: Re: Fleshing out the character motivation from the plot I decided to give a try to the snowflake method. The idea is that you gradually expand the story from a blurb into a full draft. This question

@Ogunnowo420

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I never used the snowflake method myself, even if I gave it a look sometime ago.

The problem with your abstract and concrete goals is that one is the specialization of the other.
After all "killing X because it did Y" is just a particular instance of "vengeance". So they are basically the same goal.

Another problem with this is that the abstract goal feels too abstract. Vengeance doesn't work without context, unless you want to write a character who wants to avenge everyone from the wrongdoings of everyone else. This somewhat remind me of Marvel's Punisher, but I may err.

You're rightly worried - it may be difficult to build an interesting character with this premise.

What it seems to me is that you have a possible case of characters waiting for the plot. You need someone to carry out a revenge, so you make vengeance his ultimate goal. That will give you a very focused character, but maybe an unrealistic, carton-board one. In order to feel real and interesting, characters must be complete - they can't be just props that spring up into motion as the plot happens.

Brandon Sanderson described this in one of his youtube lessons: imagine the plot as a train, driving the story forward. Characters can't be just people stainding near the rails, with grappling hooks, waiting for the train to get by and drag them on.
They will eventually board the passenger wagon and they will eventually exit, but they must exist outside of it. They must have reasons to get in and get out. The plot is allowed to take their lives and change them drastically, maybe even end them, but it should not define ultimately who they are.

Maybe a possible solution would be make the abstract goal different from the concrete one. The character must know, on some level, what he wants to do after he carries out his vengeance.

"I won't have peace until I'll see them in the grave" Jack said. "Then, maybe, I'll lay down my weapons and I'll go back to farming. Things will never be as they were, but I dream of dying in my armchair, looking at my apple orchard, as the sun sets."

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