Writer to writer: From think to ink - Gail Carson Levine 2014
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Character nitty-gritty
A confession: I’ve had trouble, more than once, making my MC sympathetic. And, since my misery loves the company of other writers, I was glad to find that some on the blog have had the same difficulty. For example, a writer called Gray wrote, “I have this fear of making my main characters unlikable.”
Here’s an example of how I’ve gone wrong: In Fairies and the Quest for Never Land, Gwendolyn, my MC, is a human girl who visits the fairies. When something bad happened to a fairy, I made Gwendolyn think about the consequences for herself and not about the poor fairy. I did this without realizing. After all, the effects on Gwendolyn were important! They were going to move the story along. But, alas, she came off as a selfish pig!
So how do we make our characters sympathetic?
A friend of mine, the delightful children’s book writer Molly Blaisdell, once told me that if you make a character rescue someone else, he becomes sympathetic, at least temporarily. Sound advice. It doesn’t have to be a big deal like pulling a baby out of the jaws of a man-eating shark. It can be tiny. For instance, after our MC Sandra sticks up for someone who’s unpopular or transports an ant outside rather than killing it, the reader is going to be inclined in her favor.
That’s not the only strategy. Think of real people you like and what you like about them. You can insert their qualities into your characters. Barry is completely dependable. Zelda thinks the best of everyone. Alice makes you laugh. And so on. There are many ways for people and characters to please us.
The tools that we use to develop characters are there to help us make them sympathetic. Rescuing is an example of action. Let’s move on to some of the others: thoughts, feelings, speech, appearance.
If Sandra’s thoughts are one long whine, the reader isn’t going to enjoy spending time with her. Not that she has to be merry all the time. For example, as she’s saving the ant, she can be annoyed at it. She can think, Stupid bug. Step on the paper towel, you idiot. Don’t make me beg. The reader is likely to sympathize with her irritation.
While extending the paper towel, she can say, to amuse her younger brother who’s watching, “Hop on, ant. This is your magic carpet. One giant step for antkind.” Her brother giggles. She stops what she’s doing to smile at him. Her words and actions have won the reader over. The smile even reflects her feelings. She’s pleased to be entertaining her brother.
As for appearance, perfection is probably not as appealing as mild imperfection. Our MC can have a weak chin or oversized ears. When I created Aza in Fairest, I made her physically unattractive, but I didn’t give her a terrible oozing rash or brown and crooked teeth, which might make the reader recoil rather than slip inside her.
There is no formula. If we work at it, we may be able to make the reader like a hideous-looking character. We like the Hulk, and we feel for Frankenstein’s monster.
Oddly enough, the reader may have more trouble sympathizing with perfection. We don’t like Superman for his looks; rather, we’re won over by his hopeless longing for Lois Lane, the danger from Kryptonite, and Clark Kent’s pathetic earnestness.
Some writers manage to pull off an unlikable but sympathetic main character. M. T. Anderson does it with Titus in his young adult novel Feed. Titus isn’t likable—not to me, anyway. I pitied him, felt for his limited life, and wished futilely that his world would change—and couldn’t put the book down. He’s not even interesting; he’s utterly shallow, which may be the point of the book. In this terrible world, no one can rise above circumstance to develop depth. But Titus pulls our heartstrings so hard they almost snap—and sympathy pours out.
Writing time!
• Four friends are hiking together. They run out of trail mix. One sprains an ankle. Rain starts to fall. Camp is still three miles off. Make them all deteriorate into annoying people. Create a crisis and bring them back to likable.
• Your MC Yvette is popular. She’s with several of her friends at a dance. An odd, unpopular boy is there, too, and Yvette goes out of her way to be cruel to him. Write the scene and make Yvette sympathetic even while she’s behaving badly. This may be hard; hints of her inner life—her thoughts and feelings—will help.
Have fun, and save what you write!