MYP English Lang & Lit Character Traits and Motivation Notes

Character Traits and Motivation

1. Every story is powered by people making choices. Sometimes those choices are brave. Sometimes they are terrible. Sometimes you want to shout, “Why would you do that?”
2. To understand those choices, we need to understand two things:
   1. what kind of person the character is (their traits)
   2. why they act the way they do (their motivation)
3. Get these two right, and suddenly the story makes a lot more sense.

1. What are character traits?

1. Think of traits as a character’s default settings.
2. Good characters are rarely just one thing. Realistic characters are often brave and afraid, kind and flawed.

2. Static and dynamic traits

1. Some characters stay basically the same. Others change.
2. Static traits
   1. Stay mostly unchanged
3. Dynamic traits
   1. Develop or shift over time
4. When a character changes, that change is usually important to the message of the text.

3. How writers show us character traits

1. Writers rarely tell us directly what a character is like. That would be boring. Instead, they show us.
2. Ways traits are revealed:
   1. Actions
      1. What a character does under pressure reveals who they really are
   2. Speech and dialogue
      1. Tone, word choice, sarcasm, or silence can reveal personality
   3. Thoughts
      1. Inner thoughts often reveal fear, guilt, or desire
   4. Relationships
      1. How a character treats others, especially those with less power
   5. Narrator’s description
      1. Subtle clues through imagery or commentary

4. What is motivation?

1. In simple terms: What do they want, and why does it matter so much to them?
2. Motivation is the engine of the story.

5. Common character motivations

1. Characters are usually driven by more than one thing at the same time.
   1. Desire