Creating Sympathetic Characters

Posted by Backyard Urban Gardening on Thursday, May 15, 2008

One of my "readers" offered me a nice tip today regarding character creation. After reading one of the recent chapters in the first draft of my novel effort, she suggested that I make the main character a little less cowardly, so that the audience would feel more sympathetic instead of getting angry about the characters' actions.

In the original version of the chapter, an Army Captain abandons a subordinate soldier in the face of enemy attack. In the revised version, the Captain goes for help and while gone the soldier is killed. After comparing the two versions, I agree with the suggestion.

This is one of many benefits of assembling a group of first readers that you trust -- they often see things that we creators don't.

1 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I too am finding that support is huge. And support that will honestly review your work is golden.

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