Make 'em Cheer for Your Characters!

Make 'em Cheer for Your Characters!

By Missy Tippens

Okay, admission time. I’ve been working on a proposal, and I realized I did NOT like my heroine. She just wasn't sympathetic at all. After asking some of you what makes you pull for a heroine, I got some really good answers. (See near the end of the comments for this day’s post). I also sent the planned backstory and story opening to our Seeker email loop and got lots of feedback. We’re always honest with each other (although Ruthy tries her best not to bruise my feelings ;)), so I got some great feedback. Lots of ideas to play with. On Monday, I re-worked the first chapter and am so excited about the changes. I love my heroine now!

Whenever I consider how to make my readers immediately bond with my main characters, I think of Michael Hauge's advice. (You've seen this before in a post by Myra.) According to Hauge in his DVD “The Hero’s 2 Journeys,” the main goal of storytelling is to elicit emotion. We want to elicit the type emotion that helps our reader feel for our character. To pull for her. According to Hauge, we do that by employing at least two of the following:

• giving the character undeserved misfortune.

• putting the character in jeopardy (could be as simple as a job at risk).

• making the character an especially likable or good person (think of Save the Cat moments from Blake Snyder’s how-to books).

• making the character funny (who doesn’t bond with a person who makes you laugh??).

• making the character powerful or especially good at something.

So pick at least two and you should be well on the way to making your main characters relatable and sympathetic.

Some examples that Seekers shared with me…

From Mary Connealy, an excerpt from Deep Trouble, where you have a Damsel in Distress (a character in jeopardy). And for me as the reader, there’s also a character experiencing undeserved misfortune (a lack of gold). Here’s the opening of Deep Trouble:

“Where’s the gold!”

Shannon Dysart fell back a step in the face of her guide’s fury then squared her shoulders. Showing weakness to Lobo Cutter was a mistake. Hiring him was a mistake. Leaving St. Louis was a mistake.

“Mr. Cutter, I employed you to help me find an ancient city. We’ve done that. It’s spectacular. Imagine the research—”

Cutter stormed right up to Shannon’s face. The spurs on his boots made an ugly metallic ring with every step. “A city of gold, them was your own words when you asked me to sign aboard this trip into the west.”

His fists clenched and moved too close to the Colt six shooter in his holster. He was a brute of a man brought along mainly to handle the pack animals. But once they’d found this place he’d worked as hard as any of the six people in their expedition searching these ruins.

But he’d finally faced the same fact Shannon just had—after three days of searching this ancient cliff city. There was no gold.

“I wasn’t searching for this city to make myself rich, Mr. Cutter. My father’s research was—”

“Your father was an old fool.”

From Cara Lynn James, and sneak-peek excerpt from Love By the Book (coming in August). Melinda is the victim of undeserved (unexpected) misfortune, and doubly so:

Melinda’s sharp intake of breath shattered the silence. All eyes turned toward her, but Melinda could do nothing but stare at the attorney. Had she misheard her sister’s will? Or had he misread it? How could Cora leave her daughter to Melinda’s care—as well as Nick’s? She couldn’t imagine.

Cora had never mentioned such an odd arrangement, but then again her sister normally avoided unpleasant subjects. A wave of panic swept through Melinda. No one loved Nell more than she. No one. But being a mother was far different than being the doting aunt...

And from Ruth Logan Herne:

Ruthy gave me the set up for Small-Town Hearts (coming this month!). I believe she’s set it up so we the hero is powerful (in his regular life pre-small town), and also he’s the victim of misfortune by the fact he’s found a woman that interests him, yet he’s going to be forced to butt heads with her. Here’s what Ruthy said…

In Small-Town Hearts, I took my big-city-addicted hero and plunked him into small town obscurity on a good will mission for his aging grandmother. Why?

Well, he and his sister are heirs-apparent to a huge East Coast candy store with origins in Allegany County, NY. Now housed just outside of Buffalo with flagship stores in all the major East Coast cities and franchise stores in smaller venues, Grandma Mary's Candies wrote the book on product development and merchandising. But the current Grandma Mary wants to build a small tribute store in honor of her mother, Mary Sandoval, who started the business on the front porch of an itty-bitty house on Route 19. So instead of romping around big cities and the great night life venues therein, Danny's on a fact-finding mission while his sister spreads her capitalistic wings by taking over the East Coast venues. His sister is still spinning over the death of her fiance in Afghanistan, and protective big brother Danny isn't sure she's ready for the variances of the city venues, but Danny's mother IS sure.

And the women in Danny's family are not to be messed with!

So Danny finds himself in nowhereville, trying unsuccessfully to blend in, and the first thing he sees is a crotchety store owner dressing down a young man with Downs Syndrome for toppling a sidewalk display of piled fruit...

A young man accompanied by a sassy and captivating young woman dressed in nineteenth century-styled clothing, the nipped waist and fitted bodice far more interesting than anything Danny had discovered in eleventh grade American history! Danny can't deny the allure of the quaint town and enchanting woman, but when she hands him a business card that says she owns the Colonial Candy Kitchen, purveyors of fine chocolates, understandable doom descends.

Danny is destined to put her and her little candy store out of business.

I really like the opening of The Rancher's Reunion by Tina Radcliffe. In the first paragraphs we see the heroine has been the victim of some misfortune that has injured her leg. We also get the feeling her heart is in jeopardy by her love for Will. Here's an excerpt of the opening of The Rancher's Reunion:

"You look awful." Will Sullivan shoved his hands into the back pockets of his Wranglers and continued his intense scrutiny.

"Well, you haven't changed a bit," Annie Harris said with a laugh. Leave it to Will to cut to the chase.

In truth, he hadn't changed. He was everything she remembered. Hatless today, his blue-black hair was clipped short to control the unruly curls. Will thought he could control everything. Standing inches over six feet tall in a faded blue oxford shirt, jeans and scuffed boots, he scowled.

Annie took an unsteady breath. Oh, how she had missed that scowl.

She gripped her cane tighter and glanced around the busy Tulsa airport. Had it really been two years? For only a second did she allow her thoughts to drift back to when she made the decision to leave for Kenya. The same day she realized she was in love with Will Sullivan.

"Sit down for a minute," Will said, interrupting her thoughts. "You've got to be exhausted."

"I'm okay. Really. The hospital wouldn't have okayed me to travel if I wasn't ready. Come on. Let's get my luggage and get out of here."

"Your leg? Maybe I should get a wheelchair?"

"Oh, I don't need a wheelchair." Determined, she grasped her cane and broke out in what she knew was a clumsy stride.

In my current release, A Family for Faith, my hero is a grieving widower with a rebellious almost-teen daughter. That’s the victim of undeserved misfortune. I also tried to make him likable and maybe a little funny in his thoughts. He’s trying so hard with his daughter, even though he’s clueless. I hope that makes the reader really like him. And so far, I’ve had a lot of reader emails that say they love him! (Thank you readers who take the time to write reviews and emails!) I shared an excerpt in a previous post. You can click here if you’d like to read it.

What about your story opening? Have you really socked it to your character by putting her in jeopardy or making her a victim? Or have you made him likable, powerful or funny? Try to do at least two of those things, and you should be well on your way to pulling in your reader, having her cheer for your characters.

So what techniques have you used in your story opening?