One of the first lessons a creative writer learns covers GMC: Goal, Motivation, Conflict. Without a viable GMC combination, it's impossible to create characters that leap off the page and burn themselves into your heart, so GMC is at the core of every memorable work of fiction. Not only does each major character have their own GMC, but ideally, each relates to the major theme and they all come together to govern the characters' actions in the climax.
- (G)oal. What the character wants and strives for to move the story forward. It must be difficult to achieve and come with its own inherent challenges and obstacles, and each choice and character change through the novel must make it harder or easier to attain that goal.
- (M)otivation. The logical, believable reason or reasons the character wants that goal more than anything else in the world and is willing to work toward it instead of giving up when the going gets tough.
- (C)onflict. The seemingly impossible obstacle or obstacles that will keep the character from attaining the goal until she has proven herself worthy through struggle and hard choices--and the way you keep your readers turning pages.
Ideally, GMC is both internal (emotional) and external (physical) for every character, which provides them with depth and believability. More ideally, the internal and external GMCs will oppose each other. And most ideally, the GMCs for your critical characters are also in opposition. Those last two steps ensure that your novel not only contains conflict, but natural tension on every page. But bear in mind that natural does not equate to realistic. To create tension, conflict in a novel must be magnified, just as characters must be larger than life.
Tension, according to literary agent and author Donald Maass, is what makes a novel breakout, what makes it sell. He explains it like this:
All of this comes down to opposition of one type or another:
- The character's external goal conflicts with her internal goal.
- Circumstances put two of her external goals in conflict with each other so she must choose between them.
- Another character she loves wants something that conflicts with her own goal.
- Attaining one suddenly changes circumstances and makes achieving the other impossible.
- Achieving one would have an impact on others her conscience would not allow.
LOVE how you broke this down. I think this is so useful to map out and see how the goals of the protag and antags should clash to give greater depth to the conflict!
Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse
This sums it up perfectly! Sometimes it's much harder outside of a graph though! Great post.
What a great post. I love how you used the example and the chart.
What a great post and I love the graphic organizer! GMC...I love it!
Wow! Awesome post, Martina!!!
Now I want to read your Cinderella story from the stepmother's POV. ; )
I love how you broke this down. I'm so going to make sure I do this for my wip.
Oh, charts, be still my heart! I love having things laid out neatly for me.
The way you've set them up I'd prefer the stepmother's story but, really, neither! :P
I'm a Beauty and the Beast girl.
I still haven't found a copy of GMC to read and I really REALLY need to. :/
WOW. I can't love those charts more. Amazing Idea! Thanks so much!
I'm such a visual learner, the tables worked really well to get your point across. Loved it.
Someone told me about eh GMC book, but I couldn't remember the author or find it. Now I can- yeah!1 Great post : )
As usual, AWESOME post. Love how you break everything down into logical pieces. :D
Whoa, what a great service you've done for us with the info' in this post. Thank YOU!
I am SO copying this info in a Word document. Thanks, gals! Such basic stuff, and yet...sometimes easy to overlook while in the heat of writing.
Oh yes, ps, I'd actually still rather read/write about Cinderella's motivations and story rather than the stepmother's!! I think readers like to identify with a main character who is the underdog, who has a romantic goal, etc. A mean and caustic MC is harder to identify with or read about. Though I suppose you could make the stepmother more identifiable if written right.
Thanks, everyone for the kindness! Ara--I'd love to write this story, but I've got four stacked up ahead of it. Don't know how I'd do it for YA either. Oh, well. Carol, you're right. An unsympathetic mc is harder to write, but you have to make her sympathetic. I love a challenge, and that's one of the reasons I was drawn to her as I started doing her GMC.I can see glimpses of the vulnerability and devotion to her kids that could make it work.
Martina
What an awesome post! One for the bookmark. Thanks so much (and glad you're home safe and sound from your wild vacation)
Fantastic! I really like the GMC!
I'm not sure I missed this post yesterday (especially since it was emailed to me), but WOW! This is great!!!!!
I knew it, but thanks for the reminder. Perfect timing, too. :D
*runs off to analyze her outline*
What about the Prince's GMC? :)
This is a very simple and very powerful way of defining both characters and plot. Thanks!