SMALL STEPS TO BIG ACHIEVEMENTS

So often when we imagine things we want, we see all the giant steps we must take to get them. This type of thinking often leads to our never taking the first step. No matter how big of a project you would like to take on, chances are, this project can be broken down into small steps. Steps that are manageable, steps that help build up your confidence, steps that help prepare you for the next slightly larger step. By focusing on the little things, those tiny baby steps, you will increase your odds of taking the next step, and the next.

What can you do this week to increase your odds of reaching your goal? Because each of us have individual paths to follow, your steps may be different from those of the person sitting next to you. Only you will know the steps that are right for your path. However, here are some things that helped me take a few steps in the right direction.

1) Define your goal/project. So often we set out to do something without really even knowing what it is we want to accomplish. Listen to your heart and gut!

2) Break down every project you have to do into small steps. Set time limits to complete these steps. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time

3) Focus on one thing at a time. Have you ever had one of those days that you have so much to do, your mind is whirling and you set out in about three different directions, only to find at the end of the day that you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing?

4) Become “healthily” obsessed with the project. Obsession can be a bad word and a bad thing, however, look at someone who has accomplished their dreams, won a Gold Medal, finished the great American novel, or won a marathon and I’ll bet at some time or another, people said they were obsessed. We think a healthy dose of obsession is good for all us. However, never go so far that your life elements are totally unbalanced.

5) Get yourself a physical reminder of your goal. Put something in eyeshot of your desk or your cash register that reminds you of your goal and that you are on the path to achieving it.

6) Invest in one thing that will make you feel like you can achieve your goal. It doesn’t have to be something expensive, or it may cost you more time than actual money. Perhaps a class on running a small business or joining a local networking group. When you invest in yourself, you show you are committed to achieving your goal.

7) Take an artist date. This is where you go and do something fun that encourages the playful side of the creative person inside you . . . and believe us, everyone has a creative side. Go buy a magazine and take it to the park to read. Go to a museum by yourself, or take in a movie. You must go alone. The date will refill that creative well inside you, and you’ll return to your quest feeling refreshed.

Keep your life elements balanced. Spiritual, emotional/social, physical, and mental.

Spiritual: For some it’s going to church, praying, others it’s taking a walk in the woods, the beach, volunteering at a useful organization, meditating.

Emotional/social: When is the last time you did something just because it brought you joy, spend some time with someone who loves you, who admires you, someone who makes you feel good about yourself. Take time to laugh and love. Rent a funny movie. Remember, to make sure your social circle is made up of positive people. Negativity can be very contagious.

Physical: You don’t have to be at your perfect weight to still take care of yourself. Are you owed a checkup? Do you have a habit that is hurting you physically? It could be excessive worrying, overindulging, or allowing someone else to control you.

Mental: Are you growing mentally? Remember we don’t grow old, we get old when we stop learning. What are you trying to learn?

9) Daydream of success. Take a few minutes and visualize yourself accomplishing your goals. Let the feeling of success fill you up. When you come back to earth, take a look at your priorities. Are you taking the tiny steps that will lead you to fulfilling those dreams?

10) You dreams aren’t milk. They don’t come with an expiration date. Never be so hard on yourself that you give up. Pay attention to those silent messages you send yourself. How often do you mentally put yourself down? Our actions, our behaviors all begin in our thoughts. Have you heard the saying: If you believe you can, or believe that you can’t, you’re probably right. Positive affirmation works! So does negative affirmation. What bad messages are you sending yourself?

So, what have you done today to make your dreams a reality? What have you done to make it happen?

Christie & Faye

We had a lot of fun.

We’re reposting the debate now because we think it offers a lot of insight into writing humor.  We hope you enjoy.

~FH and CC

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That’s not funny!

Fridays are for First Alerts. Upcoming book releases. Booksignings. Appearances. Contests, too. Today, Christie Craig and I will be talking about our upcoming debate about the use of humor in romance fiction, which will be running each Friday for the rest of the month of February.

We’re also running a contest this month. Each person who leaves a comment to our blog entries will be eligible to win a $10.00 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. What could be simpler?

So…why debate about humor in romance? Well, Christie is my critique partner and I love her madly but, let’s face it. Sometimes, her humor is little…well, over the top. Whenever she reads my work, she tries to add in a naked, tattooed man running down the street if she thinks things are “boring.” Me? Well, my humor is much more…sedate.

Next week, we’ll talk about our different approaches to adding humor to a romance. In the meantime, who are some of your favorite authors who make you laugh? Mine are P.G. Wodehouse (I love the Bertie Wooster stories!) and Elizabeth Peters when it comes to the classics. For humor in romance fiction, I enjoy Jennifer Crusie, Rachel Gibson and Stephanie Bond.

Faye

Yes it is funny!

Okay, guys. Faye started this debate, and I can’t sit back without defending myself. Yes, my humor is “out there” but Faye (whom I also love…bless her heart) has her own humorous style and let’s just say… sedate isn’t exactly how I would describe it. I mean…we’re talking about a heroine barbequing her boyfriend’s BVDs on a grill after finding him bumping uglies on the dining room table with a neighbor. Oh, yeah, the grilling-underwear episode only took place after the dining room table took a flying leap off the heroine’s four-story balcony. Now tell me, is that sedate?

And Faye, if that naked guy – with tattoos where most of us don’t think men should get tattooed — was so off the charts, why did you not only embrace him into your second chapter, but have him re-appear on the all-important last page? Huh? Huh?

However, I think the point Faye is making is that humor is subjective, and we all write it, and enjoy it, in varying degrees. Okay, I’ll even admit my humor may be a little more “top-heavy” compared to my “sedate” critique partner. But in my defense, you have to consider my roots.

A home-grown Alabamian, my household included: two entrepreneurial brothers whose missions in life were to “pass gas” louder than the other, an adoring mother who accidentally stole a car, and lost her teeth on a plane, and a loving father who thought leaving dead fish in someone’s mailbox was funny. We won’t talk about the time he almost got arrested for building homemade fireworks and blew up my neighbor’s yard. Hey, my dad paid the vet bills for the neighbor’s dog. And Spot got along fine with three legs. (I’m joking…Spot didn’t lose a leg. The only thing really lost that day was my dad’s hearing in his left ear.)

So do tell us, what do you find funny? Tell us the author’s name, the book, and why it worked for you? Come on guys, we’re going to give away a gift certificate. And if Continental ever finds my mother’s teeth, I’ll add them to the pot.

Christie

Humor Me

It’s Friday and Faye and I are back to talk about humor. I haven’t always written comedy. My first book wasn’t funny. I remember being in New York right after the book came out, having dinner with my editor and other Silhouette writers, and the conversation turned to zoos. I mentioned my visit to the San Diego Zoo. Everyone at the table was cracking up – everyone but me, of course. (It’s hard to laugh about being sexually molested by an elephant.) Anyway, my editor turned to me and said, “You should be writing humor.”

I blew her off. Seriously, I didn’t know anything about being funny, I was just telling about an experience. Years later, I realized that it wasn’t so much the experiences that were funny, it was how I viewed them. Okay, not everyone has been groped by a two-ton animal in front of a hundred or so camera-toting viewers. And those who have, probably wouldn’t be so inclined to share. The point is that I tapped into some basic emotion. Embarrassment in this instance, and listeners could relate. Or at least they . . . tried to relate. I’m not sure anyone can actually know how it felt unless they experienced it. But imagine having a mammogram in public, given by an animal. (Did you know that elephants have suction cups in their trunks? I hadn’t had a hickie in years.)

However, it doesn’t have to be outrageous to be funny. Consider the Seinfeld show. They made us laugh about the most basic subjects – women’s purses/men’s wallets, rude soup servers, and people who talk in low voices. They also made us laugh by covering those basic truths that no one wants to talk about. Do you remember the shows about masturbation, ugly babies, and men’s shrinkage issue? Oh, yeah, we laughed about that.

Laughter feels good. I love it when an author makes me laugh. (Don’t ever tell Faye, but her “sedate” humor just cracks me up. And what really gets me is sometimes she doesn’t even know she’s being funny.) And I love the idea of making my readers laugh. A real belly laugh is right up there with a good cry. It’s an emotional release. Heck, after all these years, I’ve even gotten to where I can chuckle about my San Diego experience. The fact that I never visit the elephant exhibits at zoos is another matter.

Okay, now you’ve heard some of my thoughts on humor. What are yours? Remember, we’re giving away a Barnes & Noble gift certificate – and possibly a pair of false teeth – to one lucky person at the end of the month. Oh, yeah, check back in a while, I’m sure Faye’s going to have something to say about her “sedate” humor.

Christie

Humor Me, She Says

Okay, so it’s my turn. What tickles my funny bone when I’m reading? Lots of things, actually. (And don’t tell Christie, but I often laugh out loud when reading her scenes. It’s not good to tell her that, though, since it will only encourage her to throw in more naked, tattooed men, male perps in pink negligees and oversexed dogs.)

Like Christie, I think that humor is a natural extension of characterization. After all, just as every individual has a slightly different way of looking at life, so do our characters. And for some of them, a good sense of humor is a necessity since their view of life is more than a little askew.

Humor, to me, is taking the ordinary, twisting it around a little and looking at it from another angle. Preferably a funny angle. Like, for example, the other day when I was up to my ears in snow here in upstate New York. I’d been clearing my walkway and decided to take a break before I turned into a human popsicle, so I planted my shovel in the snowbank and went inside to defrost. When I came back out about 20 minutes later, my shovel was gone. Somebody had stolen it.

No, seriously.

Somebody stole my snow shovel.

They’d waded, uphill, through three feet of snow from the edge of the street and swiped a $6.99 piece of cheap metal. I was furious. I honestly considered following the footprints and confronting the thief. I would have, too, except, well, they’d taken my shovel and I didn’t want to wade through all that snow. Then I thought about calling the village police. I didn’t do that, either. When I’d called them two years ago to report that somebody had stolen my trash can in the middle of a freaking snow storm, I’d gotten the county sheriff by mistake and, well, let’s just say that stolen trash cans apparently aren’t high on their priority list of crimes to solve. So, I decided to whine about the stolen snow shovel to my friends. But, did they give me sympathy? (Or offer to buy me a new shovel? Or, better still, offer to come to my house and help me shovel the 79 feet of snow that was now piling up outside my house?) No. They just laughed. They thought it was funny.

Of course, they all still had their snow shovels.

Or, they lived in places where snow shovels weren’t necessary.

It was that perception thing again, and that’s how I think of humor. It’s a matter of perception.

So, what about you? What are your thoughts on humor? Please feel free to share. And don’t forget. As Christie said, we’re giving away a $10.00 gift certificate to B&N to some lucky commenter this month!

Faye

The Last Laugh

Well, it’s Friday and time for the final blog debate about humor with Christie Craig. I don’t know about you guys but we’ve both enjoyed ourselves.

So, what are my final thoughts about humor? Well, I love it when it works but I hate it when it doesn’t. I mean, honestly. There’s nothing worse than reading a scene that seems forced. (Especially if I’m the author of said scene. LOL.) But when I write a scene that still makes me laugh when I read it again a few weeks later…okay, that is the most amazing feeling in the world to me.

The novels I’ve written in the past weren’t, technically, romantic comedies. They were more like romantic romps. Fun reads, I like to think of them, but fun reads with humor. One of the best compliments I ever received from a reader was for one of my first books for Bantam Loveswept. She’d wrote me to say that she’d read my book while her mother was having surgery. She’d been afraid her mother wouldn’t pull through the operation and was really stressed out. But for three hours, she read my silly little book, and it made her laugh. She wanted to thank me for having written it.

I still have that letter.

And it still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Sure, writing “funny” isn’t going to save the world from global warming but it might just make someone’s day a little brighter.

So, what about you? Have you ever read a funny book that touched your heart in a special way? Don’t forget – Christie and I are giving away a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble to one of the commenters to our blogs this month!

Faye

Learning To Be Funny

I will never forget when the editor of Cat’s Magazine called me a few weeks after I’d submitted my first, unsolicited essay to their magazine. The first comment out of her mouth was…. “I’m NOT calling to buy your essay.”

I replied, “Too bad, because I don’t take rejection very well over the phone.”

She laughed, then said, “What I mean is…we’re looking for someone to write a humor column about cats. I was wondering if you can do this once a month?”

Now, you have to understand the position I was in. And I’m not talking about the fact that I’d stepped out of the shower to grab the phone and was butt-naked and trying to sound professional. I’m talking about being a true, one-hundred-percent dog person. That said, I knew more about cats than I knew about writing comedy. Honestly, that essay was my first attempt at writing humor. So, I did what any upstanding church-going girl would do. I lied. “Oh, sure, I can do that once a mouth.”

After I dressed and asked for forgiveness, I ran out and bought every book I could find on writing humor. And while I was out, I picked up two cats. One of them, I had to return – my neighbor had spotted me snatching their family pet.

My point in telling you this, besides it being funny, is that some people think you can’t teach yourself to write humor. I ended up writing that column for two years and collecting four felines, and while I might have gotten lucky with that first essay, I seriously didn’t know how I’d done it. I know, I probably inherited my zany way of looking at life from my family, but the actual techniques of writing humor can be learned. Two of my favorite how-to books are: HOW TO WRITE FUNNY, which has a chapter by my one of my favorite writers, Jennifer Cruise, and THE COMIC TOOLBOX: HOW TO BE FUNNY EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT.

And because Faye and I have asked you about what funny books you have read lately, I’ll tell you about a scene that made me laugh out loud. EXTREME BACHELOR by Julia London. The hero sees his ex girlfriend, an upcoming actress, for the first time in five years. He sees her on the TV – staring in a commercial – a commercial about constipation. (See Faye, I’m not the only one who writes over the top.)

So do tell. What books have you read that have made you laugh out loud? Remember, there’s a gift certificate up for grabs.

Christie

1. Thou shall commit to write

How many hours a week do you believe you can give to writing?  Do not set yourself up to fail!  Be realistic in your commitment.  Then be committed.

2. Thou shall commit to submit

The most exciting thing that can happen in your writing career is that you get published.  This means that you’re going to have to submit.  What is keeping you from submitting?  I’m not saying a book should be sent out before its time, but I know too many writers who finish a book, stuff it under the bed, and never submit.  Is your fear of rejection keeping you from taking a leap of faith?

3.  Thou shall stop hitting your head against the same wall

Have you ever heard the saying, “Stop beating a dead horse”?  When something isn’t working, whether it is your schedule in allotting writing time or a plot, when you’ve tried and tried, and keep getting the same results, maybe it’s time to get a new horse.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.  So, shift your writing time from morning to mid-day if you can’t seem to thinks straight in the early mornings.  If a plot just isn’t working after you’ve really given it thought, give yourself permission to put it in a drawer for a day, a week, years if it takes it, but don’t just sit there and wait for inspiration to hit.  Go out and chase inspiration down, knock it on the head, and drag it back to your desk.  In other words, start on a new book or create a new plan of action.  Find a way to rekindle the writing passion.

4. Thou shalt not compare thyself to other writers

 I know, So- and-so publishes everything she writes, and What-cha’-ma’-call-it’s writing is first-draft perfect, and Dingbat over there sold four books to the publisher you want to sell to and can’t.  Well, get over it!  Stop comparing yourself to other writers.  We all have our own paths to success.  Yes, some may appear easier than others, but sometimes it only appears that way.  And even if your path is more difficult, you will never know when the doors will open, when avenues magically appear.  Learn to celebrate your peers’ successes and let their accomplishments motivate you, not depress you.

5. Thou shall not focus on rejection

Yes, it stinks, it stings, and I don’t like it any more than you do.  But I don’t hate it as much as whole bunch of other writers who aren’t submitting, or writing, because they’re afraid of that dirty little R word.  Remember, you’ve only failed when you fail to try.  Keep yourself focused on the possibility of selling, on the joy of writing.  Focus on the pieces you have written, the kind words you’ve received from a critique or a contest win.  Just don’t focus on rejection.

 6. Thou shall continue to improve your trade.

It’s easy to get nice and settled in your comfort zone.  It’s easy to say, “I don’t have time to read.  I don’t have time to attend writing workshops.  I know what I’m doing.”  The truth is, if you stop learning, you grow stale.  You stop being aware of the subtle changes in the market.   Read other people’s work that you admire, read the new first-time authors to see what new talent is catching an editor’s eye.  Keep studying, learning, and growing to become a better writer.

7. Thou shall be open-minded.

I hear so many writers put down different genres.  “Oh, who couldn’t write an erotic romance?”  Or, “Who couldn’t write a novella?”  “Who couldn’t write for the magazines?”  But the truth is, the person saying “who couldn’t do it” is probably the person who really could not do it.  A publishing credit is a credit.  It doesn’t matter where it is.  Short pieces count, books in different genres count.  Don’t limit yourself to what you will write.  Remember, it might be a long haul before you arrive on the New York Times Best-Sellers’ list.  Until then, experiment in different genres.  Who knows?  You might accidentally find a path you love better than the one you are on.

8. Thou shall give back to the universe what it has given unto you.

Don’t forget to reach out to someone and give back what you have been given. Has someone taken the time to help you overcome an issue in your craft?  Has someone just offered to help you achieve a goal?  Can you not do the same for someone else?  You might be surprised at the return Karma. I sincerely believe the old saying, “What comes around, goes around.”  I’ve seen it too many times.  When I go out of my way to help a new writer, it comes back to me two-fold.  When I’m feeling tight on money, I’ll purposely go and donate a little money to someone or an organization.  It amazes me how quickly I’ll see the income double and return to me in a form of a contract, or a photography job. Don’t believe me?  Try it.  I think you’ll be amazed.

 9. Thou shall find time to play.

Writers write about life.  If you’re not living, how can you write about it?  Sooner or later, all your ideas, creativity and inspiration will dry up if you’re not living, playing and enjoying life.  Make a commitment to play.  Try remembering what you enjoyed doing as a child.  Did you enjoy card games, board games, painting, and coloring?  Rekindle an old passion for something that you stopped doing because you felt it was a waste of time.  Chances are, that waste of time was the most relaxing moments of your life.  Do yourself a favor, take one hour this week and plan to do something wonderful for yourself.  Take a book to the park, go buy yourself a new perfume, go out for a cup of wonderful coffee.  Put a crossword puzzle together.  There’s only one rule: It must be fun!

10. Thou shall not be afraid of change.           

I know it sounds like an ugly word.  Most of us hate change.  But the truth is change happens. It’s sort of like menopause and crow’s feet; it’s gonna show up on your doorstep (or face) whether you want it to or not.  Ever read the book, WHO MOVED MY CHEESE?  The moral of the story is when change happens, don’t sit there waiting for things to change back, or spend time feeling sorry for yourself.  Go find yourself another piece of cheese.  We all know that lines close, publishing houses fold and rejection happens.  Don’t sit around whining about it; pull yourself up by your bra strap (or jock strap, as the case may be) and go find yourself a new chunk of cheese.

They arrive in groves.  One will hit me, then before I have a chance to recover there’s comes another. BAM!  Oh those negative, piercing, painful thoughts!   Have you ever had them?  Does anyone suffer from these as I do?  If you’ve never suffered from this distress, you have my permission to stop reading right now.  But if you too have been smacked around a time or two by the villainous self-doubt then listen in.

First, we all must realize that it’s normal for us wacky people who call ourselves writers to be a bit manic depressive.  We live on highs and lows.  We make a sale, write a good piece, discover a new market, and we’re on cloud nine.  We get a rejection, someone butchers one of our pieces, or we go too long without hearing anything back on our manuscripts and we, like the drama kings and queens that we are, go step to the edge of the cloud, close our eyes, release all our negative voices, and commit emotional suicide.   I said it might be somewhat normal, but I didn’t say it was okay.  Because it’s not okay!   Especially if after you hit rock bottom, you don’t pick yourself up, wipe up the blood, sweat and tears, (you don’t want to leave the mess around for anyone else to pick up) and go in search for a ladder.  Hell!  You’ve got clouds to climb.  Nuggets to experience, manuscripts to write, pieces to polish.  You got to make it up to cloud nine so you can jump off again!

My point is that in this business there’s going to be highs and lows.  The first way of dealing with it is to accept and know you’re not alone in the crazy ups and downs.  Most writers experience it, live with it, deal with it, some of us even survive it.  The way we deal with it is to start enjoying the climb up the ladder as much as possible.  Being on top is fun, milk it for all it’s worth.  But more important is to find ways to enjoy your work! To enjoy the climb up try these tips:

• Seek out positive people. 
• Get into a competition of submitting. 
• Write several short pieces so you’ll get instant gratification. 
• Allow yourself to dream, picture yourself getting the call, the contract! 
• Make it fun by dangling a carrot out in front of you. 
• Relieve stress by keeping your focus on the pot of gold at the end of the publishing rainbow. 
• Come up with some positive affirmations to offset the negative self-doubt stuff. 
• Play feel-good, positive music while you write. 
• Keep proof of your successes in front of you when you write. 
• Never put all your eggs in one basket. 
• Laugh at yourself. Laugh at your mistakes.  Remember if we don’t learn from our mistakes there’s no use in making them! 
• Take time to play. 
• Try writing something totally different. 
• Allow yourself to feel challenged! 
• Face your fear and slap it around a little.  Try meditating!   
• Reward yourself! 

Oh, you’ll still be doing belly flops and nosedives off a few clouds, but hopefully  you’ll be spending less time at rock bottom, and more time happily tagging clouds as you make your climb upward.

Now we’re talking major flaws. And flaws that probably won’t be overcome and aren’t forgivable. But to be real and believable, your villains still need their motivations. Consider this:

The Motivation/Villain Connection

 When a gunman opens fire in a mall and takes lives, the media spends weeks trying to understand what could have motivated the shooter’s actions. They will comb through this person’s life: his childhood, his parents, his recent relationships—analyzing, searching for reasons.

Why? Because it is human nature to want to understand why people act in the way they act. Perhaps, by understanding, the impossible appears a little more possible; perhaps by understanding the motives, we think we can prevent the tragedy from happening again. Needless to say, when bad people do bad things in our books, our readers will also demand to understand why.

Where to Find Motivation

If you are having a hard time finding your character’s motivation, start thinking like a member of the media who combs through a shooter’s past. In other words, what skeletons can be found hidden in your character’s closet? Find those skeletons and bring them out to dance.

What happened in your hero’s childhood or with his relationships with his parents? Did your heroine have any traumatic childhood events? What about her more recent relationships, both in her career and in romance? Anyone who has been fired from a job or gone through a devastating divorce, or breakup, can testify how that can leave you with some messed-up views on how you should deal with life.

If you haven’t created your characters’ pasts, then get busy. Hopefully, you know who they are now (their goals, their flaws) so, dig deeper and create a past that will make their actions understandable, their flaws more forgivable, their fears a real monster and their goals vital to their physical and mental existence.

If your character is afraid to love, ask what childhood trauma, or relationship mishap, could have instilled such behavior. If your character can’t say no, what happened in her life to make her afraid to disappoint others? If a character is afraid of water, did she almost drown as a child, or did she have a sister who drowned? Find a way to make the stimulus unique, as well as emotional. Be selective, so that motivation goes hand in hand with the problems your character faces now as an adult.

When brainstorming characters’ motivations, consider this: A lot of people, real or imagined, attain their imperfections one of two ways: by making the same mistakes as their parents, or by making opposite mistakes in an overzealous attempt to not be like their parents.

Our money-obsessed hero is determined not to make the same mistakes his mother did. Yet, he nearly does. Remember how his mother’s pride wouldn’t allow her to accept government aid? In many ways, the hero’s attempt to get enough money so that he would never have to depend on anyone else is just as bad, and is a reflection of his mother’s issues.

Weaving in the Motivation

But if motivation is mostly found in backstory, isn’t it a big sin to use that in our novels?

The answer is a resounding yes. And no.

Yes, information dumps of backstory are deadly to today’s fast-paced fiction. But without their histories, our characters are nothing more than paper dolls. It is crucial to remember that who your characters are today is based on their life experiences and their past. So, the key is to bring the characters’ background into the foreground. Don’t stop the story’s forward motion to tell about the past; use the story’s forward motion to give glimpses into your character’s past.

Many writers make the mistake of thinking the motivation and backstory needs to be written in flashbacks. Flashbacks, even for the sake of motivation, are not recommended. A character’s past and motivations can be brought into the present by the use of limited and well-placed internal thought.

It isn’t even necessary to spend long paragraphs or lengthy passages to show our character’s past. Snapshots into your characters’ history can be accomplished in a few words. It’s okay that not every detail is explained, what’s important that the main essence of their motivation is becoming clear to the reader. Below are two examples of thought flashbacks:

1) Jessie stood on the beach, her heart thundered in her chest. Only the sound of the waves surrounded her, crashing against the sand, but in her mind she could still hear her sister’s cries for help and her mother telling Jessie to hang on to the edge of the sinking boat.

2) Mark could tell the woman’s red dress hadn’t been purchased at Good Will, her perfume smelled expensive, not something she’d shoplifted from a drugstore. He’d bet her arms didn’t have needle tracks; he’d also bet her price per hour would be costly. But damn her seductive smile told him she’d be worth every dollar. It was just too bad, that the haunted and desperate look in her eyes reminded him too much of his mother.

Dialogue is also a great tool in portraying a character’s backstory. Again, not all the details need to be present. Slowly in snippets of conversation, a character’s past and his motivation can come out in the story. See the two examples below:

1) “How did it feel to be in prison?” Sarah asked.
Tommy looked at her and frowned. “It reminded me of my past marriage.”
She chuckled. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“Which one?” he asked. “My marriage or prison?”

2) “I just heard the news,” Cindy said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Mark insisted and stopped her from hugging him.
She frowned. “Your dad just died, Mark. How can you be okay?”
He shrugged. “Scary, isn’t it?”

By weaving in the character’s background via dialogue or internal thoughts, the story’s momentum is never slowed, and the character’s backstory and motivation begin to take form. And your readers will understand why your characters do what they do, want the things they want, and fear the things they fear.

Blame It on Their Parents
&
Other Ways to Explain Why Our Characters Do What They Do

Why does your Harvard-degreed hero only date women with IQs smaller than their bra size? Why is your kick-butt heroine deathly afraid of . . . biscuits? Why did your overly-reserved heroine paint her house purple? Why does your uncompromising hero suddenly care about the kid who stole his car?

Why do your characters do what they do, want what they want, and fear what they fear? While your heroes and heroines may not always understand their motives or actions, it’s imperative that you do.

Why?

Because without the proper motivation, your characters not only come across as unsympathetic and unbelievable, they can seem—heaven-forbid!—flat and cardboardish. Basically, motivation is what gives your story, and especially your characters, depth and heart.

So, the solution is just add some motivation, right? Well, that’s not always as easy as it might sound. Humans are complicated individuals. We can be irrational and unpredictable. If you’ve created lifelike characters, your story people will fit that bill, too. Yet, human behavior is generally motivated by some logical reason. It’s up to you to find your characters’ reasons and to write them so that every unpredictable, irrational thing they do makes perfect sense to the reader.

Before we cover where you can find your characters’ motivations, and how you can weave them into your book without it appearing like a big chunk of by-the-way information, let’s take a deeper look at motivation in general, what it does for your characters, and how the lack of it can show up in your manuscripts.

Motivation in a Nutshell

To put it simply, motivation is driven by two things: The need to avoid pain and the desire to acquire pleasure. One, and sometimes both, of these factors will be at the core of your characters’ motivations. The power of motivation comes from the stimulus behind the motivation. In other words, the event or reason why your character is the way he or she is. It is crucial that you and the reader understand why and how your characters came to view some things as overwhelmingly painful and others as seductively pleasurable.

Motivation will be behind your characters’ fears, flaws, internal conflicts, actions, and goals. In a lot of cases, there will be one core stimulus that drives all the facets of your character’s personality. Your character’s flaws may go hand in hand with his internal conflict. His fears may simply be the flipside of his accomplishing his goals. His actions are simply choices he makes to avoid his fears as he sets out to attain his goals.

For example, a character’s fear may be of finding himself in poverty. His flaw: he’s obsessed with making money. His internal conflict: he sacrifices everything else in his life, his relationships and his health, for financial gain. His actions: missing important dinner date with his girlfriend so he can win another business deal. His goal: to become super rich.

And the stimulus behind this character, the real motivation? A childhood so deep in poverty that his too-prideful mother, who refused government aid, literally died of malnutrition because she fed him and his sisters and saved so little for herself.

While his motivation does not make his actions or his flaws acceptable, they do make him understandable and, with some careful crafting, you can make him sympathetic. Be aware, however, that not all characters will have only one stimulus/motivation. In real life, we have several different events in our lives that mold us to be who we are. It is okay to have your characters’ internal makeup stem from two different motivations. Perhaps you have a character with a fear of heights, motivated by his falling off some construction railing. This may be his motivation for his fear, but his flaws and goals are derived from a completely different motivation. However, with each different type of stimulus you add, you run the risk of diluting the power of the character’s motivation.

Some writers pull this off wonderfully by finding ways of connecting and linking the two stimuli together. One may be a direct result of the other. Or, you can use key words and emotional similes so they reflect each other. For example, a hero’s fear may be of heights, his internal issue may be fear of abandonment that prevents him getting close to anyone. Each time he feels himself start to care for someone, he can relate to that insecurity as though he were getting closer to a ledge.

The Motivation/Fear Connection

Whatever your character is afraid of, make sure you’ve given your hero/heroine ample reason/motivation to be afraid . . . especially if that fear doesn’t fall in the universally accepted list of phobias, such as the dark, heights or creepy-crawly things.

Remember the kick-butt heroine with a fear of biscuits? Would anyone buy that? Doubtful, huh? But what if . . . ?

What if her grandfather babysat her when she was five? What if the old man had been the light of her life and yet, on that day, she watched him choke on his biscuit? The choking incident quickly led to his fatal heart attack. Too young to do anything other than call 911, she sat holding the phone to her ear, crying and watched him die. Still today, each time she looks at a biscuit, she remembers feeling helpless and afraid and she can swear her own throat closes up.

With some careful thought, you can make just about anything believable. Just remember, if it is a bizarre action, fear, flaw, or any aspect of your character, you may have to look for a motivation that is just as bizarre to stand up to the job. And the bizarre type of motivations may do better in books with a comedic tone.

The Motivation/Flaw Connection

You’re told that your characters can’t be perfect. So, being the good writer that you are, you give them flaws. Ah, but then your critique partners or even worse, an editor, says that your characters aren’t sympathetic. What went wrong?

There are some flaws that an author might be hard pressed to make forgivable (child abuse, animal abuse) and in such cases you may need to rethink your flaw if it’s for a hero or heroine. However, many times the fault for an unsympathetic character may not lie in the flaw or the character, but in the motivation behind it.

In the example above where the character’s flaw is his obsession with making money, if his motivation had been one simply of greed, instead of a young boy’s belief that poverty killed his mother, it would have been hard to squeeze sympathy from the reader.

So, the first tip of making your characters flawed but still likable is to make sure you motivate the flaw, then make sure the motivation does not stem from selfishness or other negative forces, such as greed, jealousy, or an obsession with power.

The second tip is to analyze the flaw’s motivations, then find positive traits that could stem from the same motivation, and counter them with his flaw. Our hero, obsessed with money, can be overly protective of his sisters and determined to see them all go through college so they too can make a good life. His love and concern is a positive trait. He can also make regular, anonymous “large” donations to needy families. The fact that he refuses to allow what happened to him to happen to others is admirable. In other words, counter those flaws with traits that only a hero could possess. And don’t forget that by the end of the book, your characters must overcome their flaws and their internal conflicts. So these negative traits will slowly be conquered as the plot moves ahead.

(To be continued in Part Two…)