Sympathetic Characters Part 3: Noble Souls

So far in this series on creating sympathy, I’ve dealt with the extreme end of the spectrum. Danger and suffering are pretty broad, easy to grasp concepts. Readers who encounter these will find it hard to resist feeling concern for the characters in the story. However, they are also quite simplistic and blunt, and once the immediate danger/suffering passes, the concern for them will also.

There are more subtle ways to evoke sympathy in the reader. When readers work out what’s going on for themselves, it often has a more powerful and lasting effect than the more obvious methods described already.

Someone who is pretending not to be hurt or upset, immediately interests a reader. If your character is lonely and unhappy but acts like they’re perfectly fine in front of others, that kind of behaviour can be both appealing and intriguing.

What’s important though is that the reader is aware of the character’s true condition. It can be tempting to hold back this information and then reveal it later, but that is wasting a solid opportunity for engaging your audience. The reader will understand why the character was acting the way he was, but you won’t get the benefit of any emotional attachment.

Only when readers know the character is faking it do we feel sympathy for their predicament. You don’t have to immediately reveal the specifics of why they’re behaving in this way, but the quicker you let them know the character is not being truthful, the better. And if you can do it visually (rather than in monologue or narration) it will be more impactful.

When we see the character say one thing but do another, when they hide something or change the way they act in the presence of particular people, then that will trigger interest. When the reader finds out the reason for the behaviour, that will trigger emotion. 

If the reason is to do with embarrassment or fear (how he feels about himself), the reader will relate on a personal level. If the reason is to do with not wanting others to feel pity for him or to protect them in some way (how he feels about others), then the reader will relate on a universal level and emotional ties will be much stronger for the reader. 

If the reason is purely technical, for example if he is pretending to be going out for a drink with the boys when he’s really meeting with them to plan a bank heist, then that won’t have any emotional  intrigue, although it will still hold intellectual interest.

The character’s emotional need to keep the secret plays a big part in how the reader will react. And the more exact that reason, the better.

If a man doesn’t want a woman at work to know he’s in love with her because he doesn’t want to get rejected, that’s too vague and generic to really grab the attention on an emotional level.

If he’s dating his boss, but doesn’t want his other colleagues to know it’s against the rules so they’d both lose their jobs, that narrows the focus and increases emotional interest. 

If the man dumps the co-worker he’s dating but really still loves her, only he knows she’s about to be offered a promotion to the Paris office, which has always been her dream, and she won’t go if he’s in the picture, then the reader will be much more emotionally attached. The reason being, the character is acting out of concern for someone else.

Being able to recognise this hierarchy, that emotional response of the reader is affected by character’s motivation, is something that can be used against the reader. You can turn up the pressure on the character to great effect.

Let's say the man who dumps the girl going to Paris does such a good job of convincing her he’s not interested anymore that she starts dating someone else, and the Paris move is three months off, how he deals with the situation can strongly engage reader sympathy. And if then she falls for this new guy and decides to turn down the Paris job, then what’s he going to do? There’s no better hook into emotion than a selfless act that’s harshly punished.

It helps if the character is hiding his true feelings from a specific person or persons rather than the world at large. This makes it easier to make the feelings more visceral, especially when it comes to the part of the story where the his true feelings are revealed.

Whereas keeping the truth from the reader is a big mistake, keeping it from other characters is vital. And even more vital is at some point making sure the person the character most doesn’t want to find out, finds out. 

This is key to using this technique effectively. Whenever a character is hiding something, it immediately raises the question of when will he get found out. This creates suspense and tension, and you really don’t want to waste this. Allowing people to get suspicious, close calls and finding a way to get those who do find out to keep quiet, all adds to the reader’s investment in the character.

Eventually, though, it has to come out to the one person the character most dreads finding out, whether it’s a loved one or an enemy or a boss. The person that will cause most suffering for the character—or at least that they think will do so—has to find out. You can’t have lots of close calls and worrying and then Phew! got away with it. Well, obviously you can do that, but you’d be missing out on a fantastic opportunity for a climactic moment.

Why they’re pretending and how the truth is exposed are both big moments in getting readers to bond with the character, and as such are worth spending some time on.

But the more excruciating you can make it the better. You need to give a sense of how bad it would be if people found out (from the character’s perspective), and then you need to make it turn out even worse (at least at first) when they do find out. And they must find out.

Of course, not everyone chooses to keep themselves to themselves. Some people have no other choice. More on that in the next post—Sympathetic Characters Part 4: Outcasts.

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Other posts in the series can be found here:

Forcing Readers To Like Characters

Sympathetic Characters Part 1: Danger

Sympathetic Characters Part 2: Suffering

And don't forget to check out the latest posts from other top bloggers at The Funnily Enough