In any story the main character
will have something on their mind. They will worry and fret based on how
important ‘the thing’ is to them.
Just because they happen to think
this thing is worth obsessing over or getting upset about doesn’t mean the
reader will also.
Showing the character really
worked up about this thing won’t automatically make the reader feel the same
way.
Going inside the characters mind
and showing how concerned they are is not going to cut it either. It may add
something, but on its own it’s not enough.
Do you know someone who really
cares about their football team? I mean really, really cares. When you see how
upset they are when their team loses, does that make you care about their team?
In fact, as soon as you see
someone really upset, the first thing you say is “What’s wrong?” And your
reaction will vary depending on what they say. Dumped by a boyfriend? Well, I’m
going to need to know what kind of guy he was. An ass? A boy going away to
college? A fiancée? A soldier not wanting her to wait?
My point is we judge based on the
situation, not on the reaction. Obviously, the severity of the reaction will
affect how you deal with the person (or as a reader how you expect other characters
to deal with them) and it will also affect your opinion of the character, but
in terms of how interested you are to see how things pan out, the character’s
reaction is pretty low down on the list.
What you need to do is let the
reader experience the situation, not the emotion. If the situation is worth the
emotion, the emotion will emerge by itself.
This becomes a problem when you
start your story with a character who is upset about something which is secret
and that you as the writer don’t want to reveal until later.
You can do this. It helps if you
have other things going on in the story so it’s not just a character biting
their nails for 200 pages, but building up tension in a mystery that way is
perfectly reasonable. However, you should bear in mind that once you’ve established
the character’s level of concern, reiterating it, going over it from many
different angles, giving the character long internal monologues about their
fears and worries, won’t make the reader more intrigued.
A woman had a nasty accident that
made her lose her memory. She knows she had a milkshake the day of the
accident, but can’t recall if it was chocolate or strawberry, and is obsessed with
trying to remember which. You could get inside her head and show how much she
wants to remember this detail, how she dreams about it, convinces herself of
one answer, than the other. But so what?
It’s just a random detail.
Let’s say she’s a twin and her
sister died in the accident, and she can’t remember which twin she is, and the
only difference between them is that one liked chocolate and one liked
strawberry... As soon as you see the reason for the behaviour, you’re level of
interest changes (even in a stupid example like this one).
Once the character’s issue seems
to be leading somewhere with ramifications for the rest of the story, interest
gets piqued.
The problem though is that if the
reader is not aware of the ramifications, perhaps the character is focused on
the immediate issue (trying to remember what happened) and the writer plans to
reveal the consequences later, that’s no good to the reader.
For the reader to care about the
characters predicament they need to know the predicament, not just that the
character has one, or how big a deal they think it is.
You may think, Oh, but if I get people’s
curiosity all amped up, then they’ll get a much bigger kick out of finding out
what’s behind it all.
That’s true if this is the
central mystery of the story, the big thing everyone is trying to work out, but
if it’s just a minor part of a bigger whole, then you’re just stringing things
out. And what you’ll end up with is an ending where you find you have to
provide answers to twelve different mysteries in the last ten pages.
So, if you want the reader to
care, tell them what the character cares about and why, and what they plan to
do about it. How much they care will then be self-evident. One of the easiest ways to do this is giving your main character someone to talk to about the problem.
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16 comments:
Show the motivation behind the feelings. Or rather, let the reader experience it. Check! Yeah, sometimes it's easy to forget that.
Great food for thought, I was just thinking on this aspect but was pretty clueless about how to go about it. Your post clears up quite a few cobwebs from my brain.
@Alex-it's extra work but well worth it.
@Rachna-glad to help. Watch out for spiders.
This touches on some difficulties I have with crafting an emotional arc/narrative. I know why something is important to the character, I state why it's important several times, but it always feels weak, ineffective.
I will keep this post in mind once I get out of the first draft.
I struggled with this - especially when writing about a female character. My editors said she was a man in a woman's body!
Ouch.
So I had to bring to life the emotions - and really show them to the reader.
I think you've outlined one of the biggest problems writers face as they try to tell compelling stories. I know I do. I took notes.
You always have the best advice, Moody. I'm a firm believer in letting the reader fully experience the character's emotional state, but in the same way I'm an open book, so is my story. I just can't hide the motivation, even for a short time. Good thing I write thrillers instead of mysteries!
(Tweeted it!)
@Fairchild-often what a character is prepared to do is a better reflection of how important it is.
@Jay-although if you were writing erotica, a man in a woman's body would be ideal...
@Rusty-glad you took note, there will be a test.
@Nancy-thanks for the tweet!
This was the perfect post for me today. thank you!
@mshatch-you're very welcome.
Great, now I've got an idea about a twin surviving an accident but still suffering amnesia - now she's not sure which twin she is. By itself or with a milkshake it's not very exciting, but there's a lot of potential there!
Oh, and the other pointers are good too ;-)
@jason-one day I'm going to take all the stupid examples I make up for these posts and put them all in one story. Then you'll be sorry.
I think emotion is easier to capture in first-person than it is in third-person (the point-of-view that I choose to write in). I like to make my stories more about "the story" and less about the "human interest". I know you can do both but it seems like they war with each other, especially given the restraint of word count. If you only have 80,000 words to tell a story, and your story involves A LOT of comings and goings and is intricate, it becomes more difficult to put emotion into a story.
EXAMPLE: Take a look at Dune. It's considered a masterpiece of science-fiction. Yet do we ever really see Paul Atreides become emotional? Even the death of his father doesn't really evoke a strong emotion in the reader. It's simply something that has "come to pass". Yet we continue reading because the world and the story are what is pulling us along. No one reads Dune because they want to feel emotionally connected to Paul.
@Michael-it's been a while since I read Dune so I can't really remember how emotional it was. Mind you parental events rarely evoke an emotion in me, although that's probably more to do with my view of parents (especially mine).
Thinking about this all day, wow.
@Caroline-if you mean donuts, then me too.