Sometime in the recent past (I haven’t kept track, so this could have been over a year ago) I realized that the reason I was usually struggling with writing my stories was because I didn’t really know the characters’ motivations. I looked back at my stories written thus far, and found that the stories in which I figured out the character motivations early were the stories I had less frustration writing, tended to be written quicker, and I considered them to be my strongest stories – not just for understanding the characters, but plot and such too.

This was a very important revelation to have, and it’s a sign that I’m growing as a writer.

However.

It’s also made it extremely aggravating to write when I don’t know the characters’ motivations. Now I know the reason why some stories are written with ease and others aren’t; my trouble is knowing how to find the character motivations for the works-in-progress that I don’t fully understand yet (which is a bit of a ‘chicken and the egg’ conundrum). Like all things in writing (and all facets of life) the hard things seem hard and nearly impossible until you’ve done it enough that it feels easy, or at least doable – and often that doesn’t come until some new hard thing reveals itself and then you stress over improving that.

Still, there’s no way around it, is there? Shining a light on our weaknesses is the only way to make the changes we need to improve.

Onwards and upwards.