Motivation

"What's my motivation?"

It's a phrase most readily associated with actors - and a question that, as a writer, you should be able to answer immediately.

Ideally, the motivation of your characters should be obvious from the script. It's simply a fact of life, however, that actors don't always study the script particularly closely.

They should, of course - but that doesn't mean they always do.

In our experience, however, the real professionals nearly always read the script in advance.

It's reasonable to assume, therefore, that any question they have is legitimate: though a good director will often encourage the...