What's My Motivation?

Right now, the main purpose of my writing this blog post is to avoid working at home.

I read an interesting post over at this blog, where the guy is working on a novel and journaling the process. He mentioned something about not understanding a character's motivations, and I found myself nodding along right away. One of my characters is like that. Unfortunately for me, she's the main character. I'm going to have to a) figure out why she's acting that way and, b) change her a little bit so she's less like a robot maid and more like a human being.

Sometimes I forget that the people I'm closest to are their own people. Rather, I think of them in terms of their relationship to me. I think this probably means that I'm selfish and/or self-centered, but maybe it's not just me. Are you consciously aware of the inner monologues and personal demons of the people who are closest to you? I know that my husband goes to work and school, and thinks about writing a play sometimes, and likes cigars and acting and drinking with friends. But what's really going on in there, moment by moment? What does the voice in his head sound like? What is it telling him to do, and why?

I think that's sort of what happened with Lily, my main character. Because I quickly came to regard her as a close friend, I didn't really question her actions. I trusted that she knew what was best for herself, and let her loose in her plot. But now that I'm coming up on the end of the story, I don't know why she acted the way she did. I want to believe that she had a compelling reason, and not just the one that the plot gave her.

It's tempting to say that sometimes, people just do things for "the usual no-good reason," as Douglas Adams would say. But it's not true. People think they do things for no reason, but they usually just don't know (or are denying knowledge of) their motivations. I used to peel off all the white parts of my fingernails and toenails when I was younger. My mother took me to a psychologist, who basically determined that I was odd but fine and my mother needed therapy for completely unrelated reasons. Was I an overly anxious child? Yeah, sometimes I would lie awake at night and worry that my parents would die before I learned how to cook for myself or braid my own hair. Is that why I peeled my nails? Maybe. Probably not.

I know now that I just hate having nails longer than a few millimeters. If they're too long, I can't play the violin with them, I can't type with them, I can't avail myself of as many sexual opportunities with them, and I always manage to slice into them with a good sharp kitchen knife while cooking with them. They're pretty when manicured, but otherwise, what good are they? My short nails are just as fierce under a couple of coats of black cherry polish, and they don't make me feel so utterly useless. So I cut them. Frequently.

So, here's the trick: in a first person narrative, how do I convey to the reader that there are reasons for a character's behavior that she doesn't even realize? That's kind of a rhetorical question, as I know it'll take some gentle massaging in the rewrite. She'll have to tell you things about herself that she doesn't realize she's telling you. That's always the trick.

Idea Farming

I am currently collaborating with my friend Dan to write a musical. It's something we've been talking about doing for a while now, but I had to wait for the right idea to come along before I could make any progress on it. Obviously, I did plenty of other things in the meantime, including but not limited to work, sleep, other writing, and idea farming. Yes, idea farming: reading, listening, watching, and interacting with people are the ways that I sow when I want to be able to reap ideas at harvest-time.

The idea for the musical emerged when I was--of all things--listening to an old-timey variety show on the radio.

When I think about it, the conflict of the musical is that the main character has misunderstood her calling in life, and has focused on goals that are impossible for her to attain. She stumbles upon the key to her success completely unexpectedly. It happens while she is interacting with people (while wallowing in her failure). Sometimes, the very actions of idea farming are what allow you to see all the ideas that are naturally growing wild beyond the fence.

Do you do anything in particular to cultivate your ideas? Or is it more of an organic process? (Like that? I've got more wordplay where that came from!) How do you get your ideas?

Misunderstanding

My friend Kate was in a band that released a full-length album last year. The album is called "I Am Magically Happening," and if you read the liner notes, you learn that the title came from a mishearing of something else (a song lyric, I think). I thought this was a novel and/or strange creative method when I first read about it. But now, when I'm thinking about where I get my ideas, I realize that mishearings and other general misunderstandings make up a large portion of my inspiration.

Misunderstanding (and striving to correct it) is a fairly solid description of the human condition, as far as I can tell. This is why science and religion are so darn popular. And literature knows it, too. Maybe I've misunderstood, but it seems to me that many of the best stories are based entirely on misunderstandings. Gilbert and Sullivan's entire oeuvre and most of the rest of 18th century dramatic literature wouldn't exist without mistaken identity--a real plot engine that drives conflict, dramatic irony, and resolution with one pump of the gas pedal.

The other way to think about it is to say that we write because we want to understand the world better. Stories are about unusual people (or about the ways in which normal people are, after all, unusual) not just because they make for interesting reading, but because fiction writers want to stretch the limits of their understanding by exploring the unknown. The old saw, "write what you know" means something entirely different when placed next to the wisdom from the Tao Te Ching, "who knows that he does not know is the highest."

When we admit to misunderstanding the world, we admit that we are fallible. When we write to understand, we strive for improvement. Tell me about the ways in which you have misunderstood the world. Did your misunderstanding lead to great ideas?