Alright, it’s been a little while since I wrote one of these entries, so if you want a refresher, here are some links to the previous four episodes in the series.
#1 – The Point of Intersection
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If someone were to ask me what I think the most common flaw in MC/TF stories is, I would probably say that would be character motivations, that is, a good story will give us some sort of reason why the characters are doing the things they are doing–but more often than not, most stories skip over this entirely, or provide us with one of several well worn tropes as a superficial motivation to drive a plot. I, certainly, am plenty guilty of this in some of my stories, especially in my shorter/earlier works. Furthermore, it’s also worth noting that stories can still be enjoyable without solid motivations for its characters, but motivation is what separates a decent story from a great one–and so still is something worth striving for.
So, why is motivation important? Certainly this is a question relevant to all fiction, and it generally arises in more mainstream discussions concerning the difference between plot-driven and character-driven stories, with the latter generally regarded as superior to the former. In plot-driven stories, characters are generally reactionary–things happen, and the characters leap in response to the various events at hand. Motivations here are generally painted in broad strokes, and can often be reduced to “I need to survive these events,” or “I need to protect some X from these events.” There’s little room for characters to grow or become more than dolls being manipulated by the author. On the other hand, character-driven stories contain events which are set in motion by the characters in order to bring about some sort of targeted desire. This desire, i.e. their motivation, can be far more varied and precise if the character is actively pursuing something, rather than reacting to events beyond their control. It allows for deeper, more sympathetic characters, and can accommodate a wider variety of themes and genres than plot driven stories.
Now, depending on the type of MC/TF story one is writing, different problems arise concerning motivations. Typically, I would say that “sub” stories face one problem, while “dom” stories face a different one. Starting with “sub” stories, their issue is that the focus character, who is being dominated by another, is often inherently passive and reactionary, and as such, often impossibly flat and boring, eventually becoming little more than a stand-in for the reader to fill on their own, with themselves or someone else. While not necessarily bad, this kind of story tends to be forgettable. The easiest way to correct this is to give the character a chance to react and resist the change, generally through some sort of redemptive test, or weaknesses in the dom character’s powers–however, this does little to change the underlying problem, which is that the character’s motivation is still nothing more than mere survival. The best sub stories manage to instill some sort of motivation in their victim beyond this, but this is far from easy.
“Dom” stories don’t have this problem, because the primary character is actively changing another. Their motivations are already more interesting by simple virtue of story focus. However, their problem is one of trope–that is, three or four motivations are recycled so often as to render this entire side of the genre monotonous. The worst offenders include:
- Revenge – Oh dear god, how many times do I have to read a story about some guy taking revenge against some bully who wronged them in the past? I admit to relying on this crutch in much of my early writing, but have tried to wean myself from it bit by bit. Still, a strong majority of the stories on the NCMC, CYOC and MCstories are revenge motivated. Is there no other human drive that we as authors might be able to tap into?
- Make me perfect – The first instinct of the character is to use their new found powers to give themselves the perfect body, the perfect life, and usually the perfect lover. While these stories often attempt to inject conflict with some sort of karmic or ironic twist, generally they are thinly veiled wish fulfillment, and not all that interesting to read.
- Megalomania – Why is the dom character transforming people? Because he can. These characters have no depth, other than a sheer dislike for other people’s original minds and bodies. Flat, boring–these stories tend to be little more than vehicles for various fetishes, and only become worse when coupled with revenge fantasies, as they often are.
These tropes are easy, I understand that. They are also fairly universal. However, they have become so overused that I find myself growing exhausted as I read stories which rely on them. The occasional story which utilizes some other motivation is generally a refreshing burst amidst the monotony, whether it be well written or not. And don’t get me wrong, I have used all of these tropes myself in the past, and they generally are my least favorite of what I’ve put out, and which also ought to demonstrate that I have no easy answer to this problem. There is no magic bullet, no solution other than not being lazy.
So then, what would be “better” motivations? Or, at least, motivations which haven’t been used so much as to be rendered entirely stale? Moving beyond these tropes requires going back to the heart of what this genre is about, and seeing what other sorts of motivations we might derive from it’s basic function. MC/TF is, at it’s core, about looking at the world, looking at ourselves, and looking at others, and fundamentally rejecting what we see. In reality, of course, it stops there, but in fantasy, characters can then be given the power to remake the world as they might see fit. In fact, each of those tropes above can be derived from this drive–when we change others because they disgust us we beget revenge, when we render ourselves perfect we harbor something unhappy regarding ourselves, and when we control the world we obviously tend towards megalomania. In fact, it could be the case that these tropes simply “are” these desires distilled alone. So how might we go about refreshing them? I’ll discuss one way in the next essay.
Bracken's Corner 