Creating sympathetic characters is an important skill for writers. As a playwright or novelist, you’re inviting people to spend time with someone you’ve dreamed up. Readers and viewers like to spend time with people they like (or love to hate). So, how do you create likable characters that people want to read about?

You show your hero doing something nice right off the bat.

Here is a poem from my upcoming kids cartoon poetry book that explains what I’m driving at.

Sympathetic Characters

by Rodney Robbins

Save a kitten from a fate worse than death.
Give directions to a lost boy named Seth.
Rob a bank without firing a shot–
give the money to those who have not.

Help a blind man cross the street.
Help a bass player find her beat.
Be kind to your mother on the day that’s all hers.
Give an old lady back her purse.

Make life harder for someone who’s mean.
Buy a big lunch for the orphan’s of Breen.
Stub your toe without making a fuss.
Take your trash with you when you exit the bus.

It’s the little things we remember most,
when reading a story and eating toast.
What makes a hero from an ordinary man?
He has time for the little things and a grandiose plan.

Sunday morning. I feel like crap today. It started last night. I couldn’t sleep. Probably a migraine coming on. I’m going through the motions of laundry and other weekend chores, but it’s a struggle. So, should I write? After all, my goal is One Page Per Day. Or should I give it up for the day? After all, the saying is, “Daily, but gently.”

Today, I decided to write. It worked fine. Better than fine. For a half hour at least, I felt okay. I knew the scene I wanted to write. All I had to do to be “successful” was type one page from my scene. I ended up editing a few pages, then typing two more and finishing the scene. Granted, it’s still a crappy day, but so far, my writing has been the high point.

What do you do when you feel like flattened elephant vomit? Do you go ahead and do your pages, or do you give it a rest and come back fresh tomorrow? I’ll give ten Bonus Points for the best answer.

The opening to my new novel sucks! The story is going nowhere. The lead character is dull and lifeless. What can I do? Get lost! Yup … when you don’t know what to write next, sometimes you just need to wander around inside your story world and look for something interesting to write about. Maybe your opening isn’t really the right opening, the best opening. It is certainly not the Only opening.

In my new Katie-Lynne Vaughn mystery, my original opening was a home auction that takes place just before Katie takes off to lead a class at a physic retreat. I was trying to create drama, but writing about an auction was tough, and what beginner mistake did I make next? I had a stranger come in at the end and offer Katie a small fortune for her home. Great for her. Terrible for my story. Why? Trouble, and how we face it, reveals character. Standing around an auction, hoping it goes well doesn’t reveal a whole lot about a person. Sure, I can put in a lot of internal dialog, but there is no external force driving my character. What to do? Wander around the story.

In this case, I tried wandering around in the same time and spotted Katie’s grand daughter having a fight with her mom, and the killer heading out on a secret mission. Good. Good. But my Main character was in the middle of snooze fest. So I decided to wander around a little in time. I discovered my main character’s car had recently broken down, on her way back from buying food for her Going Away Party. Poor Katie was in tears at the side of the road: worried about the food, worried about the upcoming home auction, worried about saying goodbye to all her friends, struggling to get a signal on her cell phone, talking to strange men who might offer to help. It was a nightmare for her, and revealed a lot about how our heroine faces terrible pressure. Now THAT’s an interesting opening that makes you demand to know more!

What did I do? Some would say I took Artistic License and made some changes in the story. I like to use the term Jerry Cleaver uses, I took Sadistic License. I looked for Katie at her worst, and wrote about that. If Katie was a real person, that would be harsh and unfair, but she’s not a real person. She’s a made up character, and pushing her buttons pushes the audience’s buttons, and that’s what they’re paying me to do. Something bad happens to Katie-Lynne, she handles it, and the audience wonders how They might have handled it. “Oh, yes, Katie did good there. That’s exactly what I would have done.”

So, if your story is stuck, or if it just sucks, take the time to wander around in your story world–geographically and in time–and look for something that really pushes your character. If you write That scene, you’ll write faster and better, and it will happen almost automatically.

Try it yourself, and use the comment function to tell if getting lost in your story worked for you.

Novelists use internal dialog to help the audience identify with their characters. Sometimes screenwriters use close-ups to reveal what a character is thinking. Of course, playwrights use soliloquies to do the same thing. I just wonder how much of this internal conflict needs to be in the script, and how much comes alive automatically when you choose the right actor for the part.

I don’t completely believe the old adage that “if it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage.” I don’t believe it because I’ve seen actors take my lines and get so much more out of them than even I dared to imagine. At the same time, there are certain gestures, movements and actions that I include in the script because they MUST be on the stage.

• I NEED Jeffery to struggle with putting cream or no cream in his coffee because I’m about to give him a line about how much trouble it is being aware of his alternate personalities.
• I NEED my reluctant porn star Richard Bigalow (Dick Big) to stumble while dancing with Nevada Jones (his love interest) because he sees the show producer and is about to ask for more rehearsal time.

The goal is to make the audience identify with the characters. So, the audience needs to be able to look in on and experience the thoughts and emotions of the characters. Sometimes that means addressing the audience directly, and sometimes it means actors taking those few MUST have moments and using that knowledge to light up their entire performance. Then, then the audience gets it and that’s the best feeling ever.