Something is Missing

My critique group met this week via Zoom. One member is working on a memoir. The section we’ve been critiquing is fascinating. She was in Christchurch, New Zealand when the 2011 earthquake hit. In fact, she and her husband were in the Cathedral at the exact moment the earthquake hit and everything came tumbling down.

She’s written about that event, starting with the morning of February 22nd and continuing with the days that followed and what happened. She’s an excellent writer, but the main criticism we had this week is she isn’t putting enough of herself into the story. We’re getting a record of what happened (where and when), but only a very small bit about how she reacted, mentally as well as physically. We feel we’re missing something.

Get Inside a Character

Whether you’re writing a memoir or a novel, simply taking a character through a series of events—the steps to solving a mystery; the way something seemingly impossible is achieved; or how your main character survives and thrives isn’t enough if you haven’t given and shown the main character’s thoughts, feelings, and reactions.

Motivation

It’s the standard GMC (Goal, Motivation, and Conflict). There’s a goal to everything we do. It might be to find love or acceptance, money or status, or simply to avoid boredom. There’s also a motivation behind our decisions. A WHY we will do some things and not other things. Readers want to know and understand a character (be it a real person or a fictional one), they want to read a character’s experiences as if the character were real. Readers don’t want cardboard characters that the writer moves through scene after scene. They want to understand decisions the character makes, even if those decisions may seem irrational. (We don’t always do what’s wise, but there’s usually a reason—motivation—for what we do.) Often this is the perfect place to include some backstory. There may be a past event that is influencing how the character acts in the present. Or maybe it’s the way the character was raised that guides the character’s decision to go forth rather than give up. As a reader, I don’t need a lot of information, just enough to deepen my understanding of the character.

I’m looking forward to reading the earthquake scene again. I want to know why the writer (and her husband) made the decision to stay in New Zealand and continue touring the island even after most non-residents fled. As I said, she’s a good writer, so I know I won’t be disappointed.