Wants and Needs

I've been blogging about how to write more literarily, but this is more of a basic concept.  It's that every character, large or small, that enters the stage of your narrative needs a motivation, especially the important ones.  How many people do you know who do things for no reason?  In reality, it may happen.  However, generally, people in real life do everything they do for some reason.  If you have a man standing on the street corner, but he doesn't seem to go anywhere or do anything, what's the purpose of even mentioning him?  A character's motivation may be selfish or selfless or anything in between.  These desires and drives shape the story as characters act on them.

It helps to heighten the drama of a story if those wants are at odds, and even more so if what drives the character is different then what others or even they, themselves, think..  Let's look at Jane Austen's Emma, for example.  Emma pushes Harriet into a fake relationship with Elton.  Why?  Because she wants to feel pride in a match well made.  The relationship doesn't work because Elton's motivation for all he does (spoiler alert) is to impress Emma, and Harriet's motivation is eagerness to please.  No one in this situation is motivated by love in this "love match," so drama ensues.  If Emma's desire had been true concern and love for a friend, Elton's had been love for Harriet, and Harriet's had been love for Elton, as in the fiction Emma paints for herself in her imagination, there would have been no drama.

Shakespeare's Hamlet is all about characters trying to read each other's opposing motivations.  The spirit of Hamlet's late father pushes him to take revenge on his murderous uncle.  His uncle watches Hamlet to read his motivation, even while Hamlet returns the favor.  Hamlet plays the fool while searching his soul and those around him for a motivation and drive to obey his father's will.  Ophelia gives up the fight toward trying to read Hamlet and takes herself out of the narrative.  The tension of the story is in the reading and misreading of others as they all struggle toward a resolution.

Sometimes, a motivation can be short-term, as in for just one scene.  Harry Potter's need to solve the riddle of the golden egg in the fourth book drives just one section of the book.  That drive conflicts with his desire to deal with other issues around him, so this motivation gets put off until others spell out how to solve the mystery.  The motivation of his seeming-ally, though at first appears altruistic, ends up bringing on the true danger and climax of the book.  Although Harry's motivation is temporary and not even that strong, that of his unseen enemy carries him through to the end in a way that is critical to the story arc of not just the book but the entire series. Motivations can vary in strength and conflict with each other, even in the same story and character, but all of them need to be believable to the reader.

What are your characters' most basic motivations?  What do they want?  Look at both the broad plot and individual scenes to figure out if the motivations are clear to the reader, even if they aren't to the characters.  Are there places that characters confusing each others'--or even their own--motivations could heighten the drama?

Dive into Meaning

These last few blogs, I have addressed various literary devices that turn a decent piece of writing into something more meaningful than just a story.  I have been reading a manuscript written by someone who calls it "literary fiction."  I've had to inform him there is nothing literary about his fiction.  The story meanders without purpose or deeper meaning from event to event, drawing no conclusions and making no suggestion at anything deeper.

What makes literary fiction?  Literary fiction is a manner of describing events that shapes meaning through literary devices such as those I've described.  This genre of fiction exists not just to tell you once upon a time, something happened but that once upon a time, something happened for a reason or multiple reasons.  If you are not writing with purpose and theme, you are not writing in any way that could be called literary.  And any genre, if well handled, can become at least somewhat literary.

What is a theme?  Theme is simply meaning.  You can incorporate multiple meanings into one story, but if there is no theme at all above and beyond bare facts, why are you writing?  Why tell the story?

Obviously, there's much more to it than this, but all of these literary devices are meant for one purpose: to suggest something grander is going on than just simple events.  You can read To Kill a Mockingbird as a set of fictional events in a made-up child's life.  However, if you do, you miss much of what is going on beneath the surface.  You miss the grander themes of prejudice, child abuse, hatred, love, and so much more.  You can read Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet as depressing yarns in which a whole series of people die, but then you may as well read a cheap thriller.  Shakespeare's plays explore questions of love, loyalty, family, murder, revenge, and language, among other things.  Clearly, the authors built these tales as carriers of depth and meaning beyond just the events described.

So how do you explore themes with your works?  This depends on your writing process.  You could simply write the bare bones story and then decide on what meanings you find yourself exploring or you could decide in advance what meaning or meanings you wish to address through your writing.  I decided with my first manuscript to explore child loss as part of the tale because I'm working on healing from the loss of my baby almost seven years ago.  For more on this, look to another of my blogs, Alamanda's Place.  I consciously decided that was one of my themes before I ever started typing.  That was my starting place, why I wrote the story.  Other themes have grown organically out of the story as I've gone along.

 Harry Potter writer J.K. Rowling started writing her tale as the story of a child wizard, but as she went along, she consciously wove deeper themes into her novels such as death, resurrection, love, and friendship.  When she started to explore those deeper themes that spoke to the human condition, she began to write fantasy in a more literary fashion.  If you haven't done so already, go to your latest work in progress and brainstorm what themes you can find in your own work.  What greater statements about the human condition do you make?  If you can't find any, what themes do you WANT to explore?   You don't want to tack something on that feels tacked on, nor do you want the narrative to become preachy.  Either way, you're bound to turn readers off.  Look at your favorite books.  See how the authors have woven themes throughout their tales so you can see how they do it.