<chirps obnoxiousy>
I'm not really sure what your question is—are you trying to find motivation for each individual character? It seems to me the "Call to Adventure" is what's driving most of the characters, but every character will have a different motivation for seeking out the island regardless if they share similar tastes in adventure.
I'm not sure if you've watched the movie "Inception" before, but I'll use it as a brief example. All the characters working together are trying to break into a person's mind, but their motivations are different (one needs it as his way back home, another is learning and wants to get more experience, others want money, etc.). In the end it boils down to what each character values the most and how this adventure will further their goals. This works even if they discover that their motivations have changed and they either don't want to keep going anymore or they want to try something else.
As for convincing, you can then maybe try having one character persuade another using something they value (e.g. maybe one character needs money to pay off debts so someone offers him money if he is willing to get him to the island...something like that).
Just some ideas; hope they help!
edited 1st Feb '15 3:31:42 PM by Coujagkin
I have watched inception, I guess I will watch it again.
Yes, what I was asking for was help with character motivation and ideas for characters. Thank you but I would like to talk some about it, if you dont mind.
What sort of Call to Adventure fits if the Adventure is difficult?
I feel that it is easy to invent motivations and you create the characters first and let the adventure come after but now I have the adventure where I want the characters to go but I can't think of any motivation that doesn't seem mediocre or uninteresting.
If I want "lost island with Jungle Cthulhu " how do you get people there?, especially in a modern setting where there are few treasure hunters, victorian explorers, shipwrecked soldiers.
Today the planet is explored so the Island has to be hidden somehow. If the call is random such as a plan full with tourists crashing then anyone could have found the Island. It would be so much better if the character wants to be there but actually have a chance of getting there.
My first ideas and my problem with them:
1. Family member search for a missing person and follow them to the Island. I imagine that most relatives who lost somebody in foreign travels, could not believe in and refuse to look after hidden Island. They would be chocked and starts looking the in likeliest places. Or they would rely of rescue service, like the navy or some rented investigator who would in turn never look for something supernatural and give up and report the most rational rapport construe on the evidence they gather and ask for pay.
2. Wealthy sealor/slash explorer. Super Tourist have seen all of the world, wants to see more. When he gets a hint of the supernatural Island he takes some sort of boat and journey over the ocean to find the the Island. Problems: even if he had mysterious instructions, Third world government (like Korea or Thailand),don't allow access to unexplored or arbitrary waters. The idea that a cool hero could bribe officials or sneak past the navy seems to totally implausible in the modern world. Deep down I just can't believe in the idea of a billionaire willing to leaving comfort and to breaking the law and risking his status to get there. Lovecraft would have used some sort of colonialist navy or explorer exploring their exotic colonies.
3. A character wants to know something. A scholar or explorer who simply wants to know if the island exist and have the tools to get there. I can believe in a biologist or perhaps even a rouge green activist who is fascinated by the idea of the last unexplored jungle on the planet and driven to do what it takes to get there.
4. The driving character is just insane and the group tag along because this leader character used to be sane so they trust him or they are in love with him or are random people he saved and picked up along the journey. I have toyed with this idea. Keeping the leader's insanity a secret is not hard and it makes perfect sense, especially since the leader can pretend he has a normal sane reason to be x and do y. It's not just interesting enough for me.
5. I have no idea how to portray international rescue services, navy border controls, western navies looking for lost people.
Sorry for writing so much. I hope my ideas and worries makes sense. I am worried and need ideas. Even if what you wrote does help I want more ideas. Any ideas, any ideas about Call to Adventure.. actually any ideas about the problem with adventures in the modern world and the difficulty to make good character motivations.
Crazy Kiwi
I can't answer your question, but I can tell you what I do when I want characters to be somewhere or in a certain situation/scene/conversation but I don't know how they got there.
Start writing from the point where they're where you want them to be. Just grab a moment and get writing - what they see, how they react, what happens.
Keep it in "the now" - don't fret about what came before: this is where they are, this is what's happening and this is what they do about it.
I generally find that after a while I get hints - ideas spring to mind - about the characters that I hadn't already planned and I often end up writing/thinking of something that explains to me how they could possibly have gotten to that point in the story.
So two benefits: it gets you writing rather than staring at a blank screen saying "How the fuck do I get them to the island?" and it could possibly give you an "aha!" moment, an epiphany, about what motivates the characters or what events occurred to get them there.
You may suddenly realise that your MC is like this and wants that out of life, which leads you to determine that these things are what got him/her there in the first place.
Lets see.
Only least one character must have a reason to go to the adventure. That reason I can retroactive seek inspiration for after writing the adventure.
The other characters can have different reasons and the reasons could be that they are connected to another character that is connected to another character who persuade them to go along on the adventure.
I will be trying that..
Perhaps its a family drama. They are related to the author of the apocalyptic diary and need to know what happened to him. Perhaps the major character, is seeking refuge from civilisation.. or a hedonist who seeks the last untouched jungle. "I want to shoot the last dinosaur"..
Hello. Some might have noticed that my English is not exactly perfect but I have tried writing a book for some years.
For the last years I have shot down character motivation to fit in this story
The concept is rather straightforward.
A mysterious pirate gives a groupf of Protagonists some papers, this is the Call to Adventure.
The pages are a full chapter ripped out from a diary written by a mad scientist who journey to a Island which doesn\'t exist in any other map except for the instructions in the diary. So with the Pirates help they recreate the journey and find the Island.
This is climax of the story when the mood now as optimistic as it can be, the Island is great fun becouse everything positive about jungle simply happens. Then I drop the mood a bit and the Pirate abandon them on the Island. The Island transforms from good paradice to evil Jungle. Surviving they conviniently find remains of a camping site and in it the next chapter from the diary, which is revealed to a be a [apocalyptic log]. The Scientists writes he has found scary ruins which is build by nonhuman people and that he is goind to be killed by the monster which lives there. I have billions of ideas about how the scared the group gets. The group finds the ruins by mistake and decide to avoid the site, so I can write about their social interaction. Now comes the Darkest moment, the anti-climax of the story. A terrible storm force the characters to run around randomly and accidentaly seek cover inside the Doomy Temple which close the doors around them. After the rock bottom of negativity the mood will getting better again, the heroes takes control and get some false hope until the end. They try to find a way out they venture down the sacrifical chamber.. There they find the bones of the mad scientist who wrote last part of the Apocalyptic Log is clawed into the walls with his own blood. It goes :”The Old God is eating me alive and he is very scary!”. This is End of the Story, the false hope is crushed and all the loose ends are solved. The monster god appars and eat all protagonists except for one who goes insane. Epilogue. The lone survivior escapes the Island and is put in the madhouse, telling his insane story another person who tend go back to the Island.
Island. An exotic Island exists between dimentions and only can only be found by (protagonists of the story) who receive (the call to adventure) .You can (not) find the Island somewhere South China Sea.
Doomy Temple On the Island there a scary temple with lovcraftian God inside it which eat people who finds it. It can only be found by those the God wants to eat similar to the Isle.
Begining. The opitimistic mood is normal and the characters are presented.
The Call to Adventure [Apocalyptic Log] are the Call to Adventure. The mood slowly ascent to everything becoming better and better. The Pirate. Is the messanger who leads the group to the Island. Climax. This is when the groups first impression of the Island which appears as paradice on earth. Decline. After the Climax things get worse until the Anitclimax- Anti-climax. Darkest Hour. When the group go into the Temple. The emotional negative mood turns to a normal level The End. They get eaten are released from their suffering.
Why would anyone go the Island? Why would anyone convince anyone else to go with