No matter how many manuscripts I've edited and critiqued over the years, there is nearly always one fiction element that is missing. Most authors have some idea of motivation without realizing it, but reaction to motivation is, for the most part, missing. Sometimes it's the opposite, the character reacts, but to what? It's a mystery as to why there is a reaction to something not on the page. This leaves a reader clueless. Emotion starts with motivation and reaction to that motivation.
Motivation/reaction is the key to emotion. Emotion is the key to a successful novel.
Let's start with the motivating stimulus. Motivating stimulus is anything your main character is going to react to. Each time there is a motivating stimulus, there is a character reaction. Anything can be a motive stimulus. A face to face meeting with a skunk, someone pulls a gun, or a strong whiff of perfume. The motivation/reaction element takes place in a split second. This is one element that demands the immediate attention of your character.
There is a pattern to the Motivation/Reaction element that has to be mastered and understood to bring your character’s action to life.
a. Motivating stimulus
b. Character reaction
1. Feeling
2. Action
3. Speech
In order to break this writing element to an easy to understand tool, I’m using an excerpt from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, the chapter called The Fight. Mark Twain understood motivation/reaction at the simplest level and draws the reader into the characters in the story.
First, write a sentence without your character.
· This boy was well dressed, too well dressed on a week-day. (Tom’s motivating stimulus)
Follow it with a sentence about your character.
· The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his nose at his finery, and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed to him to grow. (Tom’s reaction-feeling)
Now we add the character of the character. Tension builds. (Character reaction-action).
· Neither boy spoke. If one moved the other moved—but only sidewise, in a circle. They kept face to face and eye to eye all the time.
· Finally, Tom said, “I can lick you!” (Character reaction- speech)
Tom and the new boy banter words back and forth. “I’d like to see you try it.” “Well, I can do it.” Until the action of the moment comes to a standstill. Motivation/reaction starts all over again.
· Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said, “I dare you to step over that, and I’ll lick you till you can’t stand up. Anybody that’ll take a dare will steal a sheep.”
In this short chapter you’ll find simple motivation/reaction from the beginning to the end of the chapter. The chapter ends with the sequel—He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window he uncovered an ambuscade in the person of his aunt; and when she saw the state his clothes were in, her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labour became adamantine in its firmness.
Let’s face it, we no longer write like this today, but understand, the sequel sets up the next round of motivation/reaction and the fence painting chapter begins.
No matter what type of novel you are writing motivation/reaction is the key to your success.
Karen Newcomb - Karen Newcomb has written fiction and nonfiction books for over 30 years. A writing instructor and book consultant.
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