Authorly: Motives

[CharleyH]

Coming from Cloudy's thread regarding WTF? and hinted by CantD, motives are good fair for authors to discuss. My statement was:

"I could also suggest that 'want' is not always a motive in reality. To further that, I will suggest that 'want' is merely a narrative technique that we have learned."

Is want a real goal for all that we do in reality or is want a fiction, something that motivates, in as simplistic way as possible, continuity and character action/ reaction?

Talk away.

to Cant and Cloudy.

 

[neonlyte]

Is want a real goal for all that we do in reality or is want a fiction, something that motivates, in as simplistic way as possible, continuity and character action/ reaction?

I don't think you can generalise about 'want', it is not an either / or desire, too much depends upon the individual and the extent they are prepared to stretch to achieve their goal. And in this we tend to flatter by deception, I imagine few are willing or prepared to acknowledge the effort they made to achieve a goal.

At the superficial level, most 'want' something, usually something different from what they have. Some of that 'want' is imposed by circumstance, some is desire, some is pleasure - most of it remains at the level of fictional desire, unattainable and unachievable until personal motivation dictates making the effort to change a situation.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Liar]

I want (yeah) to know what you mean when you say "want" here, Charley. The word itself have dfferent emphasis depending on who you ask.

Wants, wishes, desires, needs and goals. The borders are more often than not blurred.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Is want a real goal for all that we do in reality or is want a fiction, something that motivates, in as simplistic way as possible, continuity and character action/ reaction?

That's a cool question, and I think there are two ways of going about answering it.

First, I have to say that some authors often go to great efforts to justify a storyline, ignoring the "simple" drive that can come from the most basic and unexplained wants of people. The opposite is also true, though, so I think that what we should aim at is a healthy equilibrium, unless the story deliberately requires and draws strength from that unbalance.

Second, you can say that all wants are real, in the sense that they mould us and our characters, they drive us. Some of the objects of those wants are real and tangible, but I guess that the most important ones, the ones that shape and define who we are, are ideas. They're not even long-term objectives, they're abstract, platonic ideals.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Want and need and habit, and faith, and apathy, and circumstance, and basic cussedness, and... The list of motivators is nearly endless.

How many times do you, as an onlooker, actually understand the motive for the things your neighbors, or your nearest and dearest, or (scary one here) the President of the United States, does?

We spend more time speculating about motivation than almost anything else, it seems to me, and that's part of the entertainment of fiction- and the terror of reality.

AS far as fiction goes, any writer that spends my time explaining to me the motives is going to earn my yawns. I find a great satisfaction in writing back story for my characters, but I almost always end up editing it out again, because moving the story forward is much more important to me. Understanding my character lets me keep him or her consistent.
I put the edited stuff in a separate file, for masturbatory purposes

 

[CharleyH]

I see the AH is more a cat house than a place of asking anything authorly. How totally rude of me to suppose otherwise..

Thanks, Lauren.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I see the AH is more a cat house than a place of asking anything authorly. How totally rude of me to suppose otherwise..

Thanks, Lauren.

*pout* I thought I gave you an authorly opinion-
I wanted too, at least (get it? wanted?)

 

[CharleyH]

Tripe post

 

[CharleyH]

double post

 

[CharleyH]

*pout* I thought I gave you an authorly opinion-
I wanted too, at least (get it? wanted?)

Aw puppy, you did. I got it, just did not get TO it until now. (Pat pat kitten and patience love, people will eventually get here and argue or agree with you or me).

 

[Stella_Omega]

Aw puppy, you did. I got it, just did not get TO it until now. (Pat pat kitten and patience love, people will eventually get here and argue or agree with you or me).

I'm afraid they are all off having lives just now... oh, well

 

[Liar]

I see the AH is more a cat house than a place of asking anything authorly. How totally rude of me to suppose otherwise..

Thanks, Lauren.

Still trying to wrap my head around the actual question.

But I get stuck on the rather painful imagery of wrapping heads around stuff. Ew.

I don't see why you attribute want as big a role as a motivator in fiction. Most of the time, when people are driven by want, they are not really driven enough to motivate the forward momentum they are given by the author. I rather read a story where characters are motivated by need.

 

[CharleyH]

I'm afraid they are all off having lives just now... oh, well

Not them, but how 'bout us!

 

[CharleyH]

Still trying to wrap my head around the actual question.

But I get stuck on the rather painful imagery of wrapping heads around stuff. Ew.

I don't see why you attribute want as big a role as a motivator in fiction. Most of the time, when people are driven by want, they are not really driven enough to motivate the forward momentum they are given by the author. I rather read a story where characters are motivated by need.

LOL I thought you were bi and also could wrap your own hand around the head of ... well. whatever.

How does need differ from want, really? I doubt there is a major gap.

 

[Stella_Omega]

LOL I thought you were bi and also could wrap your own hand around the head of ... well. whatever.

How does need differ from want, really? I doubt there is a major gap.

oh, c'mon, don't you remember the song?
"Well you can't always get what you want
No, you can't always get what you want
Said, you can't always get what you want
But if you try some time, you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need" (R.Stones)

Want and Need didn't used to be so different. You needed a roof over your head, you wanted enough potatoes to get you through the winter.
Nowadays, you might want a new iPod, a bigger SUV, and Double Virgin Cold Pressed Olive Oil. But do you need those things?
(not you, Charlie, it's a rhetorical question)

 

[CharleyH]

oh, c'mon, don't you remember the song?
"Well you can't always get what you want
No, you can't always get what you want
Said, you can't always get what you want
But if you try some time, you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need" (R.Stones)

Want and Need didn't used to be so different. You needed a roof over your head, you wanted enough potatoes to get you through the winter.
Nowadays, you might want a new iPod, a bigger SUV, and Double Virgin Cold Pressed Olive Oil. But do you need those things?
(not you, Charlie, it's a rhetorical question)

LOL
I have to go to bed with that song?:| It was a commercial!

 

[Stella_Omega]

LOL
I have to go to bed with that song?:| It was a commercial!

It was????

 

[CharleyH]

It was????

One last post for you. The Stones sold out!

 

[Stella_Omega]

One last post for you. The Stones sold out!

They had proved their chops by then, anyway.
As someone told me once- "hey, I ain't selling out- I'm selling!"
Pete townsend sold the rights to a bunch of vintage Who songs to Toyota or someone like that. They misused the songs so badly, they got a backlash. (I know I called and complained)
When they complained to him he said- Didn't you listen to the words?
The Who needed the money, to create a fund for John Entwhistle's family.
Shouldn't you be in bed, sweets?

 

[cantdog]

Wow, this is a spiky little jungle to walk in.

Stella's concrete example of the story with too much discussion of motivation and the one with too little is a good one. I do always devise clear chains of motivation for characters, even those in very short pieces. But I am very careful not to load the narrative with it. When you need it, you do need it, though. A reader will put up only so long with a lot of causeless behavior, and rightly so.

Dialogue is the place for this, I think, usually, or a brief snippet of interior monologue played against a dialogue with deliberate obfuscation or lies. I can give examples if you give me a minute. The point is, sometimes you do need to tell the reader why, if only limitedly, and a page of explanatory prose in the narration is not going to be any fun.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I don't know. Arguably you could say that all want something even if it's something not often associated with want. I think the problem is that we view want as something akin to "I want a new dolly" or "I want a new car". So we view Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's Guide or a survivor in a dystopia as lacking want. One wants nothing while being given a glorious adventure and the answer to life's mysteries and the other has only need at first glance. However, wanting nothing, wanting normality and a routine is still a want and needing something is the same as wanting survival. You don't need to eat and have shelter if you don't want to live. And if you totally cop out of everything, it is still conceivably because of a want to escape or die or just a want of absolute nothingness.

So it is conceivable that want is always a motive in reality for a suitably large-scale definition of want. It drives us and provides a goal for which we have needs and deeds and codes we do, want, and follow.

Now, want, as defined by the public, by the common usage of the word want, i'd say this is not the case. Want in that case would say apathy, inner morality, survival, etc... would not count as wants as they see it and are truthfully more meaningful than material wants or biological wants.

I think fiction writing captures that in that the intersection of the character's wants and personalities does most of the job of directing the meshing and interaction of the charachters. Even when this person is themselves. And like all wants it's implied or stated or hidden or out of neccessity.

I think the interesting literary elements of want come in the intersection of wants and morality. Which wants are moral, which aren't, are some wants more moral than others, are all wants equally valid or invalid, is this even a worthwhile question, what is the conflict between this want and that want and how do they compare in the previous etc.

Or did I massively misinterpret this thread?

 

[Boota]

I think of all motivation as a matter "want". The want may not be an entirely selfish thing, but characters, like real people, want things and it drives them. Without want the characters simply meander through the pages looking for something to do. The thing I try to do as a writer is to make the motivation something that seems plausible to the reader. A reason for doing something is entirely different that giving an excuse for doing something.

Maybe I've oversimplified the question, or I'm just not asking myself the right questions, but I can't think of a motivation that isn't about wanting.

 

[cantdog]

What pushes people is really complex. Some of it is instinctual, primeval. The urges to nurture, to fuck; the urge to aggression and social dominance, for instance. Love and pity, ethics and reason, anger, nihilism, fear. To call them all 'want' sorta dilutes the word 'want.' And none of them is any kind of all-encompassing, primary motivator, because there is no such thing. You do have to ask, what does she want? but the answer is a goal. The reason is always more than one of the list I give, plus many more, all within the context of each other, and of memory, spirit, self-image, a whole bunca shit. People are complex, and the motivations of people are complex.

 

[matriarch]

We only truly need those things that enable us to survive....food, water, shelter. We can survive without all the rest, usually. But we all have desires, wants, and its the searching for and fulfilment of those desires and needs that then make survival into living.

(My take at 6.15 in the morning, after 5 hours sleep, and heading back to my bed shortly after a munchies break).

 

[yui]

We only truly need those things that enable us to survive....food, water, shelter. We can survive without all the rest, usually. But we all have desires, wants, and its the searching for and fulfilment of those desires and needs that then make survival into living.

(My take at 6.15 in the morning, after 5 hours sleep, and heading back to my bed shortly after a munchies break).

Agreed with Mat. Food, clothing, shelter, love; those are needs. Everything else is the gravy that motivates us beyond simply surviving.