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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33008
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

It's a lot like the others have already said. If you want it to have an impact, you need to state it clearly. One tool ideal for this is repetition, like Secespitus mentioned ("What would my mother do?")

The trouble with this was also clearly pointed out: it makes your character flat, and flat characters aren't interesting.

While I agree with Mark Baker, that using a specific formula (like the Hero's Journey) would make it clear what the character loves, it also binds you to a formula, and not every story can handle that.

So here's take. It doesn't matter what tools you use, it doesn't matter what formula you use, and it doesn't matter what feedback you get for having used them.

"HUH?! That makes no sense!!"

Well. Let me explain how I write, and the feedback I get based on that. I write primarily in 1st person, though I do 3rd person close (meaning still 3rd, but so intimately close to the Point of View character that you're constantly in their head). So every word written is in that character's voice.

Readers connect to my characters, because they hear them, see through their eyes, and even with my current WIP, where the PoV character barely says a word, you are never left guessing where she is, or what she thinks. Because how they perceive things matters, and it colours how they experience it.

Look for yourself:

> Name? Djara skipped that, being unable to ask her unconscious patient much of anything.
> 
> Species? Usagi, she wrote, wondering why they would still go by the name a madman gave them. Habit trumped logic once again, it would seem.
> 
> Race? Eyeing her patient, she wondered about that. She wasn’t positive, and there was no healer’s spell to aid her. Overall build was little different to Kitarou’s, though there were obvious differences. Not the least of which was him being a tundra usagi buck.
> 
> Bipedal, lean, two mammary glands on the chest—hinting at one to two offspring per pregnancy. Opposable thumbs, four digits per limb, and complex vocal cords at least suggested this one was of the sapient races, but… Four prehensile limbs and a fluffy tail. Really, the tail looked more like a deer’s little tuft than a natural rabbit’s scut. Average height for an usagi, so she was neither a dwarf nor a giant. Djara was dealing with a rabbit race, not a hare—the relatively short ears, and the less defined glutes and thighs confirmed as much.

I'm not saying I wrote it perfect, but had I presented this in any other way, it would be an info dump. Instead, I show Djara, my MC, as a doctor type, perhaps even a researcher. All the while showing that this character she is analysing is an anthropomorphic rabbit, while never once calling her that.

In writing that chapter in that tone, I either break rules or come so close to it that it's essentially the same thing. You, as a writer, have to know the rules, and know when to bend or outright break them. Because the only hard and fast rule, the only law that must never be broken is:

## Captivate your readers.

Everything else is merely a tool to be used in adhering to the above mentioned law.

Original score: 2