What Motivates the Characters in The Space Between Breaths
Book Talk | Author Insights | Character Development
Setting up character motivation is like crafting a secret compass for the plot—a true north that guides every action, every choice, even the silences. It’s not enough to watch a character do something. We must know why.
In Buddhism, motivation is elegantly simple. Human behavior boils down to two fundamental impulses:
The desire to have happiness
The yearning to end suffering
With The Space Between Breaths, I assigned each major character one—or both—of these motivators as their hidden engine. Once I knew what they wanted on a soul-deep level, the rest began to unfold.
Lylarose Gentry – To stop suffering
Lyla’s path begins with revenge, but her deeper need is to feel something after a long time of feeling nothing. She is trying to thaw from a frozen grief and uses her pursuit of Keith not just as justice, but as a means of awakening.
Keith Allen – To have happiness
Keith believes power over vulnerable women will make him feel whole. He’s tragically wrong. A confused misogynist, he mistakes domination for fulfillment, causing only pain—especially his own.
Penelope Fine – Both
Penelope needs Lyla to be innocent because helping her would feel redemptive. But more than that, she can’t bear to lose the one person who’s helped her shoulder her own grief. Her motive is loyalty laced with desperation.
Peggy Gentry (aka Hurricane Peggy) – To stop suffering
Peggy is all ache and no outlet. She can’t recognize happiness even when it’s near. Her brief affairs and bitter words are flares of self-destruction, misfired attempts at relief that always burn those closest to her—especially her daughter.
Lawrence Gentry – To have happiness
All Lawrence wants is a peaceful life and a happy family. But rage simmers beneath his surface like a fault line. He loves deeply, but clumsily. And when that love crashes into his inability to express it, it leaves emotional debris behind.
Patricia Allen – Both
Pat wants Keith out of her life—for good. But her vengeance isn’t just practical (the lawsuits are draining her dry), it’s personal. She thinks his downfall will make her happy. And she’s not above using others to get it. (Looking at you, Officer Johnson.)
Officer Brault – To stop suffering (of others)
If The Space Between Breaths has a Buddha figure, it’s Officer Brault. Calm. Compassionate. Capable. He sees people, not cases. He doesn’t rescue so much as bear witness, a quiet force for peace in a sea of turmoil.
Officers Markel, Mesa, Putnicki – To have happiness
They find purpose in the badge. For them, doing the job well brings pride, identity, and the satisfaction of a day rightly spent.
Topaz – To stop suffering
Topaz controls because she cares. Deeply. But her grip is tightest when she’s most afraid. Her need to fix everything stems from the belief that if she gets it all just right, maybe the pain will stop. Maybe then, everyone will be safe.
In the end, all the people in The Space Between Breaths are navigating that liminal space between joy and sorrow—between revenge and redemption. That cycle, from grasping to release, from pain to peace and back again, is the very essence of samsara.
And still they try.
Because wanting happiness—or a little less suffering—is the most human thing in the world.
