CHARACTER MOTIVATION THESAURUS

EMBRACING A PERSONAL IDENTITY (KIDLIT)



Never struggle with Show-and-Tell again. Activate your free trial or subscribe to view the Character Motivation Thesaurus in its entirety, or visit the Table of Contents to explore unlocked entries.

CHOOSE MY PLAN

HELPFUL TIP:

To understand why your character is driven toward a certain goal, get to know their positive and negative traits, as well as any significant emotional wounds that might be motivating them. Then you can explore the various kinds of conflict that could block them as they move toward their goal.
FORMS THIS MIGHT TAKE:
Gaining a deeper self-awareness and self-acceptance of one's racial identity (children who are mixed race, for example)
Finding acceptance through a gender identity
Separating themselves from their parent's identity
Separating themselves from the identity of their friends or peer groups
Being comfortable with oneself despite being different than others around oneself (cultural differences with one's peers after immigrating, etc.)
Embracing a condition or challenge as part of who one is (having an incurable disease that by nature creates limits, but doesn't have to be limiting in all the ways it really counts, for example)

HUMAN NEED DRIVING THE GOAL (INNER MOTIVATION):
There are five basic human needs that, when missing from a character's life, could motivate them to pursue this goal. The following needs are all possibilities, but only one of them should be the primary driver for any given character. For more information on the relationship between human needs and outer motivations, please see this Character Motivation tutorial.

Self-Actualization: Feeling unsure about who one is as opposed to ideas that parents, friends, or society imposes may create a deep enough yearning to explore personal identity to better understand who one really is.
Esteem and Recognition: If the character is being harassed for aspects of who they are and what they do, or are experiencing bias or racism, this could lead to them delving deeper into who they are to learn self-love and acceptance, raising self-esteem.

HOW THE CHARACTER MAY PREPARE FOR THIS GOAL:
...

POSSIBLE SACRIFICES OR COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS GOAL:
...

ROADBLOCKS WHICH COULD PREVENT THIS GOAL FROM BEING ACHIEVED:
...

TALENTS & SKILLS THAT WILL HELP THE CHARACTER ACHIEVE THIS GOAL:
...

WHAT'S AT STAKE IF THIS GOAL ISN'T MET?
...