INTELLIGENCE SKILLS AFFIRMATION

97 character motivations

Need a masterlist of character motivation ideas?

Here’s 97 different character motivations you can use for anything from your hero, side-characters, villain, or even to craft smaller subplots. Save this post for later!

Saving a family member from capture

Saving a sibling from disease

Saving a pet from danger

Saving the world from ruin

Saving a friend from heartbreak

Saving the town from financial ruin

Saving friends from dangerous deadly situations

Saving a love interest from dying

Saving themselves in a dangerous world

Saving a community from falling apart

Saving a child from a potentially dangerous circumstance

Saving a place or location from evil forces

Saving a ghost from limbo

Overcoming a phobia

Overcoming an addiction

Overcoming marital struggles

Moving on from loss

Finding a significant other

Finding a new family (not blood-related)

Finding true biological family

Finding out an old secret

Finding a way home

Reconnecting with long-lost friends

Getting out of a dark state of mind

Finding peace in life

Beating a disease

Beating an arch nemesis

Forming a peaceful community

Transforming a location

Bringing someone back to life

Winning a competition

Going on an adventure

Getting a dream job

Keeping a secret

Escaping a location of capture

Proving a moral point

Proving a political point

Winning a political campaign

Betray someone

Ruin someone’s life

Find a suspect or killer

Find the answer to a mystery

Discover ancient sites & secret histories

Perform a successful ritual

Summon the dead

Save a country from dictatorship

Become the most powerful in a community

Outshine a family member in business success

Prove someone wrong

Win prize money to help someone in need

Get revenge on someone who wronged them

Find the person who wronged them

Develop significant scientific progress

Gain respect from family

Get over an ex-lover

Move on from a painful death

Keep their community alive

Lead their community

Heal people in need

Preserve a species (animal, alien, plant…)

Discover new world

Get recognition for hard work

Become famous

Get rich to prove themselves to people who doubted them

Break a long tradition

Challenge the status quo of a community

Defeat a magical nemesis

Take over a location to rule

Find out truth behind old legends

Help someone get over their struggles

Prove their moral values

Prove their worth to an external party

Become a supernatural creature

Keep something from falling into the wrong hands

Protect the only person they care about

Start a revolution

Invent new technology

Invent a new weapon

Win a war

Fit in with a community

Atone for past sins

Give top-secret information to an enemy as revenge

Kill an ex-lovers current partner

Reinvent themselves

Raise a strong child

Make it to a location in a strict time period

Find faith

Find enlightenment

Find out more about the afterlife

Confess love to a friend

Solve a moral dilemma

Have a child of their own

Avoid being alone

Run away from past struggles

Reinvent themselves as a new person

Impress a colleague or boss

Avoid a fight or war breaking out

’𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦’𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑠’ 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠:

(LGBTQ+ affs)

༄ my family and friends support me no matter what my sexuality is

༄ my parents love me no matter what

༄ my family and friends are happy I had the courage to come out

༄ i have the strength to come out (if you haven’t all ready)

༄ my ’coming out’ was successful

༄ i easily come out with the utmost love and support

༄ i feel fully at peace with who I am and what my sexuality is

༄ i fully accept myself

༄ i feel confident in my sexuality

༄ i am immune to experiencing homophobia/transphobia, discrimination, and hatred

༄ i have finally found myself

༄ i love myself

༄ i am immune to any internalized homophobia, biphobia, transphobia etc directed towards myself

༄ i am immune from getting bullied about my sexual or gender identity

༄ my family and friend fully support the idea of me wanting to transition

༄ i am immune to ever being dead-named

༄ everyone is proud I had the courage to come out

༄ i am able to fully express who I am

༄ my parents wouldn’t have me any other way

A (Non-Exhaustive) List of (Red-ish) Flags In Writing

Particularly when writing people with a marginalized identity that you don't hold, it can be hard to tell what is an issue if you're not familiar with it. Research should be your main reference point, but sometimes you need to go with your instincts.

Here is a very non-exhaustive list of things that should flag to you that you need to take another look at it and do some more research:

Is a person/culture/group presented as "backwards", irrational, un-modern, or uniformly aggressive?

Am I using coded language (e.g. thug, slut, slow) to describe a character?

Am I associating sexual habits or preferences with a certain race, religion, gender, or class?

Am I dismissing or making light of devestating historical events that appear or are referenced in the story?

Am I prioritizing the rehabilitation of individuals or groups who commited violence, particularly at the expense of those who experienced that violence?

Are my characters, particularly my marginalized characters, embodying stereotypes with no other characteristics?

Do my marginalized characters exist simply so I can say I have included marginalized characters?

Am I applying every marginalization to one character so that I don't have to "deal with it" in other characters?

Do marginalizations, particularly disabilities, only appear when convenient?

Do marginalized characters, particularly Characters of Color, exist only to guide or care for white characters?

White allies do better....

Stop with the "oh well I'm white and i agree" or the "I'm white and I'm sorry for us" on posts about racism

Stop with the lengthy apologizes when you do something small like write the above on posts and someone calls you out on it

Stop asking me for my opinon on what this famous black person did

Stop asking me for my opinion on if a thing is racist or not

Stop asking me to explain basic racist shit to you

Stop telling black people about the time you called your racist uncle out on his racism or the protests you went to

Stop asking for my opinion on things you did that you're scared is racist/has racist undertones

Stop with the white guilt... It ain't helpin nobody

Stop asking one black person for their opinion on something about race... You gotta ask more black people if you want an accurate representation of something because not all of us are the same/think the same thing

Stop treating black people like we're "professors" on racism

Google is free. Can y'all please start treating black people like actual people and not someone to teach you about racism. It's exhausting

Villain things I want to see more of

Actually funny. Not making jokes at other people's expense, not the butt of the joke, just villains that have absurd senses of humour and top-notch intentional comedic timing,

CHARISMA!!! Please, can we have more charming villains, villains that can sway a crowd, villains that get away with things because their too polite, too well-spoken, too funny to possibly to evil.

Respected. Villains whose villainous deeds have led them to success and made them widely respected members of society. To be clear, this isn't respected person who is secretly evil. No. I mean, the bad things they've done are the reason they're respected.

Let them win. Let them win because their plan succeeded. Not because the protagonists fucked up, not by pure luck. Let them earn their victories.

Supporters! Lots of them. The more powerful your villain is, the more supporters they are going to need. If the evil king is unpopular with everyone he's not going to stay king for long. He needs allies, lots of them, especially if he's a tyrant.

Knows how to play the game. Manipulative villains who say whatever they have to to get their way, chose their allies and enemies carefully, bribe and blackmail, play the victim, the hero, or even the innocent when it suits them. Make it hard for your protagonists to convince anyone they are a villain at all.

Cold Steel. Give me villains that don't get angry easy, that laugh things off, that kill because it's efficient and for no other reason.

Clever and creative. Strategists who always have a trick up their sleeve and problem solvers with personal flare.

Show other characters reacting with fear. Nothing rams home how terrifying a villain is quite like watching other powerful characters fall to their knees--fast--when they walk in the room.

Irredeemable despite their tragic backstories. For the love of god people, tragic backstories do not justify a villain's actions. You can have empathy for what they've endured while still expecting them to take responsibility for what they've become.

Unconventionally attractive. Take this however you want. I, for one, would like to see more tortured bad boys who aren't white and shredded. But also, villains whose attractiveness lies in how they talk, their body language and facial expressions, and their outfits. Why do y'all think smirking is such a popular word??

Love. Let them love their spouses, their children, their friends. Not in an abusive way either. Let them have healthy relationships with their still living wives, daughters, sons, comrades in arms etc.

Kind. Give me villains who tip well, who put their own garbage away even though the servants could do it, who remember their henchmen's names, who are good with kids, who donate to charity and not just for the tax incentives

is it just me or do all writers have ✨that✨ character? y'know, the one you think about before falling asleep that lingers in your mind just a little longer than all the rest? that character whose scenes make you smile while writing? that character who if you met in real life you'd cry while shaking their hand? you know, the reason you write. the reason you haven't quit by now—✨them✨

Resources For Describing Characters

Physical Appearance

Arms

Athletic Build

Back

Butts

Cheeks

Chest

Chins

Curvy Build

Ears

Eyebrows

Eyes

Faces

Facial Hair

Feet

Fingernails

Fingers

Hair

Hands

Head

Hips

Jaws

Knees

Legs

Lips

Muscular Build

Neck

Noses

Shoulders

Slender Build

Sickly Build

Skin

Stocky Build

Stomach

Teeth

Toenails

Toes

Underweight Build

Character Traits

Affectionate

Ambitious

Bossy

Brave

Calm

Cautious

Charismatic

Clever

Conceited

Courageous

Creative

Critical

Curious

Determined

Diplomatic

Dishonest

Disorganized

Eccentric

Excitable

Friendly

Funny

Generous

Glamorous

Guarded

Honest

Impulsive

Independent

Intelligent

Just

Kind

Loyal

Manipulative

Mature

Modest

Mysterious

Naïve

Optimistic

Prejudiced

Persistent

Proper

Responsible

Sensitive

Sentimental

Serious

Shy

Reckless

Stingy

Stubborn

Talented

Thoughtful

Thrifty

Visionary

Wise

Witty

Worry Wart

Wounded

Talents & Skills

A Knack for Languages

A Knack for Making Money

A Way with Animals

Archery

Astral Projection

Astrological Divination

Baking

Basic First Aid

Blending In

Carpentry

Charm

ESP (Clairvoyance)

Empathy

Enhanced Hearing

Enhanced Sense of Smell

Enhanced Taste Buds

Farming

Fishing

Foraging

Gaining the Trust of Others

Gaming

Gardening

Good Listening Skills

Haggling

Herbalism

Hospitality

Hot-Wiring a Car

High Pain Tolerance

Knife Throwing

Knowledge of Explosives

Lip-Reading

Lying

Making People Laugh

Mechanically Inclined

Mentalism

Mimicking

Multitasking

Musicality

Organization

Parkour

Photographic Memory

Predicting the Weather

Promotion

Psychokinesis

Reading People

Regeneration

Repurposing

Sculpting

Self-Defense

Sewing

Sharpshooting

Sleight-of-Hand

Strategic Thinking

Strong Breath Control

Super Strength

Survival Skills

Swift-footedness

Talking With The Dead

Throwing One’s Voice

Whittling

Wilderness Navigation

Wrestling

Elemental Abilities

Miscellaneous

Voices

Voice Types

Speech Patterns

Speech Impediment

List of Character Flaws

List of Archetypes

Hairstyles

Describing Body Types & How They Move Around

Secrets To Give Your Character

Support Wordsnstuff!

Request A Writing Help Post/Themed Playlist/Writing Tips!

Send Me Poetry To Feature On Our Instagram!

Receive Updates & Participate In Polls On Our Twitter!

Like us and share on Facebook!

Read More On Our Masterlist & See our Frequently Asked Questions!

Tag What You Want Me To See With #wordsnstuff!

Participate in monthly writing challenges!

'Don't be afraid to write crap because crap makes great fertilizer.' - Jessica Brody

This is why I chose writing as my coping mechanism.

why do ships hit so much harder when they aren't explicitly canon. why do i choose homoerotic subtext over genuine representation every single time

Anyway this Twitter thread by NK Jemisin is all I care about