Connecting with the Main Character – by Rita Karnopp

Connecting with the Main Character – Creating a strong connection between your reader and the main character in your book is vital … and must be accomplished as soon as possible.  The first line of your story is the perfect opportunity to achieve this.

 

How can you make you reader care about your characters?

You could draw the reader-in through the character’s point-of-view.  This brings your reader inside the mind of your character.  His thoughts … good and bad.

When you give your characters challenges, predicaments, shortcomings, suspicions, depths, opinions, and even moods and feelings your reader will empathize with him.

Consider making your character moral and even trustworthy ... then make him face a moral dilemma … on that could hurt or threaten someone he loves.

And you must admit, creating a character with charisma, humor, manners, and even an ease about them - that makes you comfortable - well your reader can’t help but root for him – care about him – maybe even envision being in love with him - even if he does something ‘bad’ or ‘wrong.’

Always keep your reader audience in mind when writing your book.  YA should have the emotional and verbal language of a teen.  In an 1800’s historical – your characters must speak and act like men and women in that time-period. Keeping true to your genre is vital in convincing your reader your story’s authentic.

Consider this – begin your story when your character is facing a challenge or making a life-changing decision. When I started writing, the main tag for writers at that time was: “No reader waits for the action to begin.”  That has stayed with me … and it’s something all writers should keep in mind. 

When I finished reading Dean Koontz book Intensity I set it down, my heart still pumping fast, and I realized I wanted to write a book as intense at that book.  That night I started writing Atonement … and the first line is: ‘He bent her finger back – all the way back.’

I believe that is my favorite first line to any of my 19 books.  Why?  Because it got my attention from the very first line.  It set the tone and genre without paragraphs of scene setting.

• Consider this – after you write ‘the end’ … go back to the beginning and skip to chapter three and read … is it gripping?  Is it in the thick-of-things?  If the answer is a resounding YES … you have found the beginning of your book.  I’m serious.  I know you’re thinking … no way will I delete the first two chapters of my book.  But, be honest.  Is chapter three more gripping and more interesting than chapters one and two?  I’m going to bet you’re going to have to answer yes.  I’m sorry … but this does work. 
   
• We have such a tendency to want to feed the reader too much background information.  Too much scene setting.  Too many internal thoughts and the reader is just waiting for chapter three to start.

Keep in mind your story will slow to a crawl if you don’t introduce problems or challenges throughout the story.  There must be incidents even affairs that create conflicts, tensions, or situations that demand your character face his biggest fears … that have consequences.

Don’t start your story with a worn-out cliché.  Agents and editors have read it all.  Your goal is to start your story with a fresh intro … because a worn out beginning gets your book dropped in the slush pile.  We’re all tired of the cliché beginning.

What do I mean?    The phone ringing wakes a character … he groggily answers … then bolts upright – someone has been killed.  Really?

I hate the character who stands looking into a mirror and describes his own attributes and failings internally.   Spare me.

If the first sentence describes the weather … I want to scream.

If your character is introduced by her crying … I’m not sympathetic yet.  You might want me to care enough to ask why – but at the beginning – I don’t care and it’s not effective.

I hate the overused character who wakes up with amnesia or in a strange place – I’ve seen it a hundred times.

Ugh, and we all are annoyed by the writer who is staring at a blank computer screen . . . not much action happening there.

You will bore the reader as much as your character if he often stares out window and years for someone, thinks over his situation, feels betrayed, or loves her but can’t tell her, and just simple … boring reflections.  This goes back to: “No reader waits for the action to begin.”