Here’s another instance where I didn’t go deep enough into my character; I stopped when the details were still too general:

While traveling he realized how alive he feels when he’s able to speak a foreign language. (Previously he majored in linguistics and “can” speak 3 languages, but so far it’s all been theory.) I then wrote how connecting with foreigners by speaker their language becomes an addition for him. And he decides to extend his trip in order to keep doing that and have fun speaking a foreign language.

My coach said, “His decision to extend travel shouldn’t be for the joy of it. Give him something concrete he’s chasing.”

This is what she’s so good at, identifying what is a true motivation and what is a facade, appearing as a driving force in the character’s life, when in reality it’s something like simple joy which doesn’t actually motivate us to do much.

What would be much better is to say, he discovered how much he enjoys hearing the different versions of the Spanish tongue, so he extends travel with the goal of visiting every Spanish speaking country, to learn about their accents and slang.

Instantly our character becomes more visual.

* * *

Deeper: why does he enjoy hearing different versions of the Spanish tongue? What will get achieve by visiting all these Spanish speaking countries? What is his end prize? How does all this make him feel safe?

More concrete would be: he’s trying to woo a particular Spanish-speaking girl, and he believes if he could mimic all the language (for some reason to be justified) he could win her over.