Monday Moment #42: a writing prompt for your work-in-progress

(If you’ve already read this then skip past all the italicized blah-di-blah and start writing.) Monday Moments are writing prompts for your work-in-progress. They are questions that come from my experiences and are my favorite way to find out more about my characters. I find I learn a lot. Some of it I use. Some of it I don’t. But I always, always get to know my character(s) better just by answering the question. I hope you do too.

A big weekend ahead, friends! Are you all set? Made all your plans? Do you have your costume(s) in place?


Is it just me or does Halloween on a Saturday change the whole holiday? It has for me. It seems there are more parties (lots more parties) which increases the pressure to dress the part. The focus is usually on the girlies, but this year it's on the whole fam.


Our Halloween costume experience has been ALL OVER THE PLACE.


First, we thought we were set. We were inspired by another family who was going as a family of vampires. Great. Let's be a family theme. Even my parents were game. We had a plan. Alice in Wonderland. We thought it would be fab, and it would have been if it was easier to pull all those costumes together. The worst was trying to find an Alice costume for my seven-year old. I mean, really! Have you seen the costumes for little girls lately. Horrible. And inappropriate.


As Alice in Wonderland fell right down the rabbit hole, my 9 year-old girlie went back to her plan A: be a zombie! Which meant my 7 year-old girlie went back to her plan A: be what big sister is planning on being.


That left hubby and I with NO plan at all.


But then I had several thoughts, all for different reasons.

Since plan A...

...is toast, that means I could go with:

B.
Yes! I'm serious.

C.

(I found this cute little number HERE!)

or

D.(You can find the cute cowgirl coloring page HERE.)

There's a different motivation for each choice.

A. Family unity.

B. Funny! (really funny).

C. Pretty, and it helps me for reasons I won't yet disclose.

D. I have a cute new hat (but K-rap...I don't have boots

You'll have to wait until next week to find out, because I too have to wait to find out my decision since it's yet to be made.

That said, getting to our writing, character motivation is so important.

I know that a Halloween costume is not critically important, but it brings me to pose the question:

What's your character's motivation when making a critical decision?