Character Motivation Entry: Protecting One’s Home or Property

What does your character want? This is an important question to answer because it determines what your protagonist hopes to achieve by the story’s end. If the goal, or outer motivation, is written well, readers will identify fairly quickly what the overall story goal’s going to be and they’ll know what to root for. But how do you know what outer motivation to choose?

[image error]If you read enough books, you’ll see the same goals being used for different characters in new scenarios. Through this thesaurus, we’d like to explore these common outer motivations so you can see your options and what those goals might look like on a deeper level.

Character’s Goal (Outer Motivation): Protecting One’s Home or Property

Forms This Might Take:

Protecting one’s home against the elements (a forest fire, a tropical storm)
Protecting one’s community during a civil war or attack
Protecting one’s farm from those wishing to seize one’s property and assets
Protecting one’s property from animals or creatures intent on doing harm
Warding off a supernatural attack
Safeguarding a keep
Safeguarding a lab or facility
Protecting an embassy or government building from terrorists or hostiles
Protecting one’s neighborhood during a riot
Protecting one’s home from the undead
Warding off attacks from renegade militant groups
Keeping pirates from boarding one’s ship
Protecting one’s home and family from violent individuals (a home invasion)
Protecting a church, school, business, or other building one feels ownership of during times of violence and unrest
Protecting one’s property from government agencies seeking to dismantle the group or organization within (a cult, an extremist group, etc.)
Protecting one’s business from rivals seeking to steal trade secrets, patents, or other information

Human Need Driving the Goal (Inner Motivation): safety and security

How the Character May Prepare for This Goal:

Investigating one’s enemy to better understand their strengths and weaknesses
Choosing a peaceful approach and attempting to work with those who represent a danger to one’s home or community by offering something they need (supplies, information, access to resources, etc.) in exchange for not interfering
Gathering resources so one can operate independently for a period of time if necessary (food, water, medicine, etc.)
Fortifying one’s home (boarding up windows, barring doors, installing shutters, reinforcing walls or other parts of the structure)
Placing guards and lookouts around one’s community
Creating natural traps and fortifications (digging pits, building perimeter walls and enclosures,burying mines, etc.)
Altering the landscape for protection (removing trees for greater visibility, creating a fire break, etc.)
Installing security systems
Hiring protective forces
Entering a training program (for weapons, hand-to-hand combat, defense, etc.)
Purchasing weapons
Investigating how to create homemade explosives
Studying building blueprints for vulnerabilities
Preparing an escape route
Digging an underground tunnel network or sewer system for strategic movement around the property or to use as an escape if necessary
Making plans and creating protocols for different situations that might happen
Reaching out to others for help (resources, manpower, weapons, protection)
Placing wards, sacred stones, or other spiritual protections around one’s home
Arranging for a blessing or spiritual cleansing of one’s home
Buying protective gear (gas masks, protective suits, etc.)
Investing in surveillance (cameras, listening devices, security guards, metal detectors, alarms, etc.)
Installing safes, panic rooms, or other fortified areas as a last resort if the home or building is breached

Possible Sacrifices or Costs Associated With This Goal:

Damaged relationships between family members or neighbors who may not see eye to eye on the path forward
Destruction of one’s property during an assault
A loved one being injured or killed
Running up debt to purchase what one needs to protect one’s home
Impaired judgement from a lack of sleep or paranoia due to stress
Being injured while protecting one’s home
Losing special mementos or having one’s assets damaged
Losing one’s standing in one’s community
Being viewed as paranoid or extreme by others for one’s protective measures
An innocent accidentally being hurt by one’s own defenses (a trap, friendly fire, etc.)

Roadblocks Which Could Prevent This Goal from Being Achieved:

A traitor who flips and secretly helps those who are seeking to overtake one’s home
An enemy who is well-equipped and well-manned
An enemy who is patient, and willing to wait it out until one is forced to give up (when resources run out, or a critical need emerges, like needing access to a doctor or medicine)
A fire breaking out that creates chaos and weakens one’s defenses
Having a home that is difficult to fortify (it has lots of windows, it is not in a defensible position, the property is so large it is impossible to surveil well, etc.)
Being pressured by one’s neighbors to give up because they have, losing one’s “strength in numbers” position
The enemy having access to a weapon that one cannot counter (a biological weapon, a supernatural force, technology that reveals one’s position to the enemy, etc.)
Running out of supplies
Sleep deprivation, an illness, or injuries that weaken one to the point that defense is difficult if not impossible
The enemy capturing someone one loves and using them as a chess piece

Talents & Skills That Will Help the Character Achieve This Goal:

A Knack for Languages
Archery
Astral Projection
Basic First Aid
Good Listening Skills
Blending In
Carpentry
Gaining the Trust of Others
ESP (Clairvoyance)
Enhanced Hearing
Enhanced Sense of Smell
Enhanced Taste Buds
Foraging
Charm
Hot-Wiring a Car
High Pain Tolerance
Knife Throwing
Knowledge of Explosives
Lip-Reading
Lying
Mechanically Inclined
A Knack for Making Money
Multitasking
Organization
Photographic Memory
Psychokinesis
Reading People
Repurposing
Self-Defense
Sharpshooting
Strategic Thinking
Super Strength
Survival Skills
Swift-footedness
Wilderness Navigation
Wrestling

Possible Fallout For the Protagonist if This Goal Is Not Met:

The loss of wealth, status, power, and property
Making an enemy that puts one in even greater danger
Losing one’s livelihood as a result of forfeiting one’s home or property
Becoming homeless
Losing whatever one was trying to protect (a family member, a priceless artifact, cherished objects, a cure for an illness, a special prototype, etc.)
Items falling into the wrong hands (weapons, a virus that can be weaponized, sensitive documents, etc.)

Click here for a list of our current entries for this thesaurus, along with a master post containing information on the individual fields.
Image: 3557203 @Pixabay

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