Making your readers connect to your characters?

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I haven't read your whole story yet, but just wanted to point out while the idea is still fresh in my mind, which is where I think you will find opportunities to add relatability to your characters:

I remember my aunt. Mum's sister. They used to be close. I still remember her a little when I was five or six. Aunt Marie, with her curly blonde hair and strongly smelling perfume. [the perfume wasn't just strongly smelling, it smelled like something that elicits a specific emotion from the MC, what is that smell specifically? Jasmine? Turpentine? Elmer's glue? And what is the emotion it elicits? Smells are strong memory triggers too. You can share a memory here that show a special connection between her and her aunt]

Then something happened. I don't know what. But they stopped speaking. We lost contact. [so what? How did this make her feel? Why should I care?]

In the dark one evening, when the house was sleeping, I hunt through old documents. I find her last address. It's a town far away. [What compelled her to start the search? As a reader, I get the sense that she wasn't close to her aunt, otherwise she would already know that her aunt lived in a town far away... So... what changed? And why weren't they close to begin with?]

There are opportunities abound where you can add some more details about your character by allowing her to express her feelings and to give some reason to her actions.

That's not to say there aren't lovely moments of characterization in your story. E.g.,

She goes quiet. And after a moment, she says "I'm in a cult".

I know she's lying. People in cults don't know they are in cults. And they don't admit it, even if they do. But if that's a better lie than the truth, I'm worried about the truth.

"OK" I say, and I leave the topic at that.

The nugget of wisdom she shows, and the fact that she didn't prod says alot about her character and I totally feel her, so this is great.

Aloofness is fine btw, as long as that is true to / consistent with her character (which seems to be the case here - her calling her mother 'cowering, submissive' is a big hint). Relatable is not the same as likeable, after all. But you still have to show the motivation as to why she embarks on this story.
Importantly, you chose to write this story in first person, so use the first person for the reason it exists: put the reader into her mind and show us the fear, the anxiety, and the desire for real love that's hidden beneath the protective shell that is her aloof personality, which drove her to see her aunt, then show us that she gets what she needs, and how this changes her as a person.

Anyway that's just from my first impressions. Hope that helps!

 

[Pauljiggs]

I recently received this feedback from an anon



What tips do you have for helping readers connect with the characters?

I can try to answer this as a reader.
If the character is somebody I know and you believe in the character, you have me hooked.
Until you show me you don’t care about the character.
3 authors I follow here have done that. Which led me to read more of their stories.
I don’t know if it’s ok name authors so I won’t.
But in each of their stories that hooked me I knew somebody in their story. (Yes I understand it’s a made up story and NO I don’t really know them) And each of these characters were obviously believed in by the authors.
And in one story I absolutely hated the character. I saw and still see no redeeming qualities in the character. Because the real life person I see in the character is an oxygen thief. But the author so believed in the character I was hooked into the story. Another author told a story that was in many ways my mothers story.
And through that story I was allowed to see my mother in a very different light. As a person not simply as Mom.
In the end tell me a story you believe in. Introduce me to people you want me to know. Show me a different side to people I already know. The story doesn’t have to be believable, the characters have to be. Because if you believe I will believe with you.
But if you write stories with throw away characters. Why should I care about what you threw away?
Anyway that’s how to hook me.

 

[intim8]

I don’t know if it’s ok name authors so I won’t.

If by any chance it is me, or it ever comes up for anyone else, you absolutely can. Good or bad, I want to know about it.

 

[StillStunned]

If by any chance it is me, or it ever comes up for anyone else, you absolutely can. Good or bad, I want to know about it.

I'm with @intim8 - we all love to hear others talk about us. And if nothing else, you can point us in the direction of writers we might not find otherwise.

 

[Pauljiggs]

If by any chance it is me, or it ever comes up for anyone else, you absolutely can. Good or bad, I want to know about it.

Thank you for that.
I will keep that in mind.

 

[Pauljiggs]

I'm with @intim8 - we all love to hear others talk about us. And if nothing else, you can point us in the direction of writers we might not find otherwise.

I’ll remember that.
I would point anybody to Broken Spokes, The Journey. Onehitwanda, Cinnamon. And JCMcNeilly, Beautiful.
Well all of these authors stories but these especially as believing in the characters as they tell the story.

 

[WendyTrilby]

I have found the best way for my readers to connect to my characters and, therefore, to my stories, is by painting a very real feel to the sex. By real, I mean all the sounds that go with sex. Some sounds are sexy (groans and moans), and some are embarrassing (queefs). I take time to describe the smells, which are sometimes pungent but usually act like an elixir. I even go into the amateurish grooming most of us are guilt of. These are all things we real people experience during sex, and it's what makes real sex great.

So even if my female lead is smoking hot, she will feel more real when I describe the five o'clock shadow on her vagina because she didn't shave herself today. Or that she sweats heavily during an orgasm. I'll mention how one breast is larger than the other. I may take time to have two lovers laugh at the unfortunate sounds a vagina can make in certain positions.

If the reader can relate to any of the awkwardness of sex that I depitc (and we all can), then they can see themselves in the story, and that = story engagement.

 

[KeithD]

I can't say I put much conscious effort into trying to get readers to connect with my characters (not the least of which is that old truism that there isn't just one universal reader to be satisfied). I think about every fourth commenter on one of my stories posts some variation of "I wish I were X." That's close enough to a connection for me.

One writer's technique to establish a connection is not to get too explicit in painting your characters--paint with a broad enough brush so readers aren't encouraged to NOT identify with them.

 

[Voboy]

Your characters have to be people, not characters. If that makes sense.

The main determining factor between me continuing a story or abandoning it, and between me publishing a finished piece or leaving it on my computer, is are the characters actual people I'm interested in exploring?

If the answer is yes for me, it'll be yes for the readers too.

 

[OffNSFW]

As a general rule, if your writing is honest and deeply felt, it isn't going to connect with everybody. Not everybody has the same tastes or lived experiences.

If your story does connect with everybody, there's an outside chance that you nailed the rarest trick shot in writing, but, more likely, you captured an experience so non-specific that it reached everybody without truly resonating with anybody.

 

[RoperTrace]

I haven't read any of the comments, so this may have already been suggested. I often try to use personality traits of real people that I know in my characters to try and make them seem more 'real'. I've read that some great writers have also done that. Of course you can't do it for everyone, but sometimes it helps readers to make a connection with someone they've known. The most difficult characters to help readers to make a connection, in my own case, are the villains.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Marvel figured this out back in the 60s. They made Peter Parker a kid. A kid with relatable problems just like every sixteen year old has. Girl troubles, bullies, school, family. Then they added superpowers and the issues with balancing those two worlds. Make your characters relatable, hopes, dreams, plans, problems, doubts etc. A lousy job, a lost love, family issues. Any situation that reader could perhaps see themselves in.

 

[Otto26]

Off the top of my head I'm going to point to sympathy, empathy, and desire. I'm also going to point to vivid description versus general description.

In my mind sympathy is when you want the character to achieve a goal. To find love. To survive the night. You know what the character's goal is, even if the character doesn't, and you want them to achieve it for whatever reason.

I would say that empathy is when a character is relatable; you feel you have an understanding of the character because of your shared experiences with them. Empathy is stronger than sympathy but more likely to bite you if your character deviates from the reader's understanding.

Desire is a great big, broad category. It can be the character we wish we were. It can be the character we wish we met. It's the person who's successful finding sexual partners. It's the person who's unsuccessful at finding sexual partners meeting the person who doesn't care that they're a social disaster.

If your character falls into these niches then there's a good chance the reader is going to connect with them. To paint these characters show their motivations rather than telling them. This should, in my opinion, even extend to descriptions of the characters. Don't tell me he's a modern incarnation of Cary Grant, have another character tell me that. Or don't. The old radio plays left a lot of details up to the listener and I think that personalizes the story. So maybe you're fairly vague about the descriptions of your characters and you let the reader fill in the details. Is it important to the story that the woman be blonde? If the answer is no then why describe the color of her hair at all? Let the reader fill in that detail and personalize the story.

Good luck to you.

 

[Whanmore]

What tips do you have for helping readers connect with the characters?

People love my Characters.

So what I've noticed while reading is A lot of writers on the sight introduced their Characters through narration and the first time we hear their voice is "Oooh yeah baby" or "Fuck me harder" That makes them feel like they are following a script.

Books I've read and loved Characters whether its Mercutio, Luna Lovegood or Ramona Quimby I fell in love with their inner and out dialogue. I introduce almost all of my Characters through dialogue. I want to see how they talk, their contractions, their mannerism and demeanor. people talk weird and quirky. A lot of dialogue I read on this sight I'm like "no one talks like that".

That's one point lets hear your Charterers voices. Here's a quote from one of my commentors.

"I actually love this. Each character feels fundamentally their own, but they’re not too detached from reality. They interact like normal high schoolers would, albeit much less gunshy about their sex."

Also give your charaters a goal or a reason for living. boyond just needing an orgasm. Most people are driven by something and that drive makes them sexy. Getting laid just needs to be a thing not THE thing. How many college stories have you read where nobody major is mentioned? How many high school stories have you read where no one mentions graduating? How many office stories have you read where you couldn't even tell me what the company did? Characters need goals and voices to seem real.

This is probably my longest post ever. but I really do love my Characters. I hope you do too. .. BTW I don't wanna hear shit about Salma! lol Obviously I was doing something different for that story. HA!