How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters
We write our characters.
We think about them at lunch.
We dream about them.
As writers in a weird way we are emotionally connected to the characters we create.
And thus we want our reader to connect with them and interact with them just as we do and have a fondness towards them.
One of the best ways to make your reader not care about them is to wane on and on about specific details about what they look like and what they act like.
We should avoid this.
It’s our job as writers to understand our characters deeply and reveal who they are through actions, inactions, and dialogue.
So how do we make our reader give two hoots about our awesome characters?
Give them something to lose
At any given moment in the story our character needs to be facing some type of conflict whether big or small.
We need to give our reader a reason to follow along as we reveal to them our beloved character.
Give them small things to lose
Some practical ideas of small things they could lose would be:
– An argument with another character
– They left their homework at home
– Forgot to do homework
– The bully steals their homework
– They have a huge zit they can’t hide
– They get to talk to a crush for the first time but forgot to brush their teeth that morning
– They are apprentice to a blacksmith and chipped the knife they were working on
– A thief steals their coin on the way to the market
– They live on a moon colony and they dropped their groceries outside the grocery store
You can see how the setting can be worked around or even used, but these problems they face are mostly small.
They have something to lose but it’s not life and death.
Use little problems like these to lead your character and reader to the big problems and the overarching biggest climatic problem.
As you take your character through little problems your reader will start to feel invested in who your character truly is at heart.
They will start to be concerned for them.
Keep in mind there is a caveat here.
In order for them to care about these characters, the character has to have some redeeming qualities.
They do not have to be perfect. I advise against that. Do not try to make them flawless.
Give them flaws and redeeming qualities.
Give them a strategic main character to follow
In order for them to care about our characters they have to get to know them.
A few ways to let our readers know our characters:
– From the view of the narrator (you can tell them the thoughts and feelings of whoever you want)
– From the view of the main character only (they only ever know what the main character is thinking and feeling)
– From the view of the main party (they get to see inside a band of characters)
So this can really be done anyway you prefer but if we are going to get them to like them and care about them losing stuff then we have to help our reader get to know them through a certain lens.
We can follow one character that interacts with all other characters.
We can follow a group of main players that we know the inner thoughts of and any one of them at any time could have individual moments with side characters.
This doesn’t mean our side characters can’t be interesting or noteworthy.
When Happy Days was in its prime, the directors and producers would specifically introduce new side characters to audiences to see how they would react.
If the reception was good, they would create a new TV show around those firstly side characters.
So you can take a side character and make them stand out as much as you want for as long as you want.
But whoever you decide to have the story play through, make sure your reader can follow a cohesive story line or it might get confusing.
Make your reader aware of your character’s emotional distress
Whether we want to admit it or not we are emotional creatures.
And with that we enjoy watching characters go through emotional rollercoasters just like we do from day to day stress.
How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters
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Help your reader see your character’s emotions:
– regrets
Almost everyone has a past. And most pasts come with regrets.
What are your character’s regrets?
– Worries/ Fears
What is your character worried about?
What does your character’s worries have to do with the main plot line?
– Character Flaws
Like we said earlier, do not make your character perfect.
Give them realistic character flaws that your reader can relate to.
By giving our characters these traits we can seamlessly invite our reader into our characters.
Ideas for character flaws:
– Selfish
– Self-loathing
– Arrogant
– Steals
– Harbors resentment
– Greedy
– Lazy
– Know-it-all
– Show-off
– Etc
Flaws are a good way to lead the reader into the characters emotional distress as their flaws create conflict with other important characters and strangers.
These flaws can lead to hurt and broken relationships and leave room for redemption and second chances.
Turn up the heat
We aren’t talking about romance.
We are talking about taking your characters from the frying pan and into the fire.
You can take your character through many small problems to get your reader to care for them but we also need to put them through even bigger difficult situations.
Ways to make your character’s problems seem big to your reader by creating tension:
– Create a time sensitive event
Nothing creates more tension than setting a timing and telling someone. You have this much time to do this OR ELSE.
In fact a popular TV show was made around this entire premise. Remember 24?
We were just watching Nonstop the other night with Liam Neeson and the entire movie the villains have him wrapped up in time tension.
“Every 20 minutes someone on this plane will die if you don’t give us 150 million dollars.”
It’s worked a million times before and it’ll work again.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use timed tension.
– Use the character’s career or reputation
Nobody wants to lose the respect they’ve earned over years and years of hard work.
Nobody wants to lose the company they’ve built.
We don’t want to lose a high paying career.
These are examples of high stake things that we can use to make our reader worry for our characters. Especially if they are being blackmailed or wrongly accused.
– Hunger Games: survival tension
I just said Hunger Games because it is the epitome of survival tension.
There are many stories that use this form of tension as well.
Put your character into a situation where they have to survive dangerous encounters with people, nature or other beings and you’ll create the nail biting tension you need to make your reader care about your character.
Hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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