Caring about characters

cherrystark 2023-05-23 04:17:27 UTC #21

I think you do like @TheLemmaLlama said. I think it's okay to start out with a blank character in the beginning stages but you have to let them grow. For example, I'm a HUGE Scooby Doo fan. I've been this way since I was little and my hypothetical grandchildren will watch Scooby Doo. The characters from the OG series were pretty generic. Freddie was your generic white boy team lead, but now he's grown into a himbo king who shares leadership responsibilities and checks in with Daphne about her emotional well-being. People have shipped those two for decades but now that their characters have grown, I root for them more now than ever.

VersusVII 2023-05-23 06:19:28 UTC #22

What makes me care about characters is how they are presented: have they got dreams or goals to achieve? What are they gonna do to get what they want? Are they coherent with themselves?
I like characters with a bit of humour and I want to see them getting to their goal by step, even struggling a bit. I stop caring for them while they act out of character (for example they acted taking the most logic option caring only for the outcome, then they start following their heart without a proper change in his behaviour).

Nugtown 2023-05-23 19:49:55 UTC #23

@Lensing I could totally believe that it's based on intent. My personal opinion is that I have not experienced reading many stories that follow this format, but it seems to be a popular choice for manga where the mc is just for a reader to self insert.
Maybe it depends on what kind of story you're crafting and who you are aiming the story towards. I think if I were crafting an escapist fantasy I probably wouldn't go out of my way to have the MC be too unique.

@VersusVII
It does seem to be that a character with strong goals is part of giving the reader a series of questions to seek answers for and therefore care about.
Some people are really torn about Breaking Bad and particularly Walt as an evil character because, well he's evil. Sometimes people need to resonate with a main character on a particular level like, they need to agree with them on a value based level. I am a lot more distant, it matters more how they are connected to the tale they are woven into and learning what will happen next because of their actions.

@TheLemmaLlama
You know, I can't help but feel like readers falling for the side character as opposed to the main one is pretty common. This is just me speculating, but I have to wonder if in situations where the main character was written as an audience surrogate a 'little too well' then the portion of viewers looking for something more would gravitate away from the MC. As a result of side characters not being written explicitly for being a self insert, they end up more developed and unique?

For instance, if your main character is super heroic and self-sacrificing, never hesitating to put themself in danger to save people they barely know, please dear god explain why they are that way, most real people I see in my everyday life do not behave that way and I need reasons :'D

Huge. People always have a reason for doing something. "It's fun" and "I felt like it" are just as valid as something overly complex and it doesn't always have to be needlessly complicated. There's a time and place for giving a character a "reason" and a "damn good reason".

cherrystark 2023-05-23 22:04:59 UTC #24

Everyone is a main character so I seriously doubt anyone is going to write an audience surrogate as a side character. But the situation you described does remind me of the Mary Sue/Wesley Crusher Syndrome. If I am remembering my trivia correctly, Wesley was supposed to be an audience surrogate but was written so that most people didn't like him.

I still look to classic Hannah Barbera for audience inserts that didn't bog down the story. All of their old mysteries would have "guest stars" to help solve the mystery. The main cast stuck to a type so the guests could show up and have fun.

nofacedrawer 2023-05-23 22:05:46 UTC #25

Game of thrones just kills them all lol

djourner 2023-06-25 05:52:02 UTC #26

The is no one way to 'make people care'. Art is inherently subjective, you could paint a picture in all red hoping it will show anger, but someone might interpret sorrow. There is no way to control how your audience views what you write.
The best way to make people engaged in characters is to give them traits that people can relate to, and don't cheapen the emotions of your characters with excessive use of tropes.
The word for this is characterization and it is the single most important thing you will ever create, those 'filler' moments when characters just exist like real people and live can create levity and help the viewer relate to them, or at the very least, wish for them to no recover that status quo where they seemed happier and well.
Give them personal moments, and allow them to process and act on emotion like real people would,
Show that they can be both right and wrong at the same time,
Show the good things they want to return to, not just the inescapable hell they live,
Show those little moments where they avert their gaze rather than be stoic, to show their vunerability
Show the grasp a memento from a far away or late loved one as they seem confused or stressed
Show that those characters have feelings like humans do.

When you engage with stories on a daily basis, its easy to grow desinsitized and ignore certain characters and plots because 'we saw this before' or 'they're boring' or 'they walked into the cursed and obviously evil house', but remember that is the viewer side of things.
As a creator you just have to assume people will care and create base on that, ignore the viewer side of you that says characters are overly dramatic, and focus on making them 'human' in whatever way you can.
At least one person that engages with your work will accept that as true and just let them be without judgment... everyone else will just think your work is 'ok' with some bad parts they don't like, and that's perfectly fine... But THAT ONE PERSON is the reason why you should create.

morganicfoods 2023-07-03 17:52:17 UTC #27

Personally, it's not something I would necessarily worry about when writing. Maybe I've been making stories so long that this question doesn't need to matter to me but I don't think that's the case.
I honestly just try to think of my characters as simply people with real desires, wants, flaws, etc. when writing them. People will find different people more or less likeable depending on their own personality and likes. All I do is try to make each of my characters unique in their own right, and hope that one of them catches the audience's attention.

Personally, when there are things to discover about a character, or multiple layers to their motivation, THAT'S what catches my interest. Their struggles or wants could be the most mundane, but giving the audience reason to believe that there might be more than what meets the eye in terms of their motivation, that's what gets me. Asking the "But why should I care about this guy?" in a more curious and less negative light is always a good thing to me.

simonitropunk 2023-07-03 18:10:03 UTC #28

The first point is YOU. When you care about your characters, this makes it easier for others to relate. If you don't show love, care etc... to them, your audience wouldn't care either.
Make them human. Humans are complex and you can make them like that. They have their joy, happiness, sadness, humor and everything to make them relatable.
For villains, I do enjoy make them so HATEFUL that when your protagonist ram his/her fist in the villain's face, it's going to feel the most satisfying thing ever.
Throw your protagonists in situation and see how things going to play out and how they're going to grow from that experience. Just like life... there are times we are thrown in situations we don't anticipate and from then, you see how you're going to figure things out.
Make them a bit playful... nothing makes more likable to characters when they have moments they can be playful and childlike.

Those are some tips.

maddu 2023-07-03 18:36:26 UTC #29

Give them feelings. I have to identify with their thought process, their hopes and expectations. I don’t have to always agree with them (though I probably have to agree with someone sometimes to get hooked), but I need to be able to let my imagination wander between the lines about how their wants and feelings [don’t] align with the world and how things may or may not unfold.