What your character REALLY thinks.

Remember, we're still on creating reader identification. Think about this now.

Caste the human quality in terms of what it is from your character’s point
of view. For instance, supposed your character was abandoned by his father
at an early age and even today, as an adult, is seeking his father’s approval.

You and I see that, we know that. But does your character think of it that
way? No, he doesn’t. And he most particularly did not think about it in those
terms when he was thirteen years old. It was a very different issue to him. He
felt anger, perhaps, abandonment – but would he have called it anger or
abandonment? How would it have felt to him? How would it manifest?

Back to this idea of being human: for most thrillers and much other fiction,
your character has also got to be larger than life, capable of those acts of
bravery and heroism that the rest of us just dream about. That doesn’t mean
they can’t be human—in fact, they must be if your reader is to identify with
them. That means they’ve got to have weaknesses and flaws, quirks and
habits just like the rest of us.

Pretty obvious, isn’t it? And most writers do eventually do that. But the thing
is, you’ve got to do it right up front. Not in the first ten pages. On the very
first page.

For more techniques, check out FIRST PAGES at BAMwriters.com

Being a weirdo and reader identification

Bring up that weird thing that you think is so odd no one will ever identify
with – that people always identify with.

The weirdest one that ever got mewas when an author wrote about the fascination with high places and
standing on the edge and a compulsion to jump just to see what it would feel
like. That’s really the point at which I understood what strange critters people
are.

People have lots of things like that embedded deep inside them. Universal
secrets, if you will. Those always resonate – and quite powerfully, too, since
they’re secrets.

That’s how you create reader identification: by creating very human
characters. Human the way we actually are, not how we’d like to believe we
are.

Pyrrhic Victories

Second technique for reader identification: set up one of those strange
contradictions of being human in the first paragraph. Pyrrhic victories are good here.

• How could you hate someone you loved?
• He wanted to go home but was afraid to.
• It was what she’d wanted for years—so why didn’t it matter now?

For more techniques, stay tuned. Or check out First Pages at Bamwriters.com.

Commonality Creates Reader Identification.

State that common human quality or experience up front as a hook in your
opening paragraphs.

• He knew what it was to be afraid.
• Jim understood betrayal.
• How had things gone so wrong?
• Why had his mother abandoned him?

Tomorrow: Pyrrhic victories

Creating Reader Identification

Don’t confuse reader identification with creating likable characters. That’s
one way of getting your reader to identify with your characters, but not the
only way. And maybe even not the best way.

Here’s the bottom line: something in your character has to resonate or
enthrall the reader at some gut level. What is human in your character has to
touch that same quality in your reader.

You’ve got to do that within the first few paragraphs. Preferably in the first
paragraph. No warm up time, no throat clearing. In a sense, it’s part of
hooking the reader, but on a different level. The hooks we talked about in
the last chapter are meant to intrigue your reader’s mind or emotions. This
one’s all about ego. It’s about, “What happens to the character happens to
ME!” It operates on a very different level.

How exactly does one do that? Not an easy thing. Start by realizing that
people are not all good or all bad.

That’s not just gratuitous philosophy. It’s a place to start with creating
identification. Let me repeat the above: What is human in your character
has to touch that same quality in your reader.
 
So. Create a human quality in your character early on, something that your
reader can identify with.

How? As always -- stay tuned. Specific techniques tomorrow.  Or if you can't stand
to wait, go check out First Pages at BAMWriters.com

Three ways to hook a reader

• Explosion: The DaVinci Code. Strong verbs, violence, action, set up
the exotic locale and bigger than life characters.

• Character Hook: The Sun Also Rises and David Copperfield. We’ve got
heroes and boxing champs in the opening sentences, followed by some
contradictory sort of info that fleshes out our characters.

• The World: Lonesome Dove. You just can’t beat blue pigs—in
context—for setting a world. Note that we don’t learn a lot about
Augustus but we do know a fair amount about his world almost
immediately.

So—decide what kind of opening paragraph you want, in general terms.
Then, in three or four sentences, do what these examples did. If you get
stuck, stay tuned. We'll talk about templating some opening paragraphs tomorrow.

A word of caution: pick one way to hook. Don’t try to do a character, action
and world hook all at the same time. Sell the small details, set the hook, then
move on to the rest of the story.

This is all taken from my ebook First Pages at BAMWriters.com

The first three paragraphs of your novel

Within the first three paragraphs of your manuscript, you must:

1. hook your reader
2. create reader identification
3. convince the reader to suspend disbelief.

But first, let’s talk about what we we’re talking about. We’re talking about
printed pages. Paragraphs with words and letters.

Yes, audio books – love ‘em. Especially Cracker Barrel’s cool deals that
enable you to check out books in one store and return them at the next store
down the road.

But audio books and movies and all that – that’s after the book is written and
sold. Not to say you shouldn’t keep those possibilities in mind. You should.
But focus on the fact that someone is going to be reading your words,
probably silently.

The problem with a lot of writing groups is that they read pages aloud. If the
writer is the one doing the reading aloud, there’s probably a fair amount of
nuancing and enthusiasm going into the performance.

What you need to write is something you can sell, not something you can
read aloud: a book that’s meant to be read as books are normally read.

Here’s a big secret: some things that work on the screen, in real life, or in
other formats DON’T WORK IN BOOKS. All the countless mental
stutterings that manifest as “Well, uh, okay, hey,” etc., for starters.

Similarly, oral story tellers – and there are some masters out there – have to
get used to the fact that their readers aren’t going to see that funny little
expression on your face when you tell about the goat that got stuck in a gate
– it’s all got to be on the page.

Now, with that in mind, how do you actually do it? Stay tuned. More specifics coming.