Character Motivation: Pain and Illness

One of the more difficult challenges you face when you create a story is that the hero needs to be smart enough to get out of a jam, but dumb enough to get into it in the first place. I wonder if an illness could be used to explain the lapse.

I wrote about character motivation before. You can read a couple of my earlier discussions at the links at the end of this post.

I've thought about the possibility of illness as a motivation for a character's behaviour for a while now.

Can Illness or Pain Affect People's Behaviour?

Illness and pain have affected many of my own decisions. More that once I made bad decisions because some pain or illness distracted my thoughts. I remember meetings where I agreed to something I later regretted because I just wanted the meeting to end so I could go home to bed. I expect that other people have done the same thing.

I read recently that up to a third of people have to cope with chronic pain. Not everyone reacts the same way. Pain can lead some people to become very selfish, while others may have the opposite reaction and develop greater empathy for other people.

"The Crying Woman"

I can think of only one character I created where pain or illness could impact their decisions. The character Johnny in "The Crying Woman" has an illness. When I wrote the story, I didn't consciously think about that as a motivation for his character. I did use it as an explanation for why the character Mary didn't recognize him.

In the story Johnny shows a lot of empathy. When I wrote the story, I thought this was based on his previous experience with Mary. It could also be that with his experience with his illness has made him more aware of the struggles that other people have in life. This must be a factor, since his situation is much worse than hers, and yet that doesn't diminish his empathy.

Other Stories

Pain and illness do show up in many stories.

·         There are stories where pain or illness are obstacles that a character needs to overcome.

·         There are stories where pain or illness is used to create empathy for the character.

·         There are stories where pain or illness is used to remove a character from active involvement in the story.

I don't remember any stories where pain or illness is used as a character flaw to cause a character's bad decision. This may represent the limits my own knowledge. There may be many stories where pain and illness are important factors in a character's behaviour that I am just not aware of. Maybe other people can name examples.

Opportunities

This strikes me as a missed opportunity. As I noted above, many people have to struggle with pain and illness in their lives and these pains and illnesses directly impact their decisions.

I don't want to become an evangelist and push others to use pain and illness for character motivation. However, in future, I will be open to these as motivators in my own stories.

Related Posts

Don't Let Your Heroes Be Stupid

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/articles/dont-let-your-heroes-be-stupid/

Can Cognitive Biases Help Me With Character Motivations

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/can-cognitive-biases-help-me-with-character-motivations/

The Crying Woman

http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-crying-woman/

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Can Cognitive Biases Help Me With Character Motivations?

One of the challenges of writing a story is that the protagonist needs to be dumb enough to get into trouble, but smart enough to get out of trouble. It occurred to me that cognitive biases could provide easier explanations for a character's bad choices. Characters need to make bad decisions in order for there to be a story, but they can't make a bad decision just for the sake of the story.

I originally became interested in cognitive biases because I saw them as an explanation for why "those people" acted so dumb. Later, I realized that I am often suffer from the same biases in my thinking. When I came across a few articles on cognitive bias recently, it struck me that I could use them in my writing.

What is a cognitive bias?

There are several explanations for why we have cognitive biases. My impression is that most reflect thinking shortcuts or the limitations in our brains. They can lead to what appears to be irrational behaviour.

Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases includes about 170 different biases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Some examples:

• Confirmation bias is when people tend to accept information that supports their current view, and reject information that does not support their view.
• Anchoring is where people place more emphasis on their initial impressions than on later, often better quality, information.
• Self-serving bias is where people interpret information in ways that make them look better.
• Money illusion  is where people focus on the face value of money rather than its purchasing power.

One thing to keep in mind is that these biases are tendencies, and people can learn to set them aside when they actively want to avoid bias in their thinking. There is some evidence that cognitive biases may vary from one culture to another.

More information on cognitive biases can be found on the links below.

"Day of the Jackal"

When I started to think about cognitive bias as an explanation of character behaviour, I remembered the book and movie "Day of the Jackal". In the first part of the story, the Jackal is portrayed as a very rational contract killer. He tells the people that hired him that as a professional he would call off the assassination if his own life was in danger. Later in the story, when he learns that the police are aware of his plan, he decides to go ahead. This comes across as an irrational choice, especially given his earlier statement.

The book implies that his desire for the money drives him to his decision. However, his choice can also be explained in terms of cognitive biases.

Since he has been successful in all his previous jobs, he is subject to the overconfidence effect. He downplays the likelihood of failure and the overestimates the chances of success. His past experience may also give him an illusory superiority bias, where he over estimates his own ability and underestimates the ability of the police.

The explanation given in the book, that the desire for money drives his decision, is an example of optimism bias, or wishful thinking. He thinks that because he wants the money that he will get it.

"The Barrier"

See: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/

Cognitive biases can explain some of the behaviour of characters in my movie. Some decisions by the character Brandon Baker can be seen as examples of cognitive bias.

Brandon had done a study of the barrier himself some ten years earlier and decided it wasn't needed. Brandon rejection of Arthur's proposal could be an example of anchoring. He gives more weight to his own work years earlier than on both Ling's and Arthur's later work.

At the end, when it appears that the barrier was, in fact, needed, Brandon claims that he felt that way all along. This is a clear case of self serving bias. Outcome bias may also be a factor. Because of the way things turn out, it seems that the barrier was needed. The outcome may not invalidate his original rejection of the proposal. In the movie I didn't address this possibility.

What I see as one of the weak points of the story is the behaviour of the developer, Vincent Campbell. Too much of what he does seems to be for the sake of the plot. I think I can use cognitive biases to craft him into a more believable character. As I think over his role, I can see examples of superiority bias, confirmation bias, and the false consensus effect. I think that if I take a more detailed look at Campbell's behaviour I can find ways to explain the behaviour or alter it to make it reflect a cognitive bias.

Can I Use Cognitive Bias?

Time will tell, but I'm confident that I can use cognitive biases in creating my characters. Of course that could be the overconfidence effect at work.

More Information on Cognitive Biases

• http://io9.com/5974468/the-most-common-cognitive-biases-that-prevent-you-from-being-rational
• http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2014-6?op=1
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_control
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog