Addison
Auror
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.
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.