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?
Cross-posted at chrismcmahons blog.
Mad Genius Club 
12 responses to “Drawing the Reader into the Character”
Waylander never played the victim. He had a excuse for his actions the death of his family started him on his path but he didn’t use it as a crutch.
Hi, Scott. There is something in that – taking responsibility for actions. I don’t think anyone likes a whiney character.
I have found with the reviews of Catskinner’s Book, that pretty much all of the favorable reviews said that they liked James, my narrator, and most of the unfavorable ones mentioned that they couldn’t relate to him. So I think you’re right about identification with main characters being key to how someone reads a book. Fortunately, more people seem to like him than not.
As to how that’s done? I open with the ordinary. James is at work, he’s bored, and he’s thinking about life. I concentrate of details that I think just about anyone can relate to, hardware, music, his lunch of a meatball sandwich. Then when I bring in the elements that make him not ordinary, the reader has some basis for understanding them.
That’s the theory, anyway, and it seems to work. Too often, I think, authors want to get to “the good stuff” right away, and that can backfire. Show me a hero who is just like me in some way, and then when he starts shooting fireballs I can pretend it’s me shooting fireballs. Open up with the whiz-bang stuff, and I won’t ever really identify with him.
Jim Butcher does that really well in his Dresden Files series. We first see Harry Dresden in “Storm Front” talking to mailman and getting a stack of bills he can’t pay, which instantly makes us sympathize with him. Butcher continues that theme throughout the series–nearly all of his books open with something completely mundane.
Hi, Misha. Nice to see that approach has worked for you. Sometimes I can understand these things in reflection, but I often find it hard to apply them. Somehow when I start writing something else seems to take over. I need to print this out and stick it on the wall!
PS: Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files are awesome aren’t they? He strikes the perfect balance.
I also start with the simple and ordinary. I draw a caricature of character, then, gradually introduce modifications to the “standard” version of the caricature making the character unique. And yes, I introduce the character in a mundane situation — usually with a twist, I started one of my most popular books with the main character standing in the snow — it takes a paragraph before she is revealed to be barefoot. The misery of her life is worse than the misery of cold feet. Very nearly everybody has felt a great aching misery at some point in our lives — we can identify with someone experiencing that. That, I think, is correct — you make the character one that most people can identify with.
In another story, a man has snuck into a palace, stolen weapons from a guard who wasn’t paying attention, and when the story opens he is congratulating himself on his cleverness. Except it’s a chill night and he lives alone and has made a wee, tiny mistake of coating himself in rancid bear grease…
You say you have no sympathy for that sort of stupidity? Years ago, I lived with cats and no people; I’m by nature a loner and I never noticed that the gifts they had left behind when “marking” their territory. A guest walked into my house and left at a run, gagging. The cat smell was something I’d grown use to. For someone who has had the experience it’s immediate identification with the character.
The trick is as Misha said — you have to have a character trait(s) that many people can relate to and identify with.
Thanks, Gina. Your post and Misha’s seem to confirm that approach of starting with the details that readers can relate to. That’s helpful for me – it takes of lot of input to finally get through to my brain. I think I can get a grip on this now.
Strength AND suffering.
Readers are going to spend a lot of time with characters, especially point of view characters. There has to be something to cheer for and something to shake the head for. Strength AND suffering.
Dramatica makes it easy for me: the Main character and the Obstacle/Impact character each get two special characteristics in the story:
Unique ability, and
Critical flaw.
A good deal of thought goes into picking those attributes, and the story hinges on setting things up right.
I have three pov characters. I have asked my beta readers to point out when and if (for them) they reach the point of not being able to spend any more time with a character – then I try to keep it just within those lines.
I have had that happen to me with popular novels: I can’t stand to spend time with one of the viewpoint characters – so that’s where I stop reading. I’ve paid attention each time to the ‘why,’ to avoid doing the same thing to my future readers. It is highly instructive to figure out where you just can’t continue to read.
Hi, ABE. You use a very structured approach. Nice to see you have those beta readers too. I’m a bit ad-hoc when it comes to characters. They sort of grow organically. I do try to flesh them out in all areas, but mostly I look at what is driving them – their goals and purpose – and their key relationships.
Your approach has given me food for thought though. Cheers!
That’s it, whiney characters aren’t interesting. As a third party a child or someone the pov character has to deal with for example might work but as a main pov just drives me as a reader away.
If I wan’t whiney all I have to do is put on the TV or read about the latest SFWA crisis.
Writing should be about eyeballs on text and cheques in bank accounts for writers, anything that drives away readers should remain on the cutting room floor.
I don’t really know whether this was good or bad idea, but I started the novel I just published with the POV character working and having an internal whiny monologue where she lists all the things wrong with her life – no money, bad jobs and problems getting even them, no prospects for better in sight, getting seriously out of shape… – but that ends when she decides she has whined enough for the night. I also put that right behind a part describing the dilemma of one of the main supporting characters who is about to be killed, along with his men. She ends up where he is in the next chapter (it’s a portal fantasy), and under circumstances which make it possible for her to save their lives (or rather she gives them the chance to do that themselves). After that for she has occasional short whining sessions, but they are internal and short.
I only had two betas for it but they claimed to like her, and while I haven’t gotten much response yet one of the two people who left reviews on Amazon seemed to like the POV character quite a lot. And no complaints so far (I’m sure I’ll get those sooner or later though). So let’s say I’m cautiously optimistic that I did have a decent approach to writing her. Personally, well of course I don’t like characters who whine the whole time or a lot, who does (unless it’s funny), but equally I can become at least a bit disgusted with ones who never seem to have any of those ‘why me!’ moments, I have problems relating to them.
And then there is that comedy alternative. A whiner who is funny can be very good in a story.
I went to randomly check some of my stuff to see how likable it seemed the main character was from the introduction. I picked a story that has a single person by herself for quite a while and then by herself most of the time after and *then* with a man who is more-or-less mute. (Why did this seem like a good idea?)
I *think* she’s likable and I think I like her because she’s not whiny and she has an immediate goal which I hope people can identify with, but wow does she need to talk to someone sooner than she does. I think that maybe I could have her call her brother (she’s on a planet and he’s working on a space station) which it had never occurred to me to have her do. But she would, right? She just had a great victory that he’d been closely involved with so she’d call him to say she’d won and *then* I could get some human warmth and interaction in there soonish. (Saying so here mostly to remind me so I don’t forget.)