When was the first time a book broke your heart? Is its memory still vivid enough to pinpoint where you were, what time it was, the moment that the crest of emotion forced you to put the book down for several deep breaths?
I would wager that you remember it not for the exotic settings, the surprising twists, or the exciting battles, but because the story affected you with the emotional intensity of a real life event.
As writers, how do we elicit emotional investment and response from our audience? The short answer is this: Make your readers care about your main character.
It’s advice we’ve heard on countless occasions, but do you ever wonder HOW to make the reader care, exactly? One of my favorite storytellers, Brandon Sanderson, offers three steps to help hook the heart of your reader.
3 Ways to Create Emotional Impact
Establish empathy
Making a reader understand and share the feelings of the main character starts with getting the reader to identify with your character. Sanderson suggests the following:
- Show your main character doing something nice for someone else. Anyone familiar with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat will recognize this tried and true method.
- Show the character is like us, the reader. People tend to like those with similar values and outlooks.
- Show other characters liking them. Be it family, friends, a pet, or a robot, demonstrate the warmth, interest, humor and esteem between them. Their interaction paints a picture of people with whom the reader could also be friends. It forms a vicarious friendship with the reader, encouraging an emotional bond. Sanderson says, “we will instantly like someone who is liked by other people” (Lecture 9, 07:28)
I think the inverse principle can also be used to similar effect. Show a character disliked and disregarded by those close to him. Take Harry Potter, for example. An orphan placed in the care of selfish people plays upon the reader’s sympathy. It inspires them to supply the care and empathy that would otherwise be provided by family and friends. With no one in his corner, it stirs the protective nature of the reader.
Establish a Rooting Interest
A rooting interest is nothing more than a reason for the audience to “root” or hope for the character’s success.
- Show what the character wants and why they can’t have it. Writing 101 tells us that our character must have a desire, an outward goal. They must also have an inward goal, an emotional need that matters to their very core. Being a witness to the yearning of another forges a human bond like nothing else.
- Give the character a “now it’s personal” connection to the plot. Nothing stirs a character to action like a personal slight. Like real life, we’re more invested in the outcome of something if its results directly impact us. A character who is concerned about single-use plastics will be that much more motivated to solve the problem if dump trucks full of the stuff trash their front lawn.
Show progress
Sanderson’s third step to making the reader care about your character is to show progress from Point A to Point B.
- Show them on a journey. The progress can be measured in miles, as in a long journey home from a faraway land.
- Introduce a driving question or mystery. The progress can be measured in time like a race against the clock. Can the main character find the antidote before the poison kills them? Will the main character discover who murdered their best friend and framed them?
- Feature a flaw of character that is under that person’s control and should have been fixed by now. The progress can be measured, often most meaningfully, in personal growth. Knowing a character has a weakness that can be overcome also approaches another form of rooting interest. We hope that they can overcome their stumbling block to fulfill their desires and satisfy their yearning.
Conclusion
Hooking the heart of your reader depends upon creating an emotional connection between the reader and the characters in a story. If you can master Sanderson’s advice, you can create characters that your readers will love for a lifetime.
From Brandon Sanderson’s ninth lecture of the 2020 lecture series at Brigham Young University
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