Character Motivation Thesaurus: Escaping Certain Death

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): Escaping Certain Death

Forms This Might Take:

• Being in an apartment building that catches on fire
• Being imprisoned by someone (a serial killer, terrorists, kidnappers) who has no intent of letting one live
• Suffering torture that is growing increasingly violent
• Being grievously wounded and in need of medical help to survive
• Being in the path of a destructive element (a forest fire, flood, tornado, nuclear fallout, etc.)…

Human Need Driving the Goal (Inner Motivation): Physiological Needs

How the Character May Prepare for This Goal:

• Track the movements of one’s captors or gatekeepers
• Assess the weaknesses of others, or a location one is being held at
• Lying in order to gain support or obtain a measure of power or control
• Obtain a map of the area
• Push one’s body to the limits (traveling in extreme heat or cold, resisting fatigue, etc.)…

Possible Sacrifices or Costs Associated With This Goal:

• Being maimed, scarred, or disfigured during one’s escape
• Having one’s health compromised in the escape to the point where one is never the same
• Becoming jaded by humanity based on horrors one witnesses during the plight
• Revealing a secret or closely guarded information in order to escape, knowing it will have difficult repercussions later…

Roadblocks Which Could Prevent This Goal from Being Achieved:

• Too many guards and no opportunity to escape
• Being secured in some way (handcuffed, bound in rope, secured to other people, etc.)
• Being in a place where movement is restricted (being locked in a trunk, getting stuck in a tunnel collapse, etc.)
• Running out of clean air, water, or food…

Talents & Skills That Will Help the Character Achieve This Goal:

• A Knack for Languages
• A Way with Animals
• Archery
• Survival Skills
• Swift-footedness…

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

Clichés to Avoid:

• Guards who get drunk, allowing one to escape
• Guards who put down their weapons in order to take advantage of the character (sexually, or to beat them up, etc.)…

We hope you’ve found this sample useful. To access the complete entry and our full range of thesauruses, head on 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!