-♦ MOTIVATION IN STORIES ♦-
As you as writer already know, a good story contains one or more challenges and obstacles, that the main character needs to overcome.
For stories that have multiple obstacles for the main character, this also means that the protagonist is usually active and has motivation that drives them to challenge these obstacles.
After all, no one becomes a hero by sitting on the couch watching tv because they can't be bothered to do anything else.
It is of course possible to make a main character with no motivation and do it well, but I'll get back to that.
-♦ LEVELS OF MOTIVATION ♦-
Motivation is something that differs for every single person, and often it differs for every single goal that this person has set for themselves. The amount of motivation for a task or a goal depends on multiple factors such as life conditions, opposing goals, and cost versus benefit.
For now I'm going to split motivation into two sections: Base level and Goal Motivation.
Base motivation level
Certainly you yourself has tried to have one of those days where you don't have the energy to do anything, even if that is making your favorite meal or play a game you usually love. On those days you are far less likely to start and complete new tasks than you are on a good day where it feels as though you have excessive energy.
Of course, people and characters have an average amount of base motivation, and someone with depression will get far less done than someone happy and satisfied in their life, even in their spare time.
Consider for example Saitama from One Punch Man, who is demotivated because everything is too easy, versus Bell Cranel from Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon who is a young up-and-coming hero.
While Saitama does whack the bosses, he doesn't have much motivation to do anything else in life. Bell Cranel on the other hand can't help but to stick his nose in problems and try to resolve them, even if it wasn't his problem to begin with, and even if he could easily get out of it.
Goal motivation
Goal motivation is a little different, as it only connects to a specific task at hand, and to some extent other goals connected with that goal.
The important part is that this is separate from the base motivation, and is either added or substracted to the base motivation.
Cost vs Benefit
An important aspect of goal motivation, is the subconcious cost vs benefit analysis, that we do when we consider whether to do something.
- How hard is it going to be.
- What is the chance of success.
- How good is the benefit going to be.
- What prices have to be paid to get there.
- What are the consequences of not doing it.
Each of these can be considered, when figuring out considering what a character is going to do next, because maximixing benefit, compared to cost, is how we tend to pick our solutions.
For example, a person with a low base motivation, with low goal motivation to improve at school, might do a small short sighted cost benefit, and figure that cheating on the test gives most value for least effort. They pass, and don't have to spend the full effort to learn anything.
In reverse, why did the villainess try to kill the heroine? Her base motivation is quite high, as she's been very active in the story, and she has a high goal motivation towards marrying the prince. She has already paid a high cost to get where she is, and if she does nothing, not only does her family lose the benefit they'd been pushing her from a young age to get, and she would be mocked by her peers for the rest of her life as a discarded woman, which could further end up making her future that of an eternally single woman, that has failed her duty to her family. Traditionally, these women aren't treated well.
The villainess balances the price of her past, the weight of her future, and her dignity, upon this choice. If she does nothing, she loses her quality of life and dignity, if she gets found out, she loses her life, and if she wins, she gets everything.
She had already reached the point of no return before the story started.
Once you understand that about the villainess, you understand the limits she's willing to go to, and it lets you display her as more than just a jealous, cruel person.
Goal Motivation types
I'm going to classify motivation into three parts: Go-to motivation, away-from motivation and lack-of motivation.
Note that a goal can have both types of motivation. Wanting to be fit, and not wanting to be fat, often go hand in hand.
Though, doing everything for someone because you love them, and doing everything for someone because you love them and don't want to lose them, are two very different motivations, despite having the same goal, and the same action.
-♦ GO-TO MOTIVATION ♦-
Go to motivation, is doing something because you are motivated by a positive outcome. A very common one around January is "I want to be slim"
Go-to motivation is gained from looking into the future and dreaming about how good it can be, if this effort it put in.
This is also where you find motivations such as:
"I want to be a hero"
"I want to be like that person"
"I want to help others"
"I want her to suffer"
"I want to be famous"
"I want god to hear me."
"I want to be loved."
"I want to make them happy."
Often role models bring out the positive of these motivations, and make people strive to be better.
They often represent desires and ambitions.
The methods used to solve these motivations can end up feeling rewarding, as you get closer to your goal and see improvements. A positive mindset can bring you far.
-♦ AWAY-FROM MOTIVATION ♦-
This is your where your traumas, hatred and pessimism resides.
In many ways it is the opposite side of the coin of go-to motivation, as away-from represents what you are running away from.
"I don't want to be fat"
Is the simplest example. Far more so than go-to motivation, away-from motivation is a restriction and sometimes even a punishment to yourself.
"I don't want to be useless"
"I don't want to feel helpless"
"I'm scared of ending up like them"
"I don't want to go back and be hurt by them anymore."
"I don't want to be hated"
These often end up representing fears or resentment, and the methods used to fix them often feel like punishments, which can at times make it an ineffective motivation compared to go-to motivation, as you'll here often end up wondering how long it is until you're done with the punishment, and struggle with how to avoid the fear.
A lot of depressed female leads have this kind of motivation. "I just don't want to be hated". Every time something that can be misunderstood at hatred appears, she will think of that motivation, and get sadder.
-♦ LACK OF MOTIVATION ♦-
There can be multiple reasons that a character is lacking motivation to complete a goal. It can be that the goal simply isn't important, or that there are complicating factors in getting to the goal, that either go against another goal, or require too much effort compared to the perceived gain.
This is a very human state to be in, but it usually doesn't make for good storytelling, as the main character becomes passive and doesn't proceed to the obstacle required to continue the story. The story stops moving.
The way you would usually fix this, is by adding side characters that can -if needed- drag the protagonist over the obstacle.
If the side characters do get them across the obstacle, the main character should still learn the lesson, and preferably, gain a bit more energy towards the next obstacle, so you don't repeat the same situation again.
-♦ LACKING OR LAZY ♦-
(Rant warning)
I usually dislike characters lacking motivation, as they tend to be uninteresting or just waste of space in the story as they don't add anything to it other than being there like an ornament being dragged about by the side characters.
This is because they aren't lacking motivation because of a loss of direction, like Saitama that doesn't know what to do with himself now where he is the strongest... no, they see what they can do, what they should do, and do nothing, or only do it because people are noisy about it.
They're characters that can change the fate of the world, and just want to roll around on a bed to sleep, much like a tired teenager that doesn't want to go to school... but it's okay because they can just flick their wrist to solve the problem and then it's okay... and people still find their laziness attractive.
While Saitama hungers for an actual challenge, and gets disappointed when he doesn't get one, most lazy demotivated characters don't actually have anything they want to do other than laze around. Any actual challenge is met with a groan.
I don't approve of this character, and never will, because it means that the obstacle and the reward doesn't suit the character, and there's then either a lack in the character, or in the story, to make it interesting.
The only way I could accept that character would be if they develop the character, and said character actually starts doing what they should.
Harsh, I know, but if I want to look at lazy teens, I can look at reality.