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Keeping Your Readers Rooting For Your Characters



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Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:39 am
Cassandra says...



It’s all well and good if you have a suspenseful plot. It’s just ducky if your story is set in a place described so beautifully that your readers want to run away to it. Kudos to you if you have some two hundred characters and have charts made up for each and every one. But if your readers lose interest in your characters—that is, they could care less if Billy Bob gets eaten alive by the tribe on that island—they will inevitably stop reading your story. So how do you keep your readers rooting for your characters? I’ve made some observations from a couple books I’ve been reading lately, and I've got some ideas about different strategies authors use to keep you loving their characters.

First: let your reader see what’s coming when your character can not.

Let’s say that Dinah spends the book blindly trusting a person she thinks is her friend, but you, the reader, can tell from the way the author writes the backstabbing character that she is not a good person at all, and she’s just taking advantage of Dinah. This makes the reader care for Dinah; you feel sorry for her because she is too naïve to realize what the other character is doing, and you want Dinah to see what is really going on. You end up rooting for the character because you want them to rise up against whatever circumstance they don’t see coming.

Another important strategy is to make your character realize their actions are wrong, even if they keep doing what they’re doing anyway.

So your character is being bad. Rather than have them continue to do whatever bad thing they are doing without so much as a hint of regret, make the character realize that what they are doing is wrong. The character doesn’t have to stop what they’re doing as long as they have a reason for doing it; they just have to feel at least a little twinge of guilt. A reader can’t relate to a character with no feelings or conscience, which is the problem with many villains. Most people have their limits as far as what is right and wrong, and much of the population has morals, believe it or not.

And finally, what I believe to be most important: allow your readers to relate to your character.

Even if your character’s actions are questionable, allowing your readers to understand their motives will help to keep them rooting for the character. Let’s say, for example, that Wally is going to hook up with some stranger, when he obviously still has feelings for Hephzibah. Your reader might be thinking, “What the heck is Wally doing?” But if you give your character a reason to do it, if you allow your reader to relate to the feelings and thought process of your character, they will support Wally’s actions, or at least keep reading (which is a good thing ;) ).

Of course, everything has exceptions. But it’s interesting to see what you can learn about writing from simply reading a story…the moral of this article? Procrastinate writing and go read more books! :D
"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
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Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:44 am
Sam says...



Hehe, we shan't have any trouble with that- procrastinating on writing? :wink:

Good article, Cass! I'd never thought about it that way before, and it's always nice to have some sort of guide as to what do do when you're actually putting your characters down on paper. Coming up with them is the easy part.
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Tue Jan 23, 2007 5:25 am
Snoink says...



Yay! It's a novel thought... having sympathetic characters you can relate to.

...ouch. Pun not intended.
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

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Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:02 am
Crysi says...



Yay! Excellent tip. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the plot that we forget to make our characters real and relatable. (Firefox is telling me "relatable" isn't a word, but then it also doesn't know "okay" so I don't entirely trust it.)

Good tips on how to keep the readers interested, too! Again, sometimes the plot gets in the way, and we force our characters around the plot, instead of the other way around. (Well, forcing of any kind is never good for writing, but you know what I mean.)

Yay, Cass! :)
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Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:03 am
Swires says...



Nice article there - Ill be using these techniques in Scalls Magic
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Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:47 pm
Shafter says...



Ooh, step #1 is the hardest if you're writing in limited third person. It's something I employ in my story anyway, though I'd never really thought of it before...
Good article! :D
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Tue Jan 23, 2007 11:26 pm
Cassandra says...



Sam--I agree. Easier said than done, right? ;)

Snoink--The pun made my brain hurt. XD

Crysi--Silly spell checker. The one on YWS is annoying at times in the same way. I think to myself, "No, that's definitely a word..." Good thing I can go to dictionary.com and assure myself that I can, in fact, spell. ;)

Shafter--Thanks! :D
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Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:30 am
Emerson says...



Procrastinate writing and go read more books!


For some reason I am reminded of Nanowrimo....ha ha ha.

But I don't think my readers are rooting for my MC; in fact I get some saying he is too mean! So I'm not sure why they keep reading... of course I have presented an obscure relationship!

Very nice tip :-) Shall we see more tips from dear cass?
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Wed Jan 24, 2007 1:40 am
Cassandra says...



Claudette wrote:Very nice tip :-) Shall we see more tips from dear cass?


If I come up with anything else worth writing about. XD

Seriously, though. This one came to me in the shower, like all good ideas. So I have come up with a new mantra! Read more books and take more showers! :D
"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
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Thu Jan 25, 2007 1:00 am
Wiggy says...



Thanks for the tips, Cass! You have such good advice!
"I will have to tell you, you have bewitched me body and soul..." --Mr. Darcy, P & P, 2005 movie
"You pierce my soul." --Cpt. Frederick Wentworth

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