The Russian Nesting Doll Theory of Motivation
Being a writer is equal parts triumph and humiliation.1 For example, every writer has experienced the mounting flop-sweat of trying to explain your own book when someone expresses more than polite interest, forcing you to explain a story that heretofore has existed solely in the walled garden of your mind.2 It’s usually a rapid downhill progression:
1. Confident self-deprecation.
2. Panic as you realize you haven’t made the premise sound interesting.
3. Suspicion your story doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
4. Tears, rending of garments, accusations of sabotage, fight-or-flight response.3
This usually ends with the other person staring at you in silence for three seconds and then just walking wordlessly away.4
One of the biggest icebergs we hit when explaining a story isn’t the plot, or the fact that we use the phrase “wait I forgot to mention this part” 16 times in three minutes. Nope, it’s our characters’ motivations. Or lack thereof.
BECAUSE IT’S THERE
If you’ve tried writing a story, you know that motivation is a mysterious element, like gravity. In one sense, motivation is easy: It’s why characters do things. But too many writers come up with the plot first, the that stuff happens later, their characters make the decisions they make. A common technique for solving the motivation problem is to start with the conflict of the story and work backward from there. This typically results in a flat motivations—a single purpose driving every decision your characters make. If your story is about someone carrying a magical ring to a volcano thousands of miles away in order to prevent an evil lord from taking over the world, for example, it’s boring if that’s literally all your protagonist ever thinks about, if that’s the only reason they do .
