Writer, on writing

GMC.

It stands for Goal, Motivation, Conflict. This acronym is tossed around a lot in modern writing circles (especially among romance writers). It comes from the Debra Dixon book entitled, oddly enough, Goal, Motivation and Conflict.

What is means is that when you write your characters, you need to keep in mind their ultimate goal, what is motivating them towards that goal, and what stands in the way of that goal.

Or, to put it another way, it is the writerly equivalent of a character standing up and shouting “What do we want? When do we want it?” and what they do when The Man shows up with tear gas and rubber bullets.

It is a very powerful part of the writer’s toolbox.

And back at the beginning, it took me probably about a month to figure out that when people were talking about GMC, they weren’t talking about trucks…