CREATING LIKEABLE CHARACTERS
I don’t have all the answers, but I have learned a thing or two over the years. And while I don’t advocate a cookie-cutter approach, there’s nothing wrong with sharing a few ideas that might help you come unstuck. So here are some no-nonsense writing tips on making your character more likeable. Don’t use them all at once. That would be like slapping the reader in the face. But the right one at the right time might transition your story into a new gear. If you find anything useful here, I’d love to hear from you.
Save the Cat
Show your character as a moral, good person. They could save a cat, for example (See Blake Snyder’s book, Save The Cat). Or paint them as the victim of a fundamentally unfair event, like witnesses to a horrific crime, at their mother’s funeral, or being falsely accused. Readers tend to root for the underdog.
Deep Point of View
Dig deep into your character’s POV. That means no filter words, and no telling.
Using Pronouns
As much as we dislike paragraphs where every sentence begins with “I” (or “she” or “he”), now and again it’s necessary to connect the story back to the character.
Transitions
Include transitions. In your effort to streamline your prose and tighten it, don’t forget to specify that your character got out of the car. “She parked the Mustang and grunted. Stupid car. Her friend walked up to her and they hugged.” For many readers, this passage jars, since in their heads, “the character’s still in the car yet somehow hugging her friend. How? Through the window?” So if she gets out, say so. If she crossed the room, say so. And if she drives to a new location, say so.
Motivation
A character needs motivation, a story goal to pursue. Let us call this the final goal, since this is what the character wants to have achieved by the end. To bring their mother’s murderer to justice. To escape her violent husband. To track down a treasure. The earlier you mention this final goal, the more we connect to the character. Occasionally a character doesn’t know their final goal until well into the book. That’s fine, but once they do, tell the reader what it is, and keep referring to it now and again for the remainder of the book.
In addition, the character will have intermediate goals. Every scene and every chapter should have its own goal. To escape a gangster. To find the treasure map. To survive the night.
And just as important is to understand that almost every moment evokes a short-term goal. Strong, sustained conflict and plot events fire these short-term goals at the character, and as a writer it’s easy to forget to clarify them for a reader. To tell a convincing lie. To find a quiet moment for themselves. To go and hide. This is the most obvious and also the most underused of all three goals. Not every short-term goal needs to be laid out plainly, but probably a greater number than you think. If you do not dig into the character’s motivation, your reader cannot connect.
These three types of goals must be specified, not merely hinted at. “Oh shoot. I’m in trouble” isn’t half as effective in creating likability as “Oh shoot. I have to get out of here.” A character is likely to have many goals, and you need to spell them out, more than once.
By clearly laying out your goals, you can ratchet up the tension. If the character’s short-term goal is to run and hide, and they fail in that goal, the reader takes note and roots for them. Occasionally, a character may fail to achieve their intermediate goal. This can make for a major heart-in-your-throat moment. Some intermediate goals must be achieved, of course, because it is through them that the character attains their main objective. For reader satisfaction and a happy ending, I recommend that final goals should always be achieved.
Goals can be internal or external. Finding their mother’s killer would be a character’s external final goal. Hiding out in bed for a good cry would be the character’s internal short-term goal. For best effect, counter balance external goals with internal goals and vice versa.
Reaction
Make sure every action from a third party evokes in your character a reaction consisting of one, two, or all of the following, depending on the moment’s importance: a reaction (what does your character do?), a visceral emotion (i.e. what physical reaction takes place, i.e. a swallow or a turning stomach?), and an internal comment (a short “Oh shoot” or a sentence or even a paragraph explaining her reaction). If the reader cannot understand why your character does what he or she does, it’s tough to even care.
Setting
Your character comes to life in the way they see the world. Even a serial killer can be made likeable by allowing him to notice a gentle moment between a mother and her child, or the frost-tipped branches of a majestic tree. Imagine what this can do to your hero. Flip this around, and you could use this tool to plant red herrings by allowing a nice character to draw unpleasant analogies, such as describing the color red as the color of raw meat. If the reader is put off by the character’s thought processes, they might be more inclined to suspect the character is up to no good.
As I said, these are ideas that have helped me. If you can think of other ones I haven’t yet considered, please let me know.
