Plausible Motivations

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

In life, people sometimes do things for no reason, just for the hell of it. In fiction, however, characters, like litigants in a courtroom, always have a reason--although not always a good reason--for doing what they do. When they undertake large-scale endeavors that require cooperative participation among many individuals, there's generally a correspondingly colossal motive to inspire such massive, purposeful interaction.

We've divided motives for characters' conduct into two broad categories and listed some motives that are plausible for actions among many people (or characters) operating in support of a common cause.

I. International, National, and Regional Scale

• Colonization
• Commission of genocide
• Conducting commerce and trade
• Conducting crime fighting and law enforcement activities
• Conducting diplomatic missions
• Conducting homesteading activities
• Conducting missionary activities
• Conducting scientific research
• Conducting search and rescue missions
• Exploration of new worlds or uncharted territory
• Freeing of an enslaved people
• Maintenance of prisons
• Mining
• Piracy
• Pursuit of the freedom to worship
• Showcasing of art and culture
• Waging of war

II. Community and Personal Scale

• Attending weddings and funerals
• Camping outdoors
• Conducting crime fighting and law enforcement activities
• Conducting home-improvement projects
• Conducting landscaping or community beautification projects
• Conducting political campaigns
• Courting; dating (Species)
• Educating oneself or one’s family; educating the local citizenry
• Engaging in sports
• Engaging in social protests
• Enjoying family vacations; traveling
• Entertaining or being entertained
• Fishing, hunting, or shopping
• Participating in children’s and family activities
• Partying
• Production of art and cultural artifacts
• Protecting one’s family
• Working to provide for one’s family
• Worshiping at a local church

In addition to such general motivations, some spurs to action are more apt to be found in stories that involve the fantastic and the bizarre, including horror fiction:

• Biological or viral contamination (Earthly or otherworldly); disease or plague
• Cryptozoology
• Demonic possession or other supernatural or paranormal intervention (including magic)
• Extraterrestrial intervention
• Genetic mutations
• Inter-dimensional travel
• Nuclear holocaust
• Paranormal influences
• Parasitism
• Psychosis
• Radiation poisoning
• Scientific experiments gone awry; unintended use of technology

Many more conventional (historical) reasons and causes are adapted to fantasy, horror, and science fiction as well, as when an extraterrestrial army attacks Earth, Earth’s scientists colonize another planet, mining operations are conducted on alien planets, other planets are converted into prisons, and so forth.

Image and Imagination

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Like many who are interested in horror fiction, I occasionally indulge myself by perusing online images linked to such search terms as “horror,” “eerie,” “scary,” and so forth. For those of us who are twisted enough to enjoy such sights, viewing such images can be not only fun (I know, I know; I’ve already admitted I’m twisted!), but also informative, even educational.

One image is that of a young woman. She wears black (or, perhaps, she is naked--it’s hard to tell, because only her face, neck, and upper chest show; she is otherwise lost in, or swallowed up by, darkness--and her skin is not only pale, but also reflective: indeed, she seems to radiate the light that shines upon her, illuminating those portions of her body that I’ve mentioned, but leaving most of her figure invisible in the darkness.

Moreover, the flesh of her upper chest seems to be alive with internal light, as if she glows from within. Her eyes are dark, and she wears a slight, mysterious smile rather like that of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. A scar is etched down her forehead, from just above her eyebrow to midway down her cheek, but the scar is not red: it is black, like her hair, her eyes, and her dress (if, indeed, she is dressed), as if she bleeds black, rather than crimson, blood, a suggestion of her innate depravity, perhaps. She seems evil, despite her youth and beauty, as if she is inwardly corrupt. The image is suggestive, posing many questions that could lead to a plot, to other characters, to a conflict, to a setting, and to a theme--in short, to a story that is both horrible to read and to contemplate. The journalist’s questions should get the imaginative writer started: Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?

The next image is full of eyes.  There are eleven of them, all feminine, with long, lustrous lashes and a glittering gaze, floating, as it seems, against a fiery background of yellow and orange, black and white. They stare, intensely, at the viewer, returning gaze for gaze. At the center of the picture, a pair of eyes, complete with the suggestion, at least, of knitted eyebrows, stares forth from the digital canvass, commanding the viewer’s attention; the presence of a strategically positioned diamond shape and of a ridge of material that resembles steel more than it does bone suggest the skeletal remnant of a nose. There is malevolence in her gaze. Filaments of light float and twist in the air, unifying the floating eyes, but there is no context for the vision, so that, collectively, the eyes seem to suggest madness. 

The subject, about whom nothing is knowable but that she is female and apparently beautiful, strikes one as mad; perhaps the multiplicity of eyes implies a fragmented consciousness, shattered perceptions of reality, and a distorted view of the world. If so, the true source of her horror is internal, not external (except insofar as she may confuse the objective with her own subjectivity). Again, this image raises more questions than it supplies answers, producing a wealth--or, at least, a welter--of possibilities for exploration and explication, and, as before, the journalist’s questions may lead the imaginative writer to a story based upon the ideas and feelings that this image may inspire.

Not all images are created equal, of course, and one must exercise discrimination in his or her perusal of the many pictures of horror that are available online. One, for example, although interesting in itself, perhaps, is too puerile to be suggestive of a situation greater than itself--and, therefore, great enough, it may be, for a story.  It shows a skull flanked by jack-o-lanterns; the eye sockets of the death’s-head glow red, as do the mesh strands that serve as the image’s backdrop. There is the suggestion that the skull and the pumpkins are caught in a web of some kind and that along may come a spider, but such intimations are not enough for a horror story and do not raise possibilities for anyone to pursue in fiction or otherwise; they are, at best, merely decorative.

The problem of the skull and pumpkins raises an important question: what must an image accomplish in order to be useful to a writer of horror fiction? What quality or qualities must it possess? What must it evoke in the writer’s imagination?

The journalist’s questions are clues. Who? refers to an agent (if an individual) or to an agency (if an institution), and, of course, to the agent’s or agency’s motive and, probably, to his, her, or its values, feelings, thoughts, and even world view. What? alludes to the situation and the series of incidents or events that have brought the agent or the agency to this point of the action and to the series of events or incidents that are likely to result from both this initial situation and the agent’s or the agency’s actions in response to it. When? and Where? point to time and place, or setting--the story’s physical location and its cultural milieu. How? addresses the behavior of the characters, especially insofar as they are the causes and effects of various situations, actions, and reactions. Why? relates to both the characters’ motives and to the story’s theme. These are the elements common to all fiction, horror stories included, and it is these, therefore, that a truly inspirational image of horror will pose to the thoughtful and imaginative viewer, especially if he or she is--or hopes to be--a writer of imaginative fiction, of the horror genre or otherwise. An image that is capable of suggesting such elements is an evocative--and useful--one, indeed.

From Story Idea to Story

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

A common question that aspiring writers ask the pros is "Where do you get your ideas?" Stephen King claims he gets his in a little shop in Utica, but the true answer to the question is that he gets his ideas from the same sources as every other writer, aspiring or pro: from dreams, mental images, newspaper headlines, reading, anecdotes told by others, personal observations, song lyrics, classroom lectures, history--the list is all but limitless.

But what one more than likely means, perhaps, to ask by this question is "How do you develop your ideas into stories?" The answer is simple, really: bring together person, place, and thing.

• The person is the story's main character, or protagonist.
• The story's place is its setting.
• The story's thing is its theme.

What brings the three of them together is the story's conflict and the main character's attempts to resolve this conflict, which includes both his reason, or motive for doing.

Another way of= saying the same thing is to say that a writer develops a story idea into a story by answering six questions: who? (protagonist), what? (conflict), when? and where? (setting), how? (resolution), and why? (motivation and theme). Here's an example:

Idea: A girl is possessed by the devil.

• Who? Father Damien Karras, a priest who doubts his faith (protagonist)
• What? fights the devil (conflict)
• When? and where? in a Georgetown townhouse (setting)
• How? using exorcism (resolution)
• Why? to save a possessed girl's soul and retain his own teetering faith in God (motivation and theme).

That's how it's done and why.

(There's a fill-in-the-blank way of developing the scenes of a story, too, which I explain in "The Fill-in-the-Blank Guide to Writing Fiction").

Establishing Verisimilitude

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Imagine a woman sitting on her porch, reading a letter. Across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched, but we do not see the watcher.

Who is this woman? Who wrote the letter, and what is in it? How does she react to its contents? Does she smile, laugh, sigh, weep, shake her head, nod, shrug?

Who is watching her? A man? A woman? Why is he or she watching the woman? Is the watcher a police detective? A mobster? A stalker? A secret protector? Does he or she mean the woman harm or good?

The answers to these questions (which will suggest additional questions) depends on the genre of the story that one is writing. Is it an action-adventure story? A detective or mystery story? Espionage? Fantasy? Romance? Science fiction? Western?

Or horror?

If it’s a horror story, the watcher could be either a predator or a protector. If a predator, it could be an alien (extraterrestrial), an animal, a demon, a ghost, a madman, a vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a zombie, or some other kind of monster, human or otherwise. Depending upon what kind of menace the watcher is, he, she (or it) may or many not respond to the woman’s reading of the letter and to her reaction to its contents.

Were I developing a plot about such a situation, I would opt to make the threat a human one or an intelligent entity, at least, because such an antagonist could respond to the situation, including the woman’s reaction to the letter, and if she is going to be described as reading and reacting to a letter, it would be seem desirable to the make the most of the emotional and dramatic potential of such a scene. Otherwise, why have her read a letter at all? She could just as easily be watched while she waters the flowers, takes a walk, or does any of a hundred other things. Therefore, my watcher must be one of the following: an alien, a demon, a madman, a vampire, or a witch (or, possibly, a ghost). Eliminated would be the animal, the werewolf, the zombie and any type of subhuman monster.

If, on the other hand, the watcher was the woman’s secret protector (secret because, if she know of him, he wouldn’t have to observe her from hiding), he (or she) would have to have a motive that seems feasible to readers. His or her role may or may not be related to the monstrous antagonist. If it is related, perhaps the protective character is a government agent, a demon hunter, a psychiatrist, a vampire slayer, a clergyman, or a ghost hunter or psychic. Obviously, if such were the case, this character would be present to protect the woman from the monster. Perhaps the protector’s awareness that the woman is due to receive a letter from a particular correspondent is the reason that he or she is watching the woman. Maybe the protector wants to see how the woman reacts to the letter’s contents (which, of course, implies that he or she is him- or herself aware of these contents).

The letter’s contents could be the device that links the three characters: the woman, the protector, and the antagonist. Does it announce the protector’s mission (to protect the woman) from a threatening entity (the antagonist)? Does it explain the true situation of which the woman is to play an integral part, a fact of which, until her reading of the letter, she has been unaware? Does the letter warn the woman of the monster that threatens her or will begin to threaten her, if it has not done so before? Could the woman be subject to a post-hypnotic command expressed in the letter she reads?

Why does the antagonist want to abduct or kill the woman? What is the antagonist’s motive for doing so? Is the villain acting alone or as part of a group?

The woman’s role in the situation must not be forgotten. In fact, it is likely that either she or the protective character is the story’s protagonist (unless there is no monster and the watcher is him- or herself the narrative’s antagonist). Was she expecting the letter she now reads or did it come to her out of the blue, as it were? Is the letter from a friend, a family member, an acquaintance, or a stranger? What does the letter say? Why does she react to its contents in the way that she does? Is her reaction appropriate or inappropriate to the news, and why? What else does the reader need to know about her? Is she single? Married? Separated? Divorced? Widowed? Does she work? Is she between jobs (“redundant,” as the British say)? Is she retired or independently wealthy? What predicament is she in? (She must be in some sort of predicament, of course, either now or very soon, for, as Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren point out in Understanding Fiction, “no conflict, no story.”)

Of course, the basic situation with which we started--that of a woman’s sitting on her porch, reading a letter while, across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched by an unseen watcher--could be developed in several ways besides the one I set forth as an example, and the story would, as a result, develop differently in each case, but, by linking the woman, the antagonist, and the watchful protector through the letter, we attain coherence among the characters, which establishes both a sense of narrative logic and believability, or a sense of verisimilitude, as writers and critics--mostly critics--are fond of saying.

Formulating Horror Fiction

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

To formulate horror fiction, ask four simple questions:

Who or what is under attack?
Who or what is attacking it?
How is he, she, they, or it being attacked?
Why is he, she, they, or it being attacked?

Turn each question into one word:

Who or what is under attack = victim
Who or what is attacking it = antagonist
How he, she, they, or it is being attacked = technique
Why it is being attacked = motive (or cause)

Now, flesh out the sentence; for example, here is the storyline for The Exorcist:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation (motive), the devil (antagonist) possesses technique of attack) Regan MacNeil (victim).

Here is the storyline for A Nightmare on Elm Street:

To avenge his murder (motive), Freddy Krueger (antagonist) invades the nightmares of (technique of attack) the children of the parents who murdered him (victims).

The plot storyline for ‘Salem’s Lot:

To feed (motive), vampires (antagonists) bite (and kill) (technique of attack) the townspeople of ‘Salem‘s Lot (victims).

Notice that this formula describes the storyline from the antagonist’s point of view. This is good, because it identifies the villain’s purpose, or motive, in attacking his, her, or its intended victims and the technique that the villain uses to do so. However, stories are written from the protagonist’s point of view, not that of the antagonist. Therefore, once you’ve identified the antagonist’s motive, technique of attack, and intended victims, you need to turn the angle from which the storyline is being viewed around, so to speak, so that you are seeing it from the hero’s or the heroine’s point of view. In other words, the protagonist is now the doer of the deed (and, therefore, the subject of the sentence), the deed is the action of the story (and, therefore, the verb of the sentence), and the antagonist is the person or the thing upon which the action is performed (and, therefore, the direct object of the sentence). His or her motive can be supplied in an introductory infinitive phrase:

To rescue Regan MacNeil (motive), Father Karras (protagonist), exorcises (method of attack) the devil (antagonist).

You’ve identified the main character, his or her motive, the victim, and the villain, and you’ve related them through the action that the protagonist performs upon the antagonist. Applying the same technique, you can reorient other storylines from the antagonist’s to the protagonist’s point of view. Occasionally, when there is more than one motive, protagonist, action, or antagonist, you might have to extend the sentence to express the storyline more fully, as is done with regard to the storyline for ‘Salem‘s Lot.

To survive (motive), Nancy (protagonist) captures (method of attack) Freddy Krueger (antagonist).

To protect humanity (motive), Ben Mears (protagonist) returns to ’Salem’s Lot and kills (methods of attack) vampires (antagonist).

By first starting with the plot as it appears from the antagonist’s point of view, you will be clear as to the villain’s motive, method of attack, and intended victim. By then switching the perspective from which you view the story’s events, you are clear as to the protagonist’s motive, method of attack, and antagonist

You can now combine these two perspectives into a single, comprehensive depiction of the storyline:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation, the devil possesses Regan MacNeil, but Father Karras rescues her by exorcising the fiend.

To avenge his murder, Freddy Krueger invades the nightmares of the children of the parents who murdered him, but Nancy survives by capturing him.

To feed, vampires bite (and kill) the townspeople of ‘Salem’s Lot, but Ben Mears returns to save humanity by killing the vampires.

Of course, these storylines are but the bare bones of a fully developed plot. However, they do give you a framework--a skeleton--upon which to build by asking pertinent questions related to each element (the protagonist’s and the antagonist’s respective motive, method of attack, and intended victim):

Protagonist

Who is he? Father Karras. Who old is he? Middle age. What is he (occupation)? Catholic priest. What are his strengths of character? He is compassionate, honest, humble, or teachable, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He doubts his faith. Why does he want to rescue Regan? Obviously, it is the right thing to do. However, Karras’ protective impulse would be likely to be activated by Regan’s plight, as an innocent child abused by an evil power. In addition, by exorcising the devil, Karras might be able to silence, or even eliminate, the doubts that plague him concerning his faith in an all-powerful and loving God.

The same sort of questions can be asked regarding the antagonist of your story. Concerning the antagonist of The Exorcist, questions might include:

Antagonist

Who is he? Is he Satan? Some other demon or group of demons? What are his strengths of character? He is intelligent, strong-willed, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He is full of hatred, dishonest, unscrupulous, treacherous, cruel, and unredeemable evil. Why does he possess Regan? Primarily, by giving evil a face--and that of an innocent young girl--and tormenting her cruelly so that she suffers horribly, the devil hopes to get Father Karras to renounce his faith in God so that he will be damned to hell. His possession of the girl is primarily a means to this end, although he enjoys corrupting and degrading her and causing the girl‘s mother grief and emotional anguish as well simply because he is evil and sadistic.
Why does the devil select Regan as his victim?

Victim

What makes Regan attractive to the devil as a victim? Her youth? Her innocence? Why is the victim a girl, rather than a boy? Is a girl a more sympathetic character? She is physically weaker and, perhaps, more emotionally vulnerable (or is likely to be perceived to be such, at least, by much of the audience), and the devil’s deep, masculine voice, speaking through her, will seem more perverse and unnatural, heightening the effect of horror. Also, Father Karras feels guilty for having (he feels) abandoned his mother, a female. Regan is also a helpless female, even more vulnerable than the priest’s aged mother, because she is a child.

In this manner, you build up your plot and characters. You could use the same method to develop the plots and characters in the other stories, A Nightmare on Elm Street and ‘Salem’s Lot, or any other novel or motion picture. (victims).

Notice that this formula describes the storyline from the antagonist’s point of view. This is good, because it identifies the villain’s purpose, or motive, in attacking his, her, or its intended victims and the technique that the villain uses to do so. However, stories are written from the protagonist’s point of view, not that of the antagonist. Therefore, once you’ve identified the antagonist’s motive, technique of attack, and intended victims, you need to turn the angle from which the storyline is being viewed around, so to speak, so that you are seeing it from the hero’s or the heroine’s point of view. In other words, the protagonist is now the doer of the deed (and, therefore, the subject of the sentence), the deed is the action of the story (and, therefore, the verb of the sentence), and the antagonist is the person or the thing upon which the action is performed (and, therefore, the direct object of the sentence). His or her motive can be supplied in an introductory infinitive phrase:

To rescue Regan MacNeil (motive) Father Karras (protagonist), exorcises (method of attack) the devil (antagonist).

You’ve identified the main character, his or her motive, the victim, and the villain, and you’ve related them through the action that the protagonist performs upon the antagonist. Applying the same technique, you can reorient other storylines from the antagonist’s to the protagonist’s point of view. Occasionally, when there is more than one motive, protagonist, action, or antagonist, you might have to extend the sentence to express the storyline more fully, as is done with regard to the storyline for ‘Salem‘s Lot.

To survive (motive), Nancy (protagonist) captures (method of attack) Freddy Krueger (antagonist).

To protect humanity (motive), Ben Mears (protagonist) returns to ’Salem’s Lot and kills (methods of attack) vampires (antagonist).

By first starting with the plot as it appears from the antagonist’s point of view, you will be clear as to the villain’s motive, method of attack, and intended victim. By then switching the perspective from which you view the story’s events, you are clear as to the protagonist’s motive, method of attack, and antagonist

You can now combine these two perspectives into a single, comprehensive depiction of the storyline:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation, the devil possesses Regan MacNeil, but Father Karras rescues her by exorcising the fiend.

To avenge his murder, Freddy Krueger invades the nightmares of the children of the parents who murdered him, but Nancy survives by capturing him.

To feed, vampires bite (and kill) the townspeople of ‘Salem’s Lot, but Ben Mears returns to save humanity by killing the vampires.

Of course, these storylines are but the bare bones of a fully developed plot. However, they do give you a framework--a skeleton--upon which to build by asking pertinent questions related to each element (the protagonist’s and the antagonist’s respective motive, method of attack, and intended victim):

Protagonist

Who is he? Father Karras. Who old is he? Middle age. What is he (occupation)? Catholic priest. What are his strengths of character? He is compassionate, honest, humble, or teachable, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He doubts his faith. Why does he want to rescue Regan? Obviously, it is the right thing to do. However, Karras’ protective impulse would be likely to be activated by Regan’s plight, as an innocent child abused by an evil power. In addition, by exorcising the devil, Karras might be able to silence, or even eliminate, the doubts that plague him concerning his faith in an all-powerful and loving God.

The same sort of questions can be asked regarding the antagonist of your story. Concerning the antagonist of the Exorcist, questions might include:

Antagonist

Who is he? Is he Satan? Some other demon or group of demons? What are his strengths of character? He is intelligent, strong-willed, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He is full of hatred, dishonest, unscrupulous, treacherous, cruel, and unredeemable evil. Why does he possess Regan? Primarily, by giving evil a face--and that of an innocent young girl--and tormenting her cruelly so that she suffers horribly, the devil hopes to get Father Karras to renounce his faith in God so that he will be damned to hell. His possession of the girl is primarily a means to this end, although he enjoys corrupting and degrading her and causing the girl‘s mother grief and emotional anguish as well simply because he is evil and sadistic.
Why does the devil select Regan as his victim?

Victim

What makes Regan attractive to the devil as a victim? Her youth? Her innocence? Why is the victim a girl, rather than a boy? Is a girl a more sympathetic character? She is physically weaker and, perhaps, more emotionally vulnerable (or is likely to be perceived to be such, at least, by much of the audience), and the devil’s deep, masculine voice, speaking through her, will seem more perverse and unnatural, heightening the effect of horror. Also, Father Karras feels guilty for having (he feels) abandoned his mother, a female. Regan is also a helpless female, even more vulnerable than the priest’s aged mother, because she is a child.

In this manner, you build up your plot and characters. You could use the same method to develop the plots and characters in the other stories, A Nightmare on Elm Street and ‘Salem’s Lot, or any other novel or motion picture.

Reversals of Fate and Fortune

By Gary L. Pullman

People--and, therefore, their images and likenesses, fictional characters--seek to acquire that which they lack. This is the basic motive in all fiction, for all characters, whatever their more specific, momentary motive or motives may be.

Biologists tell us that organisms, including people, seek to maintain homeostasis, or balance. If they experience a depletion of nutrients, they become hungry and eat, thereby replacing the nutrients they’ve lost. If pressure builds upon the bladder, they seek to relieve this pressure by urinating. If they feel anxious, they seek to find whatever they need to make themselves feel safe and secure. Writers, whether of horror fiction or otherwise, should make sure that, whatever other, more immediate and specific motive with which a character is blessed or cursed causes the character to act, he or she does so to acquire whatever he or she lacks or perceives him- or herself to lack.

Here are a few examples of what characters may lack and seek to acquire; there are many others. Some are not emotional, but material, physical, or social in nature. Often, the basic motive (the acquisition of something that one lacks) is related to a character’s more immediate and specific motive or motives, as we shall see in a moment, when we consider the motives of Marion Crane, of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho fame.


As Psycho opens, we learn that Marion is having an affair with Sam Loomis. However, she is dissatisfied with seeing her boyfriend on only an occasional basis, and she pressures him to marry her. He says he is unable to do so, because he owes his ex-wife alimony payments and is also otherwise in debt.


After she leaves Sam, she returns to work, where her boss’ latest client, an oilman, has brought the $40,000 in cash as the payment for a house he is buying outright for his daughter, who is getting married. The oilman’s daughter’s imminent marriage and happiness contrasts sharply with Marion’s unhappy, single state, perhaps worsening it in her eyes. The fact that she works for an employer who cares little for her comfort or needs, as is clear when he tells a client that his office is air-conditioned, but the outer office that Marion shares with a coworker is not, makes it easier, perhaps, for her to make her decision to abscond with the money that her boss asks her to deposit in the bank. With this money, she thinks, she can finance her own marriage and happiness. On the surface, the immediate and specific motive for Marion’s stealing of her employer’s money is to make it possible for her and Sam to wed. On a more basic level, she is seeking to acquire the love and companionship that she lacks. The basic, general and the immediate, specific motives mesh.

What is true of Marion is true of other characters--especially protagonists--as well. What about Norman Bates, the protagonist of Hitchcock’s movie? What is the basic, general need that he lacks, and how is it related to the immediate, specific motives for his actions? Toward the end of the film, a psychiatrist, Dr. Fred Richmond, explains all: Norman feels guilt for having killed his mother, who dominated him while she was alive, and seeks to “erase the crime”--that is, to make amends--by impersonating her, by becoming her. He killed his mother after she took a lover following her husband’s death; since he was jealous of his mother’s boyfriend, the psychiatrist explains, Norman believes that his “mother” would also be jealous of any woman for whom Norman feels an infatuation, which is why, dressed as his mother, he kills Marion (and, presumably, two other women who have disappeared in the vicinity of his motel).

Obviously, Norman lacks innocence, which motivates him to seek to acquire forgiveness by atoning for his crime, matricide, even if, in doing so, he must kill again, to maintain the act by which he seeks to acquire forgiveness--the impersonation of his mother.

What is true of Marion Crane and Norman Bates is true of other characters as well. By making sure that your characters’ basic, general needs, or motives, and their more immediate, specific motives mesh, you will create more fully realized and believable characters than you would if you were to motivate their behavior by only the momentary and particular desire to acquire something that is truly but a means to the end of gaining that which, on the more inclusive and permanent (often emotional or spiritual) level, they lack.

Fill-in-the-Blanks (Don't panic! It's not a quiz!)

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

There are many ways to generate a plot idea and to develop it so that the action that flows from the idea follows the format of the traditional story.

A traditional story depicts its main character as wanting to attain a goal for a definite, specific reason. The main character is then pitted against an adversary, the story’s antagonist, who wants to attain the same goal or a conflicting one for a reason of his or her own.

As a result, the main character encounters a series of increasingly more difficult obstacles. At first, all goes either poorly or well. (If the story is a comedy, things go poorly at first; if it’s to be a tragedy, things go well at first.) At the story’s turning point, the main character’s fortune changes for the better or the worse. If things were going poorly to begin with, they improve. If things were going well at the beginning of the story, they begin to deteriorate.

At the end of the story, for a reason that fits the set of circumstances involved, the main character either attains his or her goal or does not do so (or realizes that the goal was not as important as he or she had once supposed). As a result of the experience that the main character has undergone, he or she learns a lesson. The lesson is the theme of the story.

One way to make sure you develop your story along these lines is to use the fill-in-the blank approach. Here’s a template that you can use:

The main character, _________________ _________________, wants to
_________________ because _________________ , but he or she must struggle against _________________ _________________, who wants _________________ because _________________. This story takes place in _________________ (location) in _________________ (time period). To attain his or her goal, _________________ _________________ (the main character) must overcome the following, increasingly more difficult obstacles: _________________, _________________, and _________________ (add more if desired). For the main character, for whom everything goes _________________ (well or poorly) at the beginning of the story, the turning point (climax) occurs when he or she _________________, and then the opposite state of affairs ensues, as things begin to _________________(worsen or improve). At the end of the story, _________________ _________________ (the main character) _________________ (attains or does not attain) his or her goal, because _________________ (reason), learning that _________________ (lesson learned from the experience; the story’s theme) and, as a result, changes by _________________ (how the main character changes).

Now, let’s see how the template would look if it had been used to outline The Wizard of Oz (film version) in which we've added bold font to highlight the key information:

The main character, Dorothy Gale, wants to return to her home in Kansas because she is homesick, but she must struggle against the Wicked Witch of the West, who wants Dorothy‘s ruby slippers because they are magic. This story takes place in Oz (location) in the present day (time period). To attain her goal, Dorothy Gale (the main character) must overcome the following, increasingly more difficult obstacles: escape the fighting trees, survive the deadly poppy field, and seize the Wicked Witch‘s broomstick (add more if desired). For the main character, for whom everything goes poorly (well or poorly) at the beginning of the story, the turning point (climax) occurs when he or she is sent by the Wizard to seize the Wicked Witch‘s broomstick, and then the opposite state of affairs ensues, as things begin to improve (worsen or improve). At the end of the story, Dorothy Gale (the main character) attains (attains or does not attain) his or her goal, because Glinda, the Good Witch, tells Dorothy how to use the ruby slippers to take her home (reason), learning that there‘s no place like home (lesson learned from the experience; the story’s theme) and, as a result, changes by being content with her life on the Kansas farm (how the main character changes).

In future installments, we’ll consider other effective ways to generate plot ideas and develop the story’s action.