Conflict or GMC

GMC?
I've heard this acronym a few times during my blog hopping.
Briefly it means Goal Motivation Conflict.

All our characters come to the story with their own backgrounds, battle scars and inner conflict.
Well, they should do anyway, to make your story and characters believable to your readers.

Kate Walker in her 12 point guide to Writing Romance (excellent book!) tells us that the most important element of conflict is internal, the stuff that goes on in the character's head, the stuff that gives reason to their thoughts and actions. As a writer we must use this internal conflict so show character growth, how they change in order to achieve their HEA.
Kate explains (p 43) that the emotions involved in the characters internal conflict, affect the character's thinking, but they are unaware of them.
The internal conflict comes out when the Hero and Heroine meet and clash, this forces them to each face their own fears or inner demons.

I realised after writing a good 5k of my Status Quo story that i didn't really have a good handle on my characters conflicts.
So using what i've picked up during my blog hopping i tried to break them down.

Goal: What the hero/ine wants
Motivation: Why they want it
Conflict: If the hero/ine wins the other loses.

For me (and i could be very, very wrong!), on examining my characters and some of the books i love, i've found two sets of GMC for each character. (I think this was brought about by the character questionnaire on Nicola Marsh's website!)
The first set is the clear goal and reason that we are given right at the beginning of the story - should be within the first few pages of meeting each of them.
Then as we read, we discover a deeper Goal and motivation - which to me is stemmed from the conflict of the first, but at a deeper layer.
Have i lost you?

Okay, a bit of behind the scenes look to hopefully help explain this!

So in my story Emma wants Matt. They have been best friends for ever and she has been in love with him for just about the same amount of time. But when they kissed on New Years, it was made plain to her that they were made for each other. He stirred her blood in a way no other man had come close to. And that's what she wants.
So Emma's initial GMC is
G: To have Matt,
M: She loves him and he stirs a passion in her she wants for life.
C: they are best friends and she could lose him by insisting on this.

Then as the story develops we learn that deep down Emma's goal is to love and be loved with a passion and foreverness otherwise missing in her life. Her motivation is from  how she felt in Matt's arms, how they are together doing mundane things. Her conflict, is that she may just not be good enough for the type of love and passion she desperately craves, after all her parents seemed to forget about her once they started their separate lives.

So, tell me. Do you think i've completely missed the point, or overcomplicated it?
How do you work out your characters conflict and motivations?

Music that Inspires

I am absolutely in love with a song at the moment. When i saw the video clip it cemented that love.
Okay, so it features snips from Breaking Dawn part 1 but that is not the only reason i love it.

To me it inspires the best romantic feelings. Of having waited and finally possessing the one you love.
Of eternal love.
Of being afraid to give yourself to someone so completely, but then knowing, just knowing that this is the person who is meant for you.

Yep, it's  A Thousand Years by Christina Perry.
Enjoy!

There are lots of writers out there who create musical playlists the represent the mood or feelings of their WIP, have this playing as they write them.

For The Price of Passion i had Closer by Ne-Yo which represented my heroes feelings perfectly, and for Billie it was Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis.

A Thousand Years has so much scope for me at the moment - it is representing Emma and her motivation in Saying No.

What song has inspired you recently?