by Chris McMahon
Is building sympathy for your character the key to hooking a reader?
Beginnings – and hooking the reader – have always been my bugbear. Big complex plots, interweaving stories, multiple characters, action scenes – no problem. Getting someone to read the story in the first place – Big Problem.
The difficulty is that what one reader responds to in a character is often vastly different to another – in fact often diametrically opposed. One reader’s cool detached hero is another’s arrogant, insufferable narcissist.
I used to come home from critique groups puzzled by contradictory comments that made little sense until the penny finally dropped. If people don’t like your characters, they will just not gel with your story. Once you reach that stage the critter will start (often unconsciously) working overtime to find all the things ‘wrong’ with your piece, when the real problem is that it simply has no resonance for them. They will talk vehemently about the punctuation on p3, or how they got mixed up in the dialogue, the logic error in par 5, or yada yada, yada… The same thing happens with editors. The reasons they give for rejecting your manuscript may have little to do with the real reason, which may be that they struggled to emotionally connect with the character.
Even very successful writers don’t seem to have real control over reader’s reactions.
One of David Gemmell readers all time favorite characters is Waylander. David Gemmell himself set out to make this guy a real piece of work – a nasty customer that no one should like; a ruthless assassin that kills without a thought. The surprise was that people loved Waylander, and he went on to be one of Gemmell’s most successful characters, extending over three books and carrying the story well in each one. So why did people respond to Waylander? Was there something unconsciously carried through from Gemmell about that character’s destiny that altered his portrayal? Or do people just love the bad guy – the old Sympathy for the Devil chestnut?
What really draws you into a character? Their sense of connection – the way they love someone else or show they care? Being the underdog? Strength? Courage? Determination? Their vulnerability? Their sheer undead coolness? Or is it something less tangible than that. Is it being able to relate to the ordinary troubles and mundane problems that you share with the character i.e. they may be an immortal space traveller, but they still get parking tickets at the spaceport?
Got any clues to share on building emotional resonance and sympathy for character?
Mad Genius Club 
14 responses to “Drawing the Reader into the Character”
Courage, determination and being able to relate to the ordinary troubles and mundane problems. For example, whether in a war, hunting for food or in a Nerf gun battle, missing a kill shot from lack of ammo just sucks. So does a jam or a misfire. Finding money left in a vending machine – even if not enough to use – brings a smile. Little things that have happened to a lot of people, that draw a connection to their world and the characters’ – those are building blocks.
Hi, Peabody. I find building that emotional resonance the hardest aspect of writing. Sometimes it seems to happen on its own, other times I fail to really communicate my image or feeling for the characters. They live fully in my head, but as to what other people are getting, I’m not so sure. Relating through those little things does seem to be a key. I wonder though whether the writers that do this successfully do it on an unconscious level or whether they need to really work at it.
Chris McMahon
http://www.chrismcmahon.net
The cavern-dwelling Eathal have emerged to reek their vengeance on mankind. The lost heir to the fallen Empire must be found.
Read more in The Calvanni, first in the Jakirian Cycle, from Naked Reader Press! http://nakedreader.com/storefront/index.php?route=product/category&path=24_45
I wonder if it isn’t a matter of first impressions having the biggest impact. If the first thing we see the character doing establishes him positively in our mind, we can excuse all sorts of negative actions later, as we think he had little choice, was a good as he could be under the circumstances, was desperate, drunk, drugged, or just trying to stay alive by fitting in and so forth.
Hey, Pam. I think you might be onto something there. It’s like making the reader fall in the love (or hate) with the character. When you are in the starry-eyed ‘in love’ phase of a relationship your partner can do no wrong and we excuse all sorts of bad behaviour.
That also gels with Waylander in the David Gemmell book. Although he’s a bad dude, the very first thing we see him do in the first book is rescue a Source Priest that is being tortured (against his instincts at the time, which makes it even more interesting). This is the ‘one good act’ that started him on the road to redemption. Bwahaha.
Nice. You’ve got me thinking now.
Chris McMahon
http://www.chrismcmahon.net
The cavern-dwelling Eathal have emerged to reek their vengeance on mankind. The lost heir to the fallen Empire must be found.
Read more in The Calvanni, first in the Jakirian Cycle, from Naked Reader Press! http://nakedreader.com/storefront/index.php?route=product/category&path=24_45
First impression matters, and then are they doing or thinking something interesting? That will catch me and make me stick with a character for a while. With villains, I tend to wonder if this is someone who might not be quite so evil after all, if it is someone with a bad past, or if the hero is going to end up facing true evil in all it’s dark glory. And if there are hints that all is not quite as it seems, then I’ll follow further yet.
For example: Charles was running to catch his bus when a hippo fell on top of him. Hippos do not, as a rule, fall from apartment house roofs onto second-chair French horn players, which made the accident even more distressing for those around the deceased. [To be continued?]
But did the hippo have wings? You raise an interesting point about villains. There seems to be a very different approach taken by authors on this front. You have the approach where they are present in the story only through their influence, or as an objective character. Then there is the approach where the author really gets inside their head. I personally love the second approach. I find it ramps up the tension of the story. David Gemmell did this really well. He was good at drawing shades of grey in both heroes and villains. When he was inside the villains head he makes all their evil decisions come across as reasonable, whereas the heroes are often struggling against darker impulses or to redeem themselves for prior evil.
Chris McMahon
http://www.chrismcmahon.net
The cavern-dwelling Eathal have emerged to reek their vengeance on mankind. The lost heir to the fallen Empire must be found.
Read more in The Calvanni, first in the Jakirian Cycle, from Naked Reader Press! http://nakedreader.com/storefront/index.php?route=product/category&path=24_45
Two biographies of “villains” came to mind this morning. Both main characters are repugnant in many ways, but the authors manage to keep your interest and really show, as best as can be done, why these men did what they did and why they thought they were acting in an appropriate manner. One is Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, a South Carolina politician from the late 1800s who led the charge to erase any legal gains made by blacks and poor whites during Reconstruction. The other is Bismarck. Tillman’s biographer says that he found his subject very unattractive, but still important and interesting enough to keep researching and writing.
Books: S. Kantrowitz, “Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy” and
J. Steinberg, “Bismarck: A Life.”
I think that my singular requirement to become engaged with a character is “not-passive.”
The character can be not-passive in any number of ways; can be a good guy, or a bad guy, or even a victim.
Now, I ask myself, how can I reconcile that to, oh, geez, is it the lady in Pride and Prejudice?, I can’t remember. She doesn’t *do* anything. Everyone bustles about and she… doesn’t. Except, if I think about it, she is pretty much assertively and aggressively not doing anything, so it’s not as though she’s passively not doing anything.
Maybe non-passivity is simply the presence of internal or external conflict. The character is standing against events in some way, even if only inside his or her head. The character has identifiable wants and wishes and will. Presence.
I want to read about a character with presence.
Synova? Who the heck are you talking about? Lizzy gets in ALL SORTS of trouble.
Aargh! See now, I knew that you were an expert of sorts. I’m not even sure I’m talking about the right book and I only read it once and only because it was free and pre-loaded on my Nook. I *think* I remember Lizzy, who does get in all sorts of trouble.
LOL. You should read it. It’s not physical trouble, but she believes the wrong people and talks to the wrong people and… 😉
But in an aggressively passive sort of way:)
Chris McMahon
http://www.chrismcmahon.net
The cavern-dwelling Eathal have emerged to reek their vengeance on mankind. The lost heir to the fallen Empire must be found.
Read more in The Calvanni, first in the Jakirian Cycle, from Naked Reader Press! http://nakedreader.com/storefront/index.php?route=product/category&path=24_45
Hi, Julie. You make me want to read Pride and Prejudice just to see what you are talking about. I am with you though. A non-passive character is a real must for my engagement. People raved about Tender Morsels, the Margo Lanagan book which won a few awards. I personally had a lot of issues with it, primarily because the central character was entirely passive. As a reader/writer of heroic fiction this was a ‘hill too far’ for me.
Interesting what you say about presence of the character. I wonder if that is something unconsciously communicated from the author?
Chris McMahon
http://www.chrismcmahon.net
The cavern-dwelling Eathal have emerged to reek their vengeance on mankind. The lost heir to the fallen Empire must be found.
Read more in The Calvanni, first in the Jakirian Cycle, from Naked Reader Press! http://nakedreader.com/storefront/index.php?route=product/category&path=24_45
Ultimate in unhelpful answers: a character has to have something that resonates with me– either something I like about myself, or something I wish I could be.
It’s kind of like identifying, but positively. A good story can drag me a long when a character loses me, but– well, for example, I recently turned in a book by an author I’d liked before without even wanting to finish it.
The main character lied for stupid reasons, had plot-induced inability to keep quiet even though her entire character was supposed to be “hiding from people,”… heck, pretty much every dumb thing she did was plot induced. He took a character that’d worked well before– wronged young woman with a magical affliction and hints of a grand past– and shoved it into a story that didn’t work at all. It was like comparing an outfit my sister put together (colors are vibrant and complement each other) and one I put together. (colors are either vibrant or variations of the same color; complements are rare as hen’s teeth)