will Help the Character Achieve This Goal:
Possible Fallout For the Protagonist if This Goal Is Not Met:
- An injury or illness
- Frostbite and limb loss (if winter)
- …
Clichés to Avoid:
- Being out in the woods and coming upon an abandoned cabin in the nick of time
- Being hunted during extreme weather for added tension where one’s predators would logically not venture out
- …
Click here to return to a list of our current sample entries for this thesaurus, along with a master post containing information on the individual fields.
Image: Jnightfall @ pixabay
What does your character want more than anything else and what is he willing to do 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 our popular 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 character motivation entries? Head on over and take advantage of our FREE TRIAL!
Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.
I just love this, Angela 🙂 Every time you gals post an entry, it immediately gets my creative juices flowing. I just wish my life was allowing time to make use of it! lol Thanks 😀
I am so happy to hear it! That’s the whole idea. We can’t cover every scenario, but hopefully looking at goals in broad strokes like this does help spark some ideas. 🙂