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): Escape Invaders
Forms This Might Take:
- A foreign army seeking to claim territory
- An alien invasion
- A group of people or animals being controlled in some way (a drug, an implant, mind control, a virus, etc.) who pose a immediate threat
- …
Human Need Driving the Goal (Inner Motivation): safety and security
How the Character May Prepare for This Goal:
- Scouting escape routes
- Monitoring the enemy’s movements and patterns to determine the best opportunity to escape
- Arranging for transport (pay, steal, or acquire what one needs)
- Capturing and questioning an invader to obtain valuable information one needs for the escape
- Gathering survival gear and medical supplies
- …
Possible Sacrifices or Costs Associated With This Goal:
- Being injured
- A family member being captured during the escape
- Leaving behind one’s job, friends, and property
- Having to leave a family member behind (who has been captured and is beyond rescue, who refuses to leave, etc.)
- Having to live with the knowledge of what one did to survive (kill people, sacrifice others to live, fail to help others out of self-preservation, whatever fits)
- …
Roadblocks Which Could Prevent This Goal from Being Achieved:
- One’s transportation being destroyed
- A cave-in within a tunnel network one is using to escape, a bridge collapse, a train derailment, a capsized boat, a car breakdown
- A checkpoint weakness being discovered and fortified
- …
Talents & Skills That Will Help the Character Achieve This Goal:
- A Knack for Languages
- A Way with Animals
- Archery
- Astral Projection
- Basic First Aid
- Good Listening Skills
- …
Possible Fallout For the Protagonist if This Goal Is Not Met:
- Losing one’s home, property, and assets
- Being captured and killed
- Enslavement
- …
Click here to return to the list of sample entries for this thesaurus, along with a master post containing information on the individual fields.
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.
Great entry. I have several of these in my books. This will help!
Glad to hear it!