GMC deconstructed

The most important part of writing is giving characters goals, motivation and conflict. That's what attracts the readers. Susie wants X. What motivates her to get it? What gets in her way?

Except it isn't as simple as that.

Quite often, when I start out a new novel, I set my characters GMC. It's perfectly clear to me, I mean we all have goals in our lives, right?  And motivation? For a lot of us, the motivation is a mortgage payment, or mouths to feed. But is that enough for a storybook character?

At my very first writing conference, I went to a session with a conflict grid, but I only saw that as conflict (silly me) and while I found it very thought provoking and helpful, I missed the more important aspects. I got it, I understood it, but did I really?

The thing the character wants is best presented as diametrically opposed to the way it works out. Something stands in her way, and here's the important question that often gets overlooked.

Susie wants X. What happens if she doesn't get it? The audience needs a reason to get behind Susie's goals, to root her on. This goes to her motivation. She HAS to succeed, or else. I mean, we all want to succeed, right? But what are the stakes?

Conflict? Add a few speed bumps. Anything that can go wrong will. Just when she thinks she's succeeded, something gets in her way. Trouble is interesting. People don't talk about all the things that are going right in their lives, they talk about what's going wrong.

Here's a classic example of GMC. Merida wants her mother to change, for her mother to understand who Merida is without forcing her into who they want her to be. She's being forced into a marriage she doesn't want, so she seeks out a witch's help. The witch offers her a spell, and her mother does change - into A BEAR! While that's bad enough, the one thing her father HATES is bears. So when Mom comes home all furry and growly, Dad is going to shoot that bear dead! Wait! This isn't what Merida had in mind! She can't tell anyone what she's done, and she can't let her father shoot her mother, thinking she's actually a bear. How does she fix this? Sound familiar? I thought it was the perfect example of GMC and conflict.

With that in mind, I'm off to think about the next book while I wait for my editor on the current one.

What stands between you and your goal?

Backstory - when characters come to life

 The plus side of writing a series is that you get to know your characters so when they make cameos in subsequent books, you already have a handle on who they are. The down side is that when the spotlight turns to them, you need to know MORE about them. I had the basic information on the main characters in EPITAPH 3, but as I started to write (and I've made significant progress into the writing of this story), the characters started to reveal things I didn't know in the previous books.

The structure to every book is that your characters need goals, motivation and conflict. The hard part is clearly defining those things. I know the conflict, I know the goals. The motivation often comes from backstory, and that is what I've been concentrating on before I go further into E3, and let me tell you, it's keeping me up at night! Why would my heroine allow herself to be manipulated? What does the antagonist hold over her? How antagonistic is he going to be? And the hero? How much does he know and what is he going to do with the information he has? Will he get in the way or will he be able to "save" the heroine? How much help will a strong woman allow a man to give her? As I consider these questions, I have to weigh whether what I've written to date will fit with the answers or whether I have to start over. The basic storyline hasn't changed, but the "how do they get there" has.

For those readers who have asked me about the rest of the series, EPITAPH 2: THE TWINS (Siobhan's book) is off to the editor, so yes, its on schedule (actually, its ahead of schedule). Hoping to see the cover this week. The plan is to release it the beginning of April. Stay tuned.

I'm hoping to have EPITAPH 3 (Garth's book) ready by July. After that, I have four more siblings standing by. I'd also like to write another Northwest Suburbs book, but since I can only write one book at a time, I'm concentrating on finishing this one first.

For those of you who've read Epitaph, what do you think? Which sibling do you want to read about next?