Why Women Have Sex: Character Motivation Matters

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I recently read an ad for a book titled WHY WOMEN HAVE SEX: Sexual Motivation From Adventure to Revenge—and Everything in Between, by Cindy Meston & David Buss, a clinical psychologist and an evolutionary psychologist, respectively. According to the ad, the authors used material from more than a thousand interviews with women plus research on physiological response and evolutionary emotions to explore sexual motivation. They mention sex as a defensive tactic against a mate’s infidelity (protection), as a ploy to boost self-confidence (status), as a barter for gifts or household chores (resource acquisition), or as a cure for a migraine headache (medication). No doubt any of us could come up with additional motives not mentioned in the ad!

Not having so much as seen the book, I can’t comment on it. But the ad alone is a titillating way to underline the following takeaway for writers (and readers):

  • Behavior (in this example, sexual behavior) is what happens.
  • Motivation is why it happens.

How readers feel about a behavior—and the character who did it—depends largely on what they think the why is. Think killing. Think stealing. Think paying a compliment. Think a million dollar gift to charity. There needs to be enough on the page to meet the writer’s goal of being clear or ambiguous about a character’s character! By and large, leaving motive wide open shouldn’t be a conscious choice for a writer. It leaves the reader with one that-was-out-of-left-field response after another. When ambiguity is the desired outcome, make the reader consider again and again the two or perhaps three motives that might cause the character to do A, B, C, D, etc.  In general, this is a good way to reveal character—through behavior, not narrative. Much better to show Miriam going to bars, hitting on lonely or vulnerable men, and otherwise acting as a sexual predator than to simply announce that to the reader.

Read more on character motivation

“Rational and Irrational Behavior in Your Characters” 

“Writing Tip: The Five Ws”

Story starter on motivation

“Permanent Make-Up”

 

Acceptable Reading Material

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The Cabinet of Curiosities: 40 Tales Brief & Sinister, Stefan Bachmann, Katherine Catmull, Claire Legrand, Emma Trevayne
The Cabinet of Curiosities

The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne CollinsA while back on Facebook, I mentioned that on the recommendation of my ten-year-old granddaughter, I was reading The Cabinet of Curiosities. I made a connection to Different Drummer stories, except for children. Then she read all three volumes of The Hunger Games—which, frankly, seem a bit horrific to me, not to mention advanced. Upon finishing, her comment was, “That was sad.” No nightmares or anxieties or other negative effects are apparent. Maybe her reaction is testimony to the fascination children have always had for (fictional) horror, as evidenced by the longevity of fairytales in their original (as opposed to Disney) versions.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs Now she is reading Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. Now, as general background, I would say that my granddaughter is very smart, and a very advanced reader, and her parents are both very intelligent and somewhat unconventional. But she’s ten-and-a-half. And I wonder how the world is changing. As I recall, at about that age, I was reading the Ruth Fielding adventure series. I find this book a real page-turner, but it includes sentences like, “‘Do I look like I blow truckers for food stamps?’ Ricky was a connoisseur of your-mom jokes, but this was apparently more than he could take.” And it includes issues of mental illness (paranoia, etc.)

 

Ruth Fielding On the Red Mill My take-away is that children and families are different, and that what is acceptable reading material varies widely. And most importantly, adults with children or grandchildren who read need to dip into their reading worlds. And be prepared to set limits, encourage, and discuss as needed.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

Writing Prompt: Unexpected Turn

Posted on by vlaw759

Sometimes a story starts one way and then takes an unexpected turn–sort of like thinking it might be nice to visit Rhode Island and suddenly realizing you’re headed for the Bahamas. So today’s challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to revisit your story about hyperbaric therapy and turn it in a different direction. If it was successful, make it a disaster. Loaded with fear? Make it excitement. Or humor!

ALTERNATIVELY: write about hyperbaric therapy that goes terribly wrong. Of course it could be medical malfeasance or incompetence, but think more broadly: natural disaster, act of God, equipment failure. And what about suicide, assisted or otherwise? Or perhaps murder. Possibly some combination of the above?

To do either of these stories, you must get the details right. For example, a typical pressure is 2.0 pounds per square inch. That is equivalent to being 33 feet under the ocean’s surface. Details like that might mean something to deep-sea-diving readers. Know the benefits and risks of this treatment. Know what would be possible. And remember to bury your research by making it part of plot, dialogue, setting, and action.

And FYI, here’s a picture of a hyperbaric chamber after a treatment.

Writing prompt, hyperbaric therapy, unexpected turn

Writing Prompt: Hyperbaric Therapy

Posted on by vlaw759
Photo of chamber for the delivery of hyperbaric therapy
Chamber for the delivery of hyperbaric therapy

Research is central to writing. Getting the facts/background right is central to credibility. So here’s a research exercise for all you fans who are also writers. Pictured here is a chamber for the delivery of hyperbaric therapy. It comes equipped with a blood pressure cuff and an oxygen mask. The patient being treated wears four leads to monitor cardiac function. Find out as much as you can about the hyperbaric chamber, the therapy, and the conditions for which it is used. Write a story about someone receiving this therapy. And don’t let your research show!

Why Writers Need Empathy

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Why Writers Need Empathy

The interview with Fiona Quinn started me thinking about the myriad ways that psychology and writing intersect. In particular, I’m now thinking about empathy—the feeling that you understand and share another’s experiences and emotions; the ability to share feelings. Psychology long assumed that empathy is a purely human emotion, though there are many who would disagree (witness observational studies of animals who form bonds of what appear to be friendship across species).

In any event, when a writer chooses a point of view character s/he is choosing the character with whom the reader is to identify. When done well, the reader sees the world through this POV character’s eyes and heart, understands the driving motives, and cheers for a positive outcome for that character. Perhaps empathy is a characteristic one either has or not. But (in my opinion) all good writers must have it. If you don’t care, if you don’t laugh or cry, why would the reader?

Thrill Writers, The Company You Keep - Does Your Character Act "Out of Character" in a Group Dynamic?

Rational and Irrational Behavior in Your Characters: Guest Post on Thrill Writers

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Thrill Writers, Rational and Irrational Behavior in Your Characters: Info for Writers with Dr. Vivian Lawry
I was thrilled to do an on-line interview with Fiona Quinn for her blog, Thrill Writing. Here’s a snippet from “Rational and Irrational Behavior in Your Characters,” a post I hope will give insight into writing believable characters. You can read the full interview at Fiona’s blog.

Today, Vivian,  we are going to wrestle with a complex part of the human psyche. In our plots, we try to make the story conform to what a rational person would do, but the truth is that given the right circumstances, motivation, and perception, anyone is capable of anything. Would you help us to understand this concept?

Vivian – 
Circumstances refers to options and constraints.
Motivation refers to what drives the person.
Perception is what the person thinks is going on.

All of these offer writers lots of room for making anything happen—believably.

Fiona – 
Can you describe the famous Zimbardo prison experiment to give context?

Vivian – 
The Zimbardo prison experiment is classic! Here’s a quick and dirty overview that hits the highpoints:

The basic question was whether ordinary people would/could be as cruel as Nazi concentration camp guards, or whether the Nazis were truly aberrant.

So they advertised in newspapers around Palo Alto, CA, for people to participate in a paid psychological study. Volunteers were screened with all the psychological tests they could think of to make sure they were healthy, stable personalities. Then they were RANDOMLY assigned to be either prisoners or guards. The guards were issued uniforms and reflecting sunglasses.

The prisoners–all men– were picked up from their homes by real police cars, sirens blasting, handcuffed, and taken to the “jail”, which had been created in the basement of a campus building. They were stripped of their street clothes and issued night-shirt type garments, flip-flops for shoes, and stockings on their heads to simulate a shaved head. The prisoners were given no directions (as far as I recall).

The guards–also all men–were told to maintain order.

In a matter of days the prisoners were depressed, plotting a break-out, weeping, and compliant with the guards. The guards, for no apparent reason, had become controlling and abusive. They told the prisoners to stand in line and count-off repeatedly, or do push-ups till they collapsed. One guard made them do push-ups while pressing his foot on their backs. The experimenters terminated the experiment early. And I should mention that everyone involved got counseling and so forth after. But the strength of this work is demonstrating the incredible power of circumstances in shaping behavior. These two groups of people differed only in which circumstance they were randomly assigned to.

Read my full interview here.

Thank you, Fiona! And thank you for reading.

GREAT MEMOIR

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According to David Henry Sterry, speaking this morning at the James River Writers Conference, the key to great memoir is to have lots of really horrendous things happen to you and you don’t die.

Virginia Is For Mysteries on a Roll!

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The Virginia Festival of the Book Crime Wave just ended, and I am dancing. Five contributors to VIFM presented a panel yesterday. More than 100 people attended, very receptive, good questions. The bookstore serving the Festival sold out of the books they brought AND all the books they could scrounge for consignment. Today we learned that Virginia Is For Mysteries was the best-selling book in the Crime Wave track! Book signings and talks are scheduled through February ’15! I’ll have to get off my duff and post the schedule as these events draw near.

 

I’d post a picture of me with Lisa Scottoline but my eyelids are at half-mast and I look half-smashed—just a smudge better than my driver’s license photo!

January, 2014, Appearances and Speaking Events

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I am pleased to be speaking several times early in 2014!

 

I will be at the Library of Virginia January 9 at 5:30 p.m. for the launch of the short story anthology, Virginia is for Mysteries.

 

January 10, 10:00 a.m., The Hermitage at Cedarfield, Richmond, VA. I will be discussing my first Chesapeake Bay Mystery, Dark Harbor. Free and open to the public

 

January 11, 11:00-1:00, Chesterfield Library, .  I will participate in a panel discussion of Virginia is for Mysteries  for the Central Virginia Chapter of Sisters in Crime. Free ad open to the public.

 

Jauary 21, 7:00 p.m., Historic Hanover Tavern, Hanover Courthouse, VA.  I will be discussing fact and fiction in my short story “Death Comes to Hollywood Cemetery.” Free and open to the public.