Behind the Pen: Everybody Has a Why

Behind the Pen: Everybody Has a Why

What Writing Complicated Characters Has Taught Me About Motivation, Consequences, and Growth

One thing I’ve learned through writing fiction is that everybody has a reason for doing what they do. Now, whether that reason makes sense, whether it’s justified, or whether anybody else agrees with it is an entirely different conversation.

But there’s always a why.

I’ve had conversations with my editor about this very thing. One of the reasons I include so much information in my books is because I want readers to understand my characters beyond their actions. I don’t want you to simply know what somebody did. I want you to understand what brought them to that decision in the first place.

That doesn’t mean I’m asking you to agree with them.

Sometimes, understanding a character’s reasoning might make you sympathize with them. Other times, it might make you dislike them even more. Either way, I want you to have enough insight to form your own opinion.

And the more time I’ve spent developing the characters in The Crowned Series, the more I’ve found myself returning to three particular lessons.

Everybody Has a Reason

People are complicated. Fictional people should be, too.

A character’s decisions don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re influenced by their upbringing, their experiences, their relationships, their fears, their ambitions, and sometimes the things they’ve never fully dealt with.

That history matters.

It’s easy to label a character selfish, reckless, manipulative, or irrational based on a single decision. But what happens when you understand the experiences that shaped their thinking? What happens when you realize they’re responding to something much deeper than the situation directly in front of them?

You might still think they’re wrong. And that’s perfectly fine.

Understanding someone’s reasoning is not the same as excusing their behavior.

For me, that distinction is important. I don’t believe every character needs to be likable. I don’t even believe every character needs to be redeemable. But I do believe their actions should make sense within the context of who they are.

That’s why I spend time giving my characters backgrounds, histories, and motivations. Their why is just as important to me as their what.

Love Doesn’t Erase Consequences

Another thing writing has reinforced for me is that love and accountability can exist in the same space.

You can genuinely love somebody and still hurt them. You can have good intentions and still make a terrible decision. You can believe you’re protecting someone while doing something that ultimately causes them pain.

And loving somebody doesn’t automatically undo that damage.

This is something I’ve explored through Noble and Solace’s relationship in Claimed and Challenged. Their love is real, but that doesn’t mean either of them is immune to making mistakes or dealing with the consequences of those mistakes.

I think relationships become more believable on the page when characters aren’t magically forgiven simply because their intentions were good or because they love each other.

Sometimes, an apology is only the beginning.

Trust may have to be rebuilt. Difficult conversations may need to happen. People may need time to process what they’ve experienced.

And sometimes, even after all of that, things don’t return to the way they were before.

That’s part of life, and I believe it belongs in fiction, too.

Growth Isn’t Always Graceful

If there’s one thing my characters have reminded me of, it’s that growth is rarely a straight line.

We like to imagine that once someone recognizes a problem, they immediately change their behavior and never repeat the mistake.

But people don’t always work that way.

Sometimes, they know better and still struggle to do better. Sometimes, they make progress in one area while continuing to stumble in another. Sometimes, they take two steps forward and three steps back.

And sometimes, the very experiences that force them to grow are the ones they never would have chosen for themselves.

When I’m developing a character, I don’t want their transformation to feel convenient. I want their growth to reflect the challenges they’ve faced and the work they’ve had to do to move beyond them.

That might mean allowing them to make frustrating decisions. It might mean letting them struggle longer than readers would prefer. It might even mean allowing them to experience consequences that can’t be neatly resolved by the end of a chapter.

Because growth isn’t always pretty.

And that’s okay.

The People Behind the Pages

At the end of the day, one of my biggest goals as a writer is to create characters who feel like people rather than pieces moving around a plot.

People have histories. They have contradictions. They have reasons for the things they do, even when those reasons aren’t particularly good ones.

They love. They hurt. They make mistakes. They grow. Sometimes, they refuse to grow.

And all of those things contribute to who they are.

I want readers to be able to step into my characters’ worlds and understand what makes them tick. I want you to question their decisions, recognize their flaws, celebrate their victories, and occasionally want to reach through the pages and shake some sense into them.

Trust me, sometimes I understand that last feeling. 😂

But most importantly, I want you to recognize the humanity in them.

Because for me, writing a compelling character isn’t about creating somebody who always makes the right decision.

It’s about creating somebody whose decisions have a reason, whose actions have consequences, and whose experiences leave them changed.

And sometimes, the most interesting part of a character’s story isn’t what happens to them.

It’s who they become because of it.