{"id":856,"date":"2009-04-09T06:18:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T06:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/2009\/04\/09\/internal-vs-external-motivation\/"},"modified":"2009-04-09T06:18:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-09T06:18:00","slug":"internal-vs-external-motivation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2009\/04\/09\/internal-vs-external-motivation\/","title":{"rendered":"Internal vs External Motivation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As I struggle with finding the
 beginning,<\/b><\/a>
 ending,<\/b><\/a>
 voice<\/b><\/a> and
person,<\/b><\/a>
for my Secret Novel, I return each time to the characters themselves. Many of you have given me the advice, “Listen to what the characters tell you.”<\/p>\n

I pondered this wisdom deeply and realized something profound. I have no frickin’ idea what my characters are telling me.<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem. I know the shape of my story well… but only from the outside. I know what happens to<\/i> my characters. But I don’t know what happens within<\/i> my characters. I realize this is odd. Usually, I know what my characters want before I know what will stop them from getting it. For various reasons, mostly because my secret novel is inspired by real events, I know all the obstacles but none of the aspirations.<\/p>\n

My characters have external<\/i> motivation. Bad things happen to them. But what is their internal<\/i> motivation? What keeps them going despite the bad things? This is what I have to discover.<\/p>\n

I usually write characters from the inside out. This time I have to write them from the outside in.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Apparently, this is Vonnegut’s Third Rule of Writing.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I struggle with finding the beginning, ending, voice and person, for my Secret Novel, I return each time to the characters themselves. Many of you have given me the advice, “Listen to what the characters tell you.” I pondered this wisdom deeply and realized something profound. I have no frickin’ idea what my characters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,350,399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-characters","category-motivation","category-plot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}