Goal, Motivation, and Conflict
As writers, we are taught to identify our character’s goals, why they want what they want and why they can’t get it. It is one of the first things we are told we must do in order to make our story believable and our characters likeable. Sometimes we know our character’s GMC better than we know our own.
Why do we give our characters more attention than we do ourselves?
I know some people cringe at goal setting while others love it. It’s like the New Year’s Resolutions that we tend to set but can’t keep. Sometimes I only set goals in my head because I know what I need to do and when it needs to get done. However there are time when those goals are very overwhelming until I finally write them down—getting them on paper and out of my head.
I believe writing down goals is important! I believe it helps keep us focused! I also believe there is a motivation and a conflict behind every goal. I want to set up an exercise program because I would like to look and feel better, though I don’t have enough time or energy and when I finally do, something unexpected comes up. I want to write 1000 pages a day because I can get a 100K novel done in 100 days but I can’t because by the time I get home from work I am tired and my brain is fuzzy.
These are all average reasons and all goals will have some sort of conflict. But that conflict is usually self inflicted. Yep, that’s what I believe. See, I could get up two hours early, in fact I have, but I’m usually too tired (didn’t go to bed early enough!) or something else needs to be done. This is when you have to set priorities.
I also believe in routine. Most times, that routine will get out of whack because there is always something at war with your goals. Internally, maybe even spiritually, who knows? But we DO have the power because we ARE 100% responsible. Maybe we aren’t responsible for the fact our dishwasher went out and now we have to wash all the dishes by hand or our tire went flat or our tooth needed a root canal and the money we wanted to spend on something else had to be spend to save a tooth. However, we are 100% responsible for how we react to our situations.
Did you make resolutions for the new year? Are you already falling behind? What can you do to pick yourself up again? Remember, never never ever feel bad about where you are right now but always realize you can do better.
