I finally understood character motivation after a weird encounter at a gas station in Flagstaff

I was driving cross-country and stopped at a 24-hour station off I-40 around 2 AM. A guy in a perfectly clean suit was meticulously cleaning the windshield of a beat-up pickup truck with a handkerchief, humming a tune. He saw me staring and just said, 'The ritual matters more than the result.' That one line made me stop writing my protagonist's goal as just 'get the thing' and start asking what weird, personal ritual they'd perform to feel in control. Has anyone else had a random stranger give you a key to a character?

3 comments

3 Comments

emeryking1mo ago

Read a book where a writer said he got a villain's voice from overhearing a guy order coffee in a really specific, fussy way. Those little human details are gold.

the_richard25d ago

Yeah, those little human details are the whole game. It's never the big evil speech, it's the weird way they fold a napkin or correct someone's grammar. That coffee order thing is perfect because it shows a need for control in a tiny, everyday moment. You see that and you instantly get the character without a page of backstory. Real people are just bundles of those tiny, specific habits.

beth7191mo ago

That's how you find the real characters.