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?

Chapter Ending Hooks

I had a really great week last week doing a book tour to Michigan. An interesting experience and the best part of it was talking to the people who love to read and write.
And when I meet writers we talk….prepare to be shocked…writing.
One of the things that came up that inspired this blog post was chapter ending hooks.
We all know we’re supposed to end each chapter in a way that hooks the reader and keeps them turning the page, because if someone is going to set a book down it’s going to be at the end of a chapter. So how to hook a chapter.
This is something I try really hard to do.

I’m very premeditated hooker. Wait a minute????

The end of a chapter is a place to have a lot of fun as a writer.
Here’s an example of a chapter ending hook from Petticoat Ranch--this is actually a scene ending hook but the theory holds. --this is directly after they've taken wedding vows on about twelve hours of acquaintance...and Clay spent about ten of those hours unconscious or in town.
>>>Clay was humbled and proud, and when he found evidence of a large herd of cattle coming to water at several springs, he realized he'd bought himself a fine ranch. All in all, a perfect day. Just maybe the best day of his life.

SCENE BREAK

There never was a worse day landed on the shoulders of a single woman who had walked on the face of this earth! Sophie tried to tell herself Eve had a worse day when she got herself kicked out of the Garden. And Lot's wife had to have been unhappy about being turned to salt. That was a long time ago, though. What was happening to Sophie was happening right now--and to her. She'd put it up against the worst that had been handed out to anyone.
From Calico Canyon
Daniel talking to his most unruly son, Mark., trying to explain that, no matter how much he hadn't wanted to end up married to Grace, marriage was for life.
>>>Then Mark perked up. "You know what?"
"What?" Fear skittered down Daniel's spine like a eight-legged creepy crawler. He'd seen that look on his son's face before.
"She don't have the have the rest of our lives. She's only got the rest of her life." Mark tipped his head sideways in a way that was purely cheerful. "Gotta get to the chores."
Mark went off toward the barn whistling, almost as if he knew Grace's life wasn't necessarily going to be very long.

Chapter Eleven

She was going to die. If she was lucky, it would happen soon.
Grace pushed herself away from the wall. "And when in my life have I ever been lucky?" She might as well plan on making a hundred years old.

From Gingham Mountain
>>>Grant fell in behind and he heard more hoofbeats following. His family. He'd created it out of his desperate loneliness. But created it he had. He'd done a good job.
He never had to be alone again.

SCENE BREAK

"Just wait until I get that man alone!"

Now all of these lines aren't diving straight into action, the lines stand alone as plays on words. So if your scene doesn't lend itself to a good ending hook, that's a really great time to make the scene ending sing just by manipulating words.

Chapter and scene ending hooks aren’t just a good idea, they’re fundamental to a well written book. It’s not a step you can skip. I spend time on the ending of each chapter doing my very best to write it in a way that will make a reader want to see what’s next.
I've been going through the books looking for examples for this blog and now I wish I'd done more. I see places it would have worked well. I guess that just means I have plenty to learn and hopefully I can keep improving with each book.
I also try to … well, the word that comes to mind is TRAIN readers of my books to expect those hooks. So now they’re not looking at the end of a chapter as a chance to set the book down and get to bed or get back to work or feed their children or any of that other nonsense that might come between a reader and their reading.

Now they’re anticipating that I’ll do something special with the end of chapters. They’re anxious (in my dreams at least) to see what I did this time, which means they're going to start that next chapter to check.
So, use cliffhangers, use language, use comedy, use explosions, but what ever you do, hook the chapter ends and you’ll have hooked your reader.
If you’ve got questions about chapter ending hooks I’ll gladly answer them. If you've got examples from you own work let's hear 'em.
If you met me on the book tour (I told lots of people to stop by Seekerville) then say 'hi'. I’m delighted you’ve come to check us out.
And if you’re Patty Smith Hall…I am the president of your fan club, darlin’. Thanks for paying attention to four lonely, homeless writers.

http://www.maryconnealy.com/