What makes people care about your characters?

Please note I don't mean "like" because that's mostly subjetive. Your favorite character is somebodie's else's worst character. What I mean is how you avoid indiference.

Sure there are some characters that supposedly people hate and yet they can't shut up about them, wich makes them succesful in the sense that people care. People hate Scrappy and Wesley but they are now part of our culture so from a point of view they are successful. On the other hand random red shirt #1 and Scooby Dum aren't.

We all remember stories where a character either died or did an heoric sacrifice and all they got was just "meh" reactions from us.

Thoughts?

edited 29th Oct '15 10:59:24 PM by RPGLegend

Actually, that's just it. In order to care about a character, you need to like them. People don't care about people they hate.

Hate can go either way, actually. There's the Hate Sink (e.g. Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter), and there's The Scrappy.

edited 30th Oct '15 4:09:39 AM by hellomoto

Pretty much what Lunacorva said. Though I'll go a bit deeper into it and say:

"It is our ability to sympathise with the character."

Because it doesn't matter whether we like the character or not, for as long as we do not actually dislike them, but being able to sympathise with a character means we at the very least think that we can connect to them, and that makes us care. Of course, it also tends to make us like the character so that's that.

However, OP said:

"Sure there are some characters that supposedly people hate and yet they can't shut up about them, which makes them succesful in the sense that people care."

To be fair, this is probably not something an author would want to actively aim for.

I recently gave up on trying to finish The Republic of Love by Carol Shields.

It's supposed to be a romance between a divorcee folklorist who specializes in mermaids and a man who lost his mother to depression and became the practice baby at a finishing school. It's all very quirky, so it should have been interesting, but I couldn't stay with it. The folklorist and her soon-to-be-ex kept talking quirkily and then the narrator would tell me that the folklorist didn't feel love anymore but a mild disgust for who she was with, and they would decide to divide whose music records belonged to who and one would get mildly upset and show it, and the leading lady would give her mother a call, and her mother would spout this really long monologue about how disappointed she is that they're not working out but that it's ultimately of course her daughter's decision...and I could not care.

The next chapters showed the grown-up practice baby walking around dealing with generalized anxiety about life, and I knew where it was headed from the blurb of the book, but there wasn't any foreshadowing, or anything to make me go, "Oh, they're perfect for each other, I totally ship it, I can't wait until they meet!" I actually grew up with a lot of anxiety, so I should have liked this guy because he captured it, but he didn't capture it, the narrator only said that he had it, and he wasn't doing or even wanting anything in the wall of text that was the narrative quirkiness.

And then the story went on to describe the lady going to the office with all the other folklorists and having to explain to them her relationship falling apart because she just doesn't feel anything for him, and then her future ex-man moves in with his ex and his ex's husband and says that it's nothing kinky but it's the next step in a stop-gap measure of life changing and why is she crying about that when she's the one who wants their relationship to be over?

So, I stopped reading, and I can't even remember their names.

I guess I couldn't care because the characters came off to me as inconsistent rather than complex, there were no stakes, no developments that I could catch, no foreshadowing anything to anticipate, and maybe it was just Shields' sense of humor that I just wasn't in the mood to get or I'll just never get it.

Yet, it's published. That means Shields cared enough to finish the manuscript, a reader cared enough to give it a thumbs-up from the slush pile, and the publisher cared enough to get it to a bookstore in a country that doesn't have its own sort of English (yet.) There must be readers out there who cared about these characters. Or maybe some readers got Shields' sense of humor, or were taken in by the extra super cute quirky style. Either way, I don't get it. I won't harsh their mellow, but I just don't get it. I couldn't even hate the characters. They were all so very boring.

Here's what I do. Imagine that this character is your roommate. You are going to be spending a LOT of time with them. Are they someone that you could be friends with? Yes or No?

If yes. Congratulations. You have created someone the readers will care about as if he or she was a close friend.

If no, try again.

I am of the belief that while relatability is optional, likeability isn't. Even a scummy Villain Protagonist needs a measure of charm, charisma, physical beauty, or Catharsis Factor to keep readers intrigued, and even then, a readers' tolerance for douchery is highly subjective. What might make one reader go "That is unforgivable!" might make another go "I understand why s/he did that."

edited 30th Oct '15 3:37:41 PM by Kanonite

I think that'll work, but the original poster counted hatred as notice and noticing as caring.

So, maybe something more like...Imagine that this character is your roommate. Will you even notice if they disappear for a month without warning? If yes, then will you feel relief, resentment, worry, or even grief? Does that worry come from you being a decent human being, or from them?

What the OP is talking about is emotional investment in the characters of a story, which is different from being likeable in the personal sense or even just liking a character as a character (which is very different from liking them as a person). Being invested in what happens to a character can mean wanting them to succeed and be happy, or change for the better, or find a suitably just or grim comeuppance.

But whence does this stem? I'd say making them feel real. You can hate a character because they are superfluous and badly-written and want them to just not be in the plot anymore; but you can also dislike them for who they are in the story and want them to see some kind of rough justice for their actions because their actions do not feel removed from your emotional reality. That is a form of investment, just as loving a character or wanting a flawed and broken character to become better is.

There's no way you can gauge an audience's reaction ahead of time. Some people will like the characters, some people will hate them. Can't control how people will react. Just do the best you can and let the cards fall where they may.

Let's look at Harry Potter and why I have a love-hate relationship with it Spoilers ahead.

When Sirius Black died in Order of the Phoenix, I was so distraught that I almost cried. Why? Because I loved him. Why? Because Harry loved him and he died fighting to protect him? Why did I care about Harry? Because I'd followed him through five years of his life and I wanted him to be happy (in spite of those times when he was unbearably annoying). Why did I care whether of not he was happy? Because he'd been abused and neglected for so much of his life. Why did that matter? Because I know what it's like to feel unwanted (even if you aren't truly unloved). Why did that matter? Because I saw a bit of myself in him. So, my desire to be happy myself made me want Harry (with whom I empathize) to be happy by proxy; so, whenever people he loved died, I shared his pain (or felt it more keenly (especially when Fred Weasley died)).

That's why I personally cared about Sirius Black dying. I can't speak for any other reader. Maybe somebody else was THRILLED that Sirius died. I don't know. You won't be able to predict that kind of reaction either. That's one of the hardest parts of being a fiction creator is that you'll never be able to accurately predict how the audience will feel about your characters or storylines or settings or themes.

Now. Let's look at Twilight and why I have a mostly-hate relationship with THAT

I hate Bella Swan with a passion so fierce it amazes me, because I'm not SUPPOSED to hate her. I'm supposed to like her but instead I find her to be the worst kind of person. She's a manipulative, spoiled brat with a superiority complex; I hated her for hurting Charlie (supposedly in order to "protect" him (except she used REAL shyt to do it)), I hated her for using Jacob (and getting him into trouble with his tribe and pack), and I hated her for nearly getting herself killed trying to have a monstrous vampire baby even tho her husband (who she's supposed to love and respect) was begging her to terminate the pregnancy for her own well-being. The ONLY THING I liked about her was that Kirsten Stewart portrayed her in the movies (this was back before she revealed herself to be kind of a shytti person in real life and I still had fond memories of her awesome performance in Speak).

That's why I can't stand Twilight's protagonist. I can't speak for any other reader. Some people may love Bella and think she's strong and admirable (although, I've never heard anyone say anything remotely nice about her). The point is, I'm sure Stephanie Meyer didn't INTEND to make her main character the one I hate most in the entire series. It's all subjective, is the point

Well, Bella Swan was basically a self-insert fan fiction character, only the story she was in was a fan fiction of no thing that existed before.

Might sound harsh, but that's that.

But, as I'd said, it all does go back to our ability to sympathise with the character. We may or may not like them, but for as long as we do understand on emotional level why they are doing the things they keep on doing, we will care; well, in most cases. Because if we can do that then like or dislike or love or outright hatred, it is possible to—to some degree—substitute ourselves for the characters, and that makes it that much easier to care.

So if you can't understand why would Bella do the things she did, because you wouldn't be capable of making the decisions she made, then it's that much harder to care about her. And ... well, if you don't care and she makes bad decisions, it's that much easier to dislike or even hate her for making them.

Similarly to what @Lunacorva said, when it comes to characters, on their own terms rather than solely in the circumstances of a given story, I usually do something I call "the drink test". As in, would I like to have a cold one with them, maybe chat on whatever topic interests them, hear about their thoughts and opinions on various matters, etc. And note the interest bit; in fact feel free to use it tautologically - "interest demands interest". If I'm going to care about a character, rather than merely want to see the story involving them, I want to know what their goals and motivations are, where their interests lie. Essentially, I want to see their agency.

(To that effect, it's a cliche that villains are more interesting than heroes, but because their ambitions usually drive the story, while heroes are almost invariably reactive in nature, it's clear who has greater agency in this situation.)

To contrast, characters like Bella and Harry Potter seem likable only if the reader projects directly onto them, rather than see them as external people. Their lack of agency makes for easy projection, as they only need to react to generally unambiguous situations, but a single sidestep dispels that effect. It doesn't even have to be a full-blown perspective flip - I'd imagine "Ron Weasley and the Obnoxious Rich Kid Pop-Star the Whole World Revolves Around" wouldn't exactly be a best-seller.

In short, write characters you'd actually want to be around, rather than just be, and make sure you give them some general aspirations or at least a decent amount of lifestyle satisfaction.

I have my own theory about it which said people care because three things in chararter, this are:

They are relatable: this is the most easier to understand and the most comon to see: people enjoy chararters they can prjoect themselves into which is why this fall with the protagonist most of the time, chararter like Peter parker,Harry potter, videogame protagonist,etc we see the world in their eyes and feel like they feel, pretty simple...

But there is a problem as well, many of this chararter can come as blank or generic because their main chararteristic is to be relatable at all while the rest can charm you as hell, and taking about that....

They are Charming: maybe is because they are sexy,maybe because they are so damn cool or badass or...well you get the idea, in this case you care about the chararter because they charm you with something they have, sometimes this aplies in the oposite way of relatability: since the show is fictional, you feel able to enjoy things you usually cant

Chararter like this will be Tony stark in MCU with is witty one-liners, awsome planing and yes, even his sowewhat jerk-ish personality, other chararters like this are the typical action movie guy, mecha protagonist and the like.

In this case the problem with this chararter is they become one-trick pony, if they dont impress you then the ilusion is lost and become boring as hell since there is nothing in the chararter to understand.

And yet again taking about it....

They are understandable: this is most dificult to pull off, they are chararter you enjoy studing or analysing to see WHY they are like that exacly, even if they are unlikable.

A good example would be Snape from harry potter: the guy is a A-Class dick(and the A stand for Asshole) and he dosent have anything to charm you, he is the kind of guy one will punch in the face but the most time happen you star asking "what is the deal with this guy" and maybe make an essay once evertyhing is being reveal, you cant relate to them and they are dificult to enjoy but intersting to see.

So for what I see is usually one of this three, or that is my theory about it.

You need to give your characters clear motives, and then have them pursue those motives to the full extent of their abilities and resources. Then you need to throw obstacles in the characters' paths for them to overcome (or not, depending on the tone you're going for). This is the most basic method of eliciting empathy from your audience, and it works no matter what genre or medium you're working in.

I feel like I've explained this dozens of times before. It's stuff they teach you in Storytelling 101, and it baffles me that posters on this site call themselves writers without understanding such a basic practise.

edited 3rd Nov '15 4:28:04 PM by Tungsten74

I personally loved Lestat de Lioncourt. I'm always rooting for him, even when he's in the wrong. You might say he's Draco in Leather Pants even. But why do I like him so much?

I like his audacity, his passion, his bravado, his determination. I like him when he's wallowing in the depths of despair and soaring the heights of mania. I like him when he's cruel for cruelty's sake. But why?

I think it's because he's fun. Following his stories is genuinely entertaining. Yeah, he just killed those people for like no reason at all (beyond his own pleasure), but I still think he should get what he wants. He should get what he wants because he's cool.

So, maybe some characters make you care just because they're cool or Badass or sexy or whatever. Maybe we enjoy characters who embody the qualities we want to experience in the moment. Maybe I only watch Interview With A Vampire when I want to feel awesome like Lestat or tormented like Louis or unsatisfied like Claudia. Or maybe when I just want to see someone else be those things. It's very much dependent on the individual, I think.

edited 3rd Nov '15 8:32:57 PM by nekomoon14

That doesn't nearly work as often as I've been told. I remember hearing about that from a review of an episode of Game of Thrones where Ramsay Snow gets legitimized into Ramsay Bolton. The reviewers kept saying, "I hate this character but that was kind of awesome. Of course, they teach you in screenplay writing class that if you give any character a goal, then the audience will be invested..." And I'm just like, "How about no."

Or what I described about The Republic of Love. The leading lady had a clear goal before I left her: end the relationship, which was for some reason accountable to her family and mutual friends so there were also momentary obstacles. Between the lines should have been the push for meeting Mr. Endgame if not Mr. Right. Yet I'll never find out because I couldn't be bothered to care.

It's more base than that.

Which is why this statement is so painfully naive.

They're wish fulfillment. Lestat is better written than the version of Harry Potter from Partially Kissed Hero, or your average harem fanfic lead. James Bond is better written than both of them put together. The thing is, they're all expressing the same thing.

So the autocrats, and the monsters, and the brainwashers, and the morality-free, and the killers draw our attention. We talk about liking them, an unwise statement at best, but we have confused ourselves. These people would be sheer hell to share any significant length of time with. We might not even survive it.

But there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, out there who will gleefully cheer them. Partially Kissed Hero is the second-most reviewed HP story on the internet, and rankly the first isn't much less repulsive either, it just cloaks it better.

People like these characters because they don't understand them. They like these characters because they don't want to understand them. They want to have that kind of power. They want to have the sexy body and the awesome lines and the ability to kill on a whim, control the minds of any member of the alternate sex and make them a devoted slave, to be the unchallenged master of the story that is their life.

Lestat and Harry by way of Voldemort and your average self-insert all tap into the same urges. H.L. Mencken's "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.", the desire for power, plus wouldn't it be awesome if everything just went your way without having to exercise power?

What's that? You think people wouldn't like that kind of story? Hah. Read 'em an' weep.

edited 4th Nov '15 9:24:16 AM by Night

Um... that's pretty much the point I made already - people like these characters if they've already projected themselves onto them, enjoying the born winner power-trip. But that's just it - they're not so much well thought-out characters, as empty vessels, in the same way a brand new suit isn't an actual person. So in effect, people don't really like the characters, but only themselves in the provided suit, as most people tend to do anyway. The tricky part, and I dare say the point of discussion here, is how to have the character remain likable even when that's not the case.

Your argument about lack of agency doesn't work, though. This characters do have agency. They use it. It's why they're often contemptible and sometimes worse than the villains if you ever stop to think. They're not forced into terrible acts, they made choices for them. They don't have to react to only unambiguous situations; the situation can have all the ambiguity in the world. They just have to act, ignoring ambiguity to impose their own vision.

More to the point, your entire original argument is that these characters don't work. It's your conclusion at the end. It's your conclusion in the sentence I quoted. You're arguing the exact opposite of what you said you did? That these characters do, not don't, work?

The thread is about why people care in general. And people care for characters like this. Unthinkingly, and perhaps they should be ashamed for it when it's a character as openly bigoted and monstrous as Harrymort. But they do.

Your arguments for Harry Potter (Original Flavor) in this case are pretty unconvincing, I should add. He's got too much individual detail about him that has to be ignored. A lot of people do project themselves on Harry, sure, but they have to mess him up to do it. If he were that blank, we wouldn't be stuck with dozens of Harrys that made no sense when others wrote him because he wouldn't have enough character for that. He'd just fit.

Bella Swan can be written into almost anything because she IS that blank to begin with.

edited 4th Nov '15 10:24:49 AM by Night

The argument is that the characters don't work as characters. Otherwise any video game avatar would be worth caring for, the more exaggerated their features are the better. Yet in video games, the opposite is far more prominent - people remember characters like Cloud or Raziel or even Mario because they're fleshed out in their own right, rather than existing as mere player avatars.

To contrast, someone like Bella is extremely polarizing, and my statement more or less explains why this is so - she works in no other way than as a projection. The moment you try and picture her as an actual person, the illusion falls apart. With Harry Potter, the issue is indeed a lot more prominent in the early books than the later ones, but it'd still be a considerably different and far less profitable story if, all other elements being the same, he was just a regular muggleborn Hogwarths admittee. For that matter, said number of distorting fan-fics precisely illustrate that he's appreciated far more for his status than for any of his personal traits, now don't they?

In short, look for franchises with strong Sailor Earth potential to see whether people are actually interested in the particular characters, rather than the general power and status fantasies they just happen to embody.

edited 4th Nov '15 10:41:13 AM by indiana404

I can't comment on Game of Thrones since I've never watched it, but from your overview of The Republic of Love earlier in the thread, it sounds like the main character didn't actually have a clear goal in the way I was describing. You talk about them bumbling around with no clear direction – that doesn't sound like a character with a clear goal to me. That sounds like a writer who doesn't know what the hell they're doing.

When you give a character a goal, they should spend their every present moment in the story pursuing that goal. There should never be a period where a character is just bumbling around, killing time. There should never be a period where a character is doing something irrelevant to their goals.

Apply that principle rigorously, and eventually you should end up with a thrilling, propulsive story, where the characters move from beat to beat with crystal-clear purpose and aim. A story where the audience knows exactly what the characters involved want, they know exactly why the characters are present in any given scene, and they have all the context they need to understand everything the characters do, and thereby sympathise with them.

Another case in counterpoint: OnceUponATime. Ever since the third season, there's been a Big Bad that everyone has got to defeat. They invest so much screen time into the external threat with just stuff getting in the way of their doing the thing, that none of them felt like real characters anymore. But hey, it's a goal.

For that, I'm personally more on board with any other theory of how a character generates interest.

I have another HP example. Dolores Umbridge. I hate her. Not because she's poorly written or anything so mechanical as that but because she makes Voldemort seem positively charming.

Here's a character I want to see in pain, suffering for her crimes (though, not in the rape-y way it happened in the book). My reaction to her is rooted purely in who she is; she feels like a real person to me, a really despicable real person. Bella might be an example of a character I hate because she's poorly written but Umbridge is definitely not that; she's also NOT a "blank slate".

I love Once Upon a Time but I definitely agree with you on this point. The characters don't feel like real people. I mean, when was the last time anyone took a dump or had a period? So many conversations could've been had while Charming David was on the pooper. Maybe Snow White Mary Margaret could have really bad cramps one episode (and doesn't exactly feel like rushing around shooting arrows at people). I know it's an action-y, adventure-y fantasy show, but where's the humanity in the characters?

edited 4th Nov '15 7:17:47 PM by nekomoon14