The Bandwagon: Motivation, Motivation, Motivation

Motivation, Motivation, Motivation

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So, like I said, when I was writing the synopsis, I found a serious flaw in my heroine. I have her breaking up with her boyfriend at the beginning to find herself, then she doesn't do anything else about that throughout the book. And it seems that her main issue is presenting a good face to the town.

Maybe if I change that to her allowing the town opinion influence her decisions....no, still sounds wimpy.

Part of her issue is that she's in love with her deceased best friend's husband, my hero. And she worries the town will think she has always loved him, when she hasn't.

Trish says she needs good motivation to be caring so much what the town thinks. I was thinking perhaps she did something in her youth, with her HS boyfriend, that humiliated her and she never got past it. What would be something really good? Would anything be good ENOUGH to motivate her? Am I going with the wrong conflict here, and why didn't I think this through 200 pages ago????

Okay, gotta do some errands, then maybe work in the back yard. I'm still scared to go outside after I fell, isn't that weird?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: Hey Mary. I don't think that's strong enough. It needs to be deeper.

Maybe it's not the town at all, but she uses the town and the people there as an excuse. I don't know what the excuse is for, but Trish is right. There has to be a reason and I don't think a past experience is strong enough. It's probably there, buried in the story waiting for the girls in the basement to dig it out. :-); 10:51 PM
kris said...: Mary, how about if you twist things so she's feeling guilty? How did the friend die? Could your heroine have been in a situation where she faced the same kind of threat, but she lived, and now her best friend died under similar circumstances?

Or what if she really DID kind of like the guy all those years - not that she ever even admitted it to herself, but he was always the "I wish I could find someone like him" standard against which all her boyfriends were measured? If my best friend were to die and then I figured out that I'd been halfway in love with him all these years, I'd be running away as fast as my shoes could carry me.; 6:13 AM
KATZ said...: Okay, what if SHE didn't have an embarrassing moment in HS, but her MOM was the embarrassment... she had to grow up with the town talking about her mom running off with the milkman, etc. So, she's always avoided scandal in any form.

She'd started to realize this -- realize she was living for other people's opinion -- and that's when she decided to break up with bf#1... but getting involved with Hero makes her FACE that decision and challenge head on...; 12:35 AM
MJFredrick said...: I agree she needs to use the town as an excuse. I've been waiting for those dang girls in the basement... ;)

Kris, the friend died in a car accident, and she was pregnant. And yes, Noah was always my heroine's standard, in a "I want to be loved like THAT" way. I definitely need to play up the guilt, I think. Right now I'm having to spray water on them to keep them apart, if you know what I mean.

Sarah, I'm really liking this idea.

I think I may still throw in the thing with the HS boyfriend, and maybe that happened BEFORE the mom ran away.; 4:41 AM
MJFredrick said...: Forgot to say, thanks for helping me work this out!; 4:41 AM