Characters that engage the reader

[John Dean]

As a writer, a lot of my time is taken up with the creation of characters who engage the reader. I think the key to getting it right is to create someone about whom the reader cares; the reader does not necessarily have to like them, but they should care about what happens to them.

If you place a character about whom the reader has no feelings in a dangerous situation, the reader won’t be that bothered if they survive or not. Make the character one that they care about and they won’t be able to put the novel down.

So, how do you get your readers to become emotionally involved with your story and its people?

The trick is to create characters who experience events in the story in a very real and personal way, one with which the reader can identify as characters encounter the type of fear, joy, insecurity, despair etc that we all experience in our daily lives.

It can also help if the reader can see the character change as a result. These are known as round, dynamic or changing characters. Round characters are multi-dimensional and complex. They are nuanced and often contradictory, this engaging the reader.

Static characters are the opposite. They do not undergo substantial change or growth in the course of a story but can be just as effective in their resolute approach to the world.

Whichever way the writer chooses to go, the key is to make their characters so real that the reader is disappointed that they are not out there somewhere in the real world.