One of my biggest gripes in a lot of fantasy books is the lack of character motivation. A lot of the time, characters get caught up in some sort of crisis and they suddenly take it upon themselves to manage that crisis and save the world. If you think about it, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever… unless said character is some kind of masochist philanthropist.
You see, in any good story, there has to be something at stake that requires the character to act. There has to be some kind of internal or external force of motivation that drives them to do what they are required to do. Without this, as readers, we’ll struggle to fully understand that character, and even the plot itself. Why does this character have to be the one to face the horror? Does it even need to be addressed now? Why couldn’t this be dealt with in five, ten years? Does it actually have to be addressed at all? Couldn’t someone else do it? Answering these deep questions can help you really build your story and create believable characters.
In academia, we call this the problem statement – or Statement of the Problem, if you’re trying to appear smart.
If you’re an academic writing research papers, the problem statement appears early in your paper. It’s a statement, normally a few paragraphs long, that details out the exact problem that needs to be addressed. The statement would talk about the bigger issue, why ‘X’ is a problem, why it needs to be addressed, and what the implications are if things are left the way it is.
We see this in good business presentations too. Mendel Communications has a framework for structuring good presentations, and it always starts by explaining the situation, followed by the complications, and then the implications to that complication.
In persuasive speeches, Alan Monroe also says we need to start by grabbing the audience’s attention and immediately explaining the “Need”, which is to describe the problem and why it needs to be addressed.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
There has to be some kind of problem driving the story forward. Ideally, you want this problem to make itself known early on in the story.
Now I’m not saying that in storytelling, you must absolutely come up with a big, earth-shaking problem that needs solving. True storytellers do something even more amazing than that. A real storyteller knows that what they need to do is to raise the stakes. It doesn’t matter if we’re writing fiction, or of we’re crafting the story behind the research paper or professional case study. A good writer needs to raise the stakes. To make something appear more serious than it actually is.
There are two ways to do this.
One way is to raise the stakes situationally. This requires you to think big. Think, global warming. The world ending. Evil lord wanting to end all humanity. Things like that. This kind of high stakes game is a bit tricky, because again you need to come up with a compelling reason why you, or your character(s), need to be the one to address this big global problem.
So what we can do is to raise the stakes at a smaller, more personal and individual level – which is the second way of doing this. If the evil lord wanting to end all humanity is your character’s uncle, the stakes and vested interest to get involved kiiiiinda gets a bit higher now. If you’re one of the biggest contributors to the world ending in some direct or indirect way, then wanting to overcome that raises the stakes for you. Because now it’s about righting your wrongs. Now it’s about being responsible. You actually have a personal reason to address the problem.
The most talented of storytellers can raise the stakes even though the stakes aren’t even that high. To be frank, the problem doesn’t have to be that serious at all. People can live their lives blissfully ignorant of your problem, even. But if you can convince readers that the stakes are high for you, which requires your direct action, then you have yourself a story. An internal motivator driving you, or your character, forward.
So whether you’re writing a story, or a research paper, or a business case study, or anything else that requires storytelling – raise the stakes. Think about the implications of not addressing the problem. Think about the repercussions. With any luck, your story, and your character(s), will be that much more convincing and believable.