BONUS QUESTION: What motivates your main character?
RECOLLECTION OF QUESTIONABLE EVENTS:
Araceli is the MC in this story, and I think a combination of fear and self-riotousness motivates her. She’s terrified of being arrested, but knows she’s law-abiding. She’s also a know-it-all, so it allows her to be brazen in the situation.
CON ARTIST LEGACY:
Olivia is a little more complicated.
Growing up in a family where she didn’t really connect with anyone (not even her mother)…she sticks to her grandfather. He was a strict and stern man, but Olivia’s obvious intelligence at an early age made her his favorite.
So her nature stems from his influence, a man obsessed with spy movies (and a secret life). As a result, she’s pretty inquisitive and good at finding out the information she needs.
But her family is eccentric, and that’s contagious…forcing her to have very few friends. A lifetime of basically being alone has also made her observant, and she has honed those skills to get people to do what she wants (usually works).
In this story, her grandfather has just died…so she’s grieving. As odd it as it sounds right now (it’s one of the things I need to work on) and a new sheriff has come into town, wanting to make a name for himself. His first task is closing all the cold cases, and he accuses the Reynaldi family of paying off people (for work permits, licenses and covering up murder).
The memory of her grandfather is tarnished as the rumors fly. This is the initial motivation to investigate the murder of her uncle. Her nosy personality and inability to leave things alone will play out later as well. But I think the trigger is her grandfather. She wants him to be proud, and she wants his good name to be kept.
VEERAN:
Pau’s father was murdered. She has grown up in a world that’s on the brink of war. At the age of 16, she is recruited into the secret army VAL…and she finds a lot of information.
Murders and kidnappings happen all the time in her world, and it’s not until she is recruited that she finds out why. She has mixed emotions about it. She blames them for the suffering of her people and her father. If they’re not responsible…then they’re clearly failing at their job.
The group trusted to keep the five planets safe may be the cause of all their turmoil…and she wants to do something about it. But she’s young, and although she isn’t an evil person…her actions have a lot of consequences. She could potentially start the war >__>
Motivation? She wants to figure out why her father died and who’s responsible. She wants to keep her mother and little sister safe (and to a lesser extent, everyone else). She is that person who knows something is wrong before everyone else does.