Goal, Motivation & Conflict Will Jumpstart Your Manuscript

Many years ago I was a member of River City Romance Writers in Memphis. Debra Dixon, one of our members, wrote a great book entitled Goal, Motivation & Conflict. I’m going to share a little of it with you today.

Goal Motivation & Conflict – What is it?

GMC applies at the manuscript level and the scene level. Every time I draft a scene, I think GMC.

A scene is action. It happens.

It is not an explanation of what will happen or what already happened. It is a unit of conflict and struggle lived through the character.

It has GMC

• Goal = What your character wants
• Motivation = Why your character wants it
• Conflict = The obstacle in the character’s way

Goals should be:

• Important
• Urgent
• External and Internal Goals

All characters should have their own GMC

Motivation (the Why)

• It drives characters
• It should be simple, strong and focused
• All actions and decisions should be motivated

The goals and motives should be appropriate to the character and their background

A frightened teen girl will not have the same goals and motives as a hardened male spy.

• Wounded heroes can be understood by looking at their internal GMC
• Emotional scars lend themselves beautifully to internal GMC

Don’t forget Conflict

Conflict is the obstacle your MC must face in obtaining her goal.

• A struggle against someone or something in which the outcome is in doubt
• Bad things happening to good people
• Bad things happening to bad people
• Friction, tension, opposition

Remember that people with perfect lives are boring.

There must be both External and Internal conflict

Make sure the GMC of characters collides

Villains make great conflict

May have multiple conflicts

Strength of book is in conflict

I hope this quick introduction to Goal, Motivation & Conflict will help you as you’re writing your book.

Source: Goal, Motivation & Conflict, The Building Blocks of Good Fiction, Gryphon Books for Writers 1996