Making Reader-Character Connection

[Addison]

Hey everybody,

Recently my kid sister, soon to be entering high school, acquired the English assignment of writing her own fictional short story. I told her I would help however she needed, assist, guide, edit etc. (I realized how my parents felt whenever I brought a project home as a kid.)

Anyway her classmates and teacher had the collected reaction that they weren't really connecting with the character. So she asked me how to make her character a person the readers could connect to.

I read her story over - until then she'd been reading aloud bits and pieces she didn't like- and found the problem. She'd described her character physically, and her positive traits. Her happy, bright smile, and everything else that's rainbows and good times. That's the problem. Anyone can related to someone based on good times. So I told her to really look at her character, look at the bad times, moments of fear, sadness, anger etc that made the character.

For example, just today I had the most terrifying experience of my life. I went out for a hike with the dogs and they shot off after a squirrel. So I called and called but they never came back. Then, as I'm calling the dogs I glance to the side and I nearly die. I see a bear. It wasn't a bear-shaped log or stump. It was a bear with a huge head, beady curious eyes, a big head and a big mouth. It's taking all my strength not to fall over in a sobbing ball. I then realized what the expression "Worried sick" meant. I'm bawling, wishing, pleading for the dogs to be alive and come bounding out of the bushes and give me big kisses. Then, my phone blings. My dad has texted me, the dogs are home.

Okay, got that out.

I told her that if she put ten strangers in a room and kept them there for a whole day, they would bond more when they shared something deep like a moment of fear, and despair rather than moments of joy and thrills. The same thing actually happens with my sister and I. We talk about our days, the good things are just chit chat. She tells me her friend troubles and I talk to her about my move, we connect.

That is how readers connect with characters. Revealing moments of joy make readers look at the characters. The deep connecting comes from the deep emotions. We don't have to tell everything, like the twenty-something year old protagonist would, as a child, sleep with a tennis racket under his pillow to fight the monster under his bed. The emotions don't even have to be really explained. Just actions like he may triple check that all the doors and windows are locked before he goes to bed and leaves for work. Or he grows his owns produce.

Deep emotions = deep connection.

 

[Penpilot]

I look at it in a similar but slightly different way. Connection comes from hearing about and understanding a character's desires, fears, hates, etc., and reasons for those things.

For example, if a character hates grape juice, so what? If a character hates grape juice because a bully once poured a whole gallon down their throat that creates understanding. The reader then sympathises, especially if a similar situation happened to them, and that creates connection.

 

[Terry Greer]

One of the best books on screen writing I read was 'Save the Cat' by Blake Synder.
While a lot of it is a bit formulaic - its useful to think in the terms within the book when constructing character and story.

Below from wikipedia:
The title Save the Cat! is a term coined by Snyder and describes the scene where the audience meets the hero of a movie for the first time. The hero does something nice, e.g., saving a cat, which makes the audience like the hero and sympathise with him. His inspiration for this was the movie Alien, where Sigourney Weaver's character Ripley saves a cat named Jones.

Most movies have the equivalent of a 'save the cat' moment early on where a character proves themselves worthy by some kind (but often small and very understated) act.
In fact it has to be an understated act - one which involves risk or inconvenience in some way - but which doesn't really seem atr the time to be important as then it shows their true character.

 

[MineOwnKing]

I think the exploration of deep emotions makes for an interesting character and some readers will identify with that. However I also think that--too much of it--can also turn readers away.

To create a star quality character, I dig umpteen years back into to my old bag of tricks for landing a good wife.

1. Let them ask the questions and never reveal too much.

2. Make them laugh.

3. Whatever you do, do it well.

 

[deilaitha]

I think people also connect with characters based on their flaws. It might not be a shared flaw, but most people have a sympathetic reflex, even if they can't empathize with the character. If you paint flaws as real and understandable, you'll immediately have a connection. When I read, the more flawed the character, the more I find myself connecting with them. The likeable parts of the character are icing over the character's real core - and everyone's core is, in one way or another, messed up.

I've been reading the Negative Trait Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi and am about to start reading their Positive Trait Thesaurus. It's really useful stuff - and so is the Emotional Thesaurus.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

Showing the insecurities of a character is also a good way for readers to make a connection. We all have something about ourselves we would like to change or worse feel is something that impedes us in achieving our goals. This perception is magnified for youth and teens. We see this in the amount of bullying that goes on in schools. Bullies see the lack of confidence and feed of it. If a character has a similar attitude about themselves the reader can easily relate and if the character can succeed despite this, then the reader may find a little hope for themselves.

 

[Penpilot]

One of the best books on screen writing I read was 'Save the Cat' by Blake Synder.

Oh yeah, that's one of my favorite books on writing. I can't recommend it enough.