PAULINE IN PERIL: Creating a Sympathetic Heroine

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There it is again. Yet another contest judge telling you that your beloved heroine (or hero, for that matter) isn’t sympathetic. “WHAT?? How on earth could that hardened, uncompassionate, unfeeling idiot judge not find my heroine sympathetic?”
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After all, your now-breathtakingly beautiful Jane Heroine has such a heartrending past. Abandoned as a toddler when her worthless, drug-dealing parents ran off to join a harmonica band, no one else in the family was willing to take on a skinny kid with (GASP!) freckles and a runny nose. So she was passed from one wrong-side-of-the-tracks foster home to another, forced to run away repeatedly to escape wicked mothers who insisted she keep her room clean. She then dropped out of high school when her dyslexia went undiagnosed and fell into the arms of one undeserving man after another.
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And if that wasn’t enough, she had out-of-wedlock quadruplets at sixteen--which she was forced to give up when beaten out of a Jerry Springer appearance and a reality TV show by a woman with 1001 cats. She’d no more been booted out the Hollywood door when she was kidnapped and held for ransom--until the kidnapper belatedly realized it was the cat woman who got the big buck contract not her. Battling a horrendous disease while living in a drug, alcohol and chocolate addiction rehab center, she then went on to marry and divorce three times and was widowed twice by age twenty five.
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Then, at long last, in walks our Handsome Hero. Whew! Surely after all she’s been through this lady deserves Reader sympathy and that good-hearted man!
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What is WRONG with that clueless contest judge???
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Well .... maybe we should talk definitions for a minute?
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Sympathetic: tendency to favor or support; entering into or sharing feelings or interests of another. Showing empathy--being aware of, sensitive to and vicariously experiencing the thoughts, feelings and experiences of another.
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Pathetic: pitifully inferior or inadequate; absurd; laughable; oh so lame
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Now, am I saying that a heroine (or hero) can’t have any of this angsty stuff in her background? No, not at all. Everybody loves an underdog, right? It’s as American as baseball and apple pie and your heroine needs to have background challenges to overcome just as we all do in real life. But a laundry list of horrific circumstances alone doesn’t a sympathetic character make. It doesn’t paint a living, breathing come-alive-on-the-page heroine a Reader can identify with, care about, and cheer on to a happily ever after.
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Yes, a heroine given an undeserved hardship such as one (or several) of the above is a good start. But if that’s as far as your “characterization” goes toward building Reader empathy and identification, it’s shallow even though unmistakably tragic.
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Bummer, right? You thought you had a surefire ticket to a Reader’s heart by throwing at your heroine everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. So what CAN you do to draw your Reader in, to get her to identify with and CARE about this fictional person on a printed page?
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Plant a dream in her heart, a GOAL. Who can resist a heroine with a worthy goal, a longed-for dream? Something she wants more than anything else? Give her an internal goal AND an external goal that embodies the internal one.
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Give her strong MOTIVATION to reach that goal. This is where some of that angst-filled background comes in handy (just don’t go overboard please). Who wouldn’t want to cheer on a heroine who’s managed to come through this stuff with a nugget of hope still clutched in her hand and determination flashing in her eyes?
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Throw in a CONFLICT to challenge the attainment of her goal. Nobody wants to read about a heroine, even one with a tragic past and a big dream, if she merely skips happily through the pages to attain her goal with no opposition at all. Give her an internal AND external conflict.
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If you’re writing “inspirational” don’t forget to add a spiritual dimension to her GMC, too!
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Then once you have that strong GMC established, there are myriad ways to further win a Reader to your heroine’s side. Here are a few:
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Make her memorable. Her background. Profession. Hobbies and interests. Her physical appearance. What she wears, drives, lives in. Her thoughts, mannerisms and speech patterns/word choice. All of these can contribute to setting your heroine apart, making her distinctive and one of a kind.
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Give her a sense of humor. I don’t mean turn her into a stand-up comedian or a slapstick comic book character. But a heroine is endearing who can laugh at herself, who can see the irony of a situation, who can tease and be teased.
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Give her some imperfections and weaknesses. A heroine who is perfect--who always say the right thing, does the right thing, never makes a mistake, never loses confidence or questions her decisions--is usually not a heroine who wins the hearts of Readers. Now, am I saying you can’t make this a part of the character’s persona, one they later have a “revelation” about when they realize how they come across to others? No, but be careful about making your heroine appear so flawless(and so flawlessly boring) that a Reader can’t find anything to identify with and would just as soon see her fall on her flawless face or fanny!
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Give her strengths. Internal ones AND external ones. Internally make her determined. Maybe courageous. Or fill her with faith. Externally allow her to be skilled at her chosen profession or hobby. Competent. Knowledgeable. An expert at something both tangible and intangible. Readers don’t want to follow the adventures of a dumb-as-a-rock heroine.
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Make her care about someone or something besides the hero. Readers aren’t likely to take to a heroine who only has eyes for Her Man to the exclusion of all else. Give her another someone and/or a worthy cause to champion.
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Let at least one other character care about her. This assures the Reader that there’s something redeeming even in a perhaps initially unsympathetic heroine. If because of her background the heroine is defensive, suspicious, hardened or over-the-top distressed and unforgiving, seeing her through the eyes of a character who understands the situation and recognizes her redeeming characteristics is vital to retaining Reader empathy.
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Let her “save the cat.” That’s the term screenwriter Blake Snyder uses when a character does something “heroic” in a small way that hints to a Reader that there’s a soft side, a vulnerable side, a caring side to him/her even in the face of all evidence to the contrary. This is something especially important when a heroine’s actions or thoughts may initially appear to a Reader as less than sympathetic. So maybe your heroine is, on the surface, a hardened, smart-mouthed, street-smart gal--but let the Reader see her retrieve a dropped toy for a toddler or return a wallet full of money when she sure could have used it for a hot meal.
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Let her have overcome some challenges up to this point. We may know the heroine is wounded/challenged and needs to overcome those wounds/challenges in order to meet her goal, but give a Reader a sense that she’s triumphed a time or two in the past. That she has some underlying gumption. She may not have graduated from high school, but she’s worked hard for that G.E.D. or learned a marketable job skill. Then throughout the story, allow her to gradually conquer “tests” that will strengthen her and convince the Reader that she’ll have developed the experience, skill set and grit to face the final challenge at the end of the book.
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Make her emotionally vulnerable. Let the Reader get in the heroine’s head. This is where Deep Point of View is so valuable in creating that empathetic link between the Reader and the character you want her to care for. Let her express herself, let the Reader know something about her that the rest of the characters on the page don’t know. Ditch the “she thought” phrase and naming the emotion stuff. Get right to the heart of it. Not “He makes me so mad,” she thought. But instead: How dare he accuse me?
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Put her in danger--either physical or emotional or both. In a story of suspense, physical and psychological jeopardy are obviously critical. If there’s no threat, no menace looming, the Reader isn’t on the edge of her seat to learn how the heroine will live to see tomorrow. But by the same token, in both suspense and non-suspense there needs to be an emotional peril as well. What’s the heroine most afraid of? What does she stand to lose if she doesn’t attain her goal? What are the consequences and how will it affect her deep down inside?
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Just like the 1914 film “The Perils of Pauline” and subsequent 30’s, 40’s and 60’s remakes, we can always tie our heroine to a railroad track, secure her in a chair next to a sizzling dynamite fuse, or dangle her over a cliff above a yawning canyon. But all the dangers, snares and angsty backgrounds we throw at our poor “Pauline” won’t win the heart of a Reader unless we give them someone to care about. That’s why the Pauline films were so popular--and why even an action film like “Die Hard” endures. Had the screenwriters not planted something deeper, something with which moviegoers could identify, the films would have most likely been totally forgettable.
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In addition to the suggestions I’ve listed above, there are many other things you can do to assist your Reader in developing empathy for your characters. In your estimation, what makes a heroine (hero) sympathetic? What is it about the heroine/hero in your current WIP that you think will win your Reader’s heart to faithfully follow her/him to The End? Leave a comment today and be eligible to be entered in a drawing for a $10 Barnes & Noble gift card!
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Glynna Kaye’s Steeple Hill Love Inspired “Dreaming of Home” is a 2010 American Christian Fiction Writers “Carol Award” finalist (short contemporary category), as well as a finalist in the inspirational category of Georgia Romance Writers “The Maggie Award.” Her next book, “Second Chance Courtship” (also set in Canyon Springs, Arizona), is a February 2011 release.