Just realized my main character had zero motivation for the entire first act

Sitting at my desk in Chicago at 2 AM rereading my novel draft and noticed my protagonist was just passively reacting to everything because I never gave her a clear goal. Had to go back and rewrite the opening scene with her wanting something specific, which actually made the next 20 pages write themselves in two days. Has anyone else had that moment where you realize a basic story element was completely missing and it unlocked everything?

3 comments

3 Comments

margareth481mo ago

Actually that missing motivation thing is like finding out your car has no engine halfway through a road trip. The real secret nobody talks about is that you can give them a terrible motivation (like wanting to steal a sandwich) and it still works better than no motivation at all.

sammoore1mo ago

Yeah it's way easier to fix a bad motivation than to build one from scratch.

milaprice16h ago

Three days in and I found my villain had no reason to do anything, so I gave him a dead wife - does giving them a terrible reason still work if it comes from a cliche?