Building Sympathy

[wulfsbane]

Ok, so building sympathy. How do you do it, and do it well? Please be as in depth as you feel.

 

[Mouse]

Sympathy for a character? Make the character likeable.

 

[Hex]

Oooh. Good question. I suspect readers want to sympathise and it's an issue of not writing a wildly unsympathetic character.

I think characters moaning all the time and constantly thinking about themselves can be unsympathetic. It took me several centuries to learn that just because I would react in a particular way didn't mean my character should.

I think characters are more sympathetic when they're in a difficult situation and trying to manage it, not dwelling unreasonably on the bad stuff, and (this is a personal one) especially when they have some kind of moral standpoint I agree with.

So: Seyonne in Carol Berg's Transformation is the most sympathetic character I can think of (offhand). He's a slave, beaten, mistreated, with the most appalling backstory. He's taught himself not to dwell on it because that way lies madness.

There comes a time when he's told to maim another human -- someone who has hurt him very badly -- and he won't, because his principles and his moral code won't let him. This despite the fact he's been given a direct order by his owner and refusing is likely to cause him significant pain/ trouble.

(those aren't really spoilers -- all that happens in the first chapter of the book).

 

[wulfsbane]

I know that's what people say, but I suppose I'm looking for something more in depth than that. What kinds of things do you do to make them likeable. Also stuff besides just making them nice. How do you make evil/not nice characters sympathetic? (I'm thinking of Tyrion here.)

Edit: This is in response to mouse, not hex. Typed too slow

 

[Mouse]

I don't always make them 'nice.' Nice doesn't always equal likeable. Making them funny helps a hell of a lot.

 

[Hex]

It's like having a friend, I think. Someone you want to spend time with.

They need to be someone you like, even when you know you probably shouldn't, -- and like Mouse says, being funny can be a good way to make someone attractive.

 

[The Judge]

For me, I have to like, or at least admire, the character. No matter how funny or superficially charming, if someone is evil I'm very unlikely to feel any sympathy for him/her -- which equates to Hex's comment about moral standpoint, I think. I'm probably one of the few people who actively disliked Abercrombie's Glotka -- no matter what terrible things he'd undergone, he'd walked clear-eyed into being a torturer, so I couldn't feel any sympathy for him. Logan, on the other hand, I could, because his needless violence wasn't (as I read it, anyway) of his own volition.

On the other hand a torturer who is acting to save other people, or society -- being inhuman to save humanity (a le Carre misquote) -- I will find more readily sympathetic, especially if he is conflicted about what he is doing and we see that. Though as Hex also says (it'd be quicker if I just quoted her whole post...) having someone relentlessly agonising about his/her own moral position or engaged in lengthy episodes of self-pity can quickly become a turn-off -- it will be boring, and no one wants to be around a bore for long.

 

[allmywires]

I think having internal struggle is the biggest key for me, especially when what they're struggling with really has no clean-cut solution. I'm unlikely to sympathise with (an extreme example) a main character who is struggling with her desire for a new designer dress but has to get a job to afford it because her rich parents cut her off (unless there's some serious character development going on!). I need to see change, too. I want to start with a character who's a little or a lot broken and have them make some headway towards fixing themselves (not completely, because that's usually a bit of a cop-out). I want them to be real, act believably, be conflicted, have problems, and usually a pretty sharp sense of humour.

So, not much, really...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Have a look at GRRM and what he does with Jaime and Theon to turn them around in our mind. It's not what happens to them but what they do with it.

I think being active is a big one (but I have a character that's giving me trouble along those lines, so I might be focused on that) --- but deciding to do something, not being pulled along for the story. And humour, I always find a bit of humour goes a long way. Pulling me close - so getting rid of the veils (felt, saw, watched, heard...) and bringing me with the character. Their plight -- believable and, preferably, sympathetic.

Glotka -- I'm with the judge, I didn't find him sympathetic, but I did find him interesting to read, and that was to do with the closeness.

So, yeah, be close, have a good plight, maybe the odd bit of humour/flashes of personality and make us want to go along with the character. Easy... thuds head off desk at how blinking hard it actually is...

 

[Mouse]

I'm unlikely to sympathise with (an extreme example) a main character who is struggling with her desire for a new designer dress but has to get a job to afford it because her rich parents cut her off...

Like my MC who really, really wants a Maserati but daddy wouldn't buy it him, you mean?

 

[allmywires]

Like my MC who really, really wants a Maserati but daddy wouldn't buy it him, you mean?

I had a feeling you might say this haha. Liam seems to do a lot of things that I normally hate, damn you talented woman :S

 

[Hex]

I quite liked Glotka (though reluctantly) but I loved Logen.

Another example:

Robin Mckinley writes very sympathetic characters, I think. I love Harry Crewe in The Blue Sword. At the start, she's in a very alien foreign country having been shipped off there after her father died, to be close to her emotionally-constipated brother who's in the army. She's lonely and she can't sleep, and she struggles (internally) with the kind, older couple with whom she's staying.

She expresses all this not by crying or moaning or being a brat, but by being first down to breakfast in the morning.

So again, she's in a difficult situation and struggling to come to terms with a new life but she deals with it by being brave and polite (even when she really really doesn't want to be) -- and so I really like her.

 

[Jonathan C]

I know that's what people say, but I suppose I'm looking for something more in depth than that. What kinds of things do you do to make them likeable. Also stuff besides just making them nice. How do you make evil/not nice characters sympathetic? (I'm thinking of Tyrion here.)

Edit: This is in response to mouse, not hex. Typed too slow

Make them the underdog. Even a pure evil villain can be rooted for if he is working hard to get something and overcoming serious obstacles. Having selfish actions have positive outcomes helps too, as does having people mistaking them for heroes (which can either make them actually heroic, or even more manipulative and evil, depending on how you play it). And of course there are the usual methods of giving them a tragic backstory or contrasting them with characters who are far worse. Making them a POV character (esp. a major one) doesn't hurt either.

Someone like Tyrion is more morally ambiguous than evil, so for guys like them having them be genuinely nice to poor or downtrodden people helps as well, such as how he gets on with Jon Snow (a ******* hated by his stepmother) and Bran (a fellow handicap); he goes out of his way to thwart or avenge the murders of Robert's bastards by his sister; he is constantly treated like dirt by everyone around him even though we the reader know he's not that bad a guy (even the poor folk blame him when he's one of the few in the capital looking out for them); he stands up to Cersei, Joffrey, Tywin and others who treated him horribly (despite being his family) and are all-round terrible people who deserve to be put in their place; and of course he is smart and a POV character we see all the time.

Also there is a difference between likeable and sympathetic. Some characters are likeable because they are very clever or charming or have big ambitions, but aren't sympathetic because they are utterly selfish or commit atrocities, or perhaps they just don't really have anything bad in their backstory and live fairly easy lives. Other characters are deeply unpleasant and unlikable people - or might just be plain boring- but if they come from a terrible background, have a string of rotten luck or actually want to do good despite themselves or despite their lack of charisma then you can sympathise with them.

 

[Gumboot]

Ok, so building sympathy. How do you do it, and do it well? Please be as in depth as you feel.

Do you mean sympathy, or empathy? Because they're totally different.

Sympathy is basically "feeling sorry for someone". The easiest way to do this is have things happen to them that they don't deserve. Even characters a reader doesn't like can be sympathetic, if their situation is sufficiently unfair in relation to their negative traits.

Empathy is an entirely different kettle of fish. Empathy is putting the reader in the character's shoes and making them experience what the character is experiencing. The easiest way to do this is to make the character likeable. But personally I think that's a little boring. A trickier but ultimately more compelling option is to instead create flawed characters who are relatable. This is why the "everyman" character is so popular in storytelling, because they're literally a character that "every man" can relate to. They're not perfect - sometimes their flaws are how we relate most to them.

A lot of it is in how you frame a situation:

So... a long lost King who is stressed out because the Nazlock's won't remain peaceful with the Zimwhits... it's hard to relate to that, and therefore hard to feel empathy for the character.

But a good-intentioned guy who has been thrown into a situation without proper training, and who can't seem to make things work despite all his efforts... that's someone most people can feel empathy for.

Those two could both be the exact same scenario, it's all in how you frame it, and what you focus on. Simply put, focus on the humanity of the situation, and the basic human problems that plague us all instead of the specific details of their particular predicament, and you're on the right track.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Ok, so building sympathy. How do you do it, and do it well? Please be as in depth as you feel.

Save the Cat deals with this succinctly.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I do it by bringing in situations most people have encountered in real life or wouldn't want to encounter in real life Motherless teen, issues with parents, dying child, one night stand that went wrong. Then I keep it as simple as I can with the language.

 

[millymollymo]

Have a look at GRRM and what he does with Jaime and Theon to turn them around in our mind. It's not what happens to them but what they do with it.

What springs said.


The person we want to be isn't the person others see, nor is it the person we are.

 

[wulfsbane]

@Gumboot: I mean both sympathy and empathy I suppose, thank you for pointing that out.

Thx for all the help guys! It was very helpful. I really need to read all these Joe Abercrombie books everyone keeps mentioning characters from!

 

[Toby Frost]

A very non-exhaustive list of ideas:

1. Good intentions. The most sympathetic are often not the highest-minded. Being a nice guy who just wants a fairly pleasant life is about the strongest thing I can think of. Moral crusaders are often a bit weird and inflexible (Gandhi, Lancelot, Churchill) or, once you get past the myth, have done some very dirty deeds (Cromwell, Paul Atreides). On the other hand, you have Jim, who has a wife and young child, and just wants to earn an honest bob working on the space dock - but one day discovers what's being brought in and out in those mysterious containers, and becomes bound by his conscience to intervene. Such a character is easy to identify with, and does what we'd all hope to do in similar circumstances.

2. Moral crusaders. See above, but also note the crusader who has a less-pure element to him. Does the fact that Martin Luther King had an eye for the ladies make him more human, or less legendary, or both? The narrator of Rogue Male is an interesting variant on this: he's articulate, decent and pleasant to meet, but a relentless, obsessive hard case at the same time.

3. The awakening conscience. A character who has previously been a believer in the True Faith, or at least willing to go along with it, starts to have doubts. This requires careful depiction, to avoid too much angst, but it can be very powerful. The character Guthwulf in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn springs to mind, but there are loads. A variant can be seen in the villain who is either less evil or less stupid than his colleagues for self-serving reasons (being nice to the peasants so they won't revolt). General Rommel would probably fit neatly here.

4. People who are entertaining. Abercrombie is quite good at this, but Peake's Doctor Prunesquallor is a great example, or even the Fool from King Lear. Whenever he appears, he entertains. I've heard people say that good guys are boring, which means that they're writing them badly, or that their idea of a good guy is too limited. There are too many angsty tough guys in films and computer games, punctuated with the occasional (highly annoying) "wacky joker" type. A character who is genuinely likeable to be around, without being arrogant, will probably be likeable to read about.

5. People who are simply interesting. To my mind, Frank Herbert made a great mistake in killing off most of the more bizarre characters in Dune and replacing them with a chorus line of stillsuited jihadis.

All of these are people you can empathise with, in the sense of enjoying reading about them and not wanting them to die. I think 1-3 are more obviously sympathetic. To my mind, it is important, whilst being aware of a character's role or function, to treat them as an individual. If "nice guy with family" seems boring "nice guy with dying mother and wife who is a pioneering biochemist" is more interesting. Perhaps the easiest way to create sympathy, though, is to throw a lot of rubbish at the character and see them struggle to survive. Too much comfort can make characters seem bland or conceited.

I regularly write about four characters, two of whom are high-minded idealists, one of whom is a regular joe who just wants to stay alive (but has a concience) and the fourth is a bloodthirsty warrior. But they're all pretty decent, they remain broadly honourable and hopefully have a combination of good intentions and interesting quirks to stay sympathetic, especially when they fight against bad things.

 

[Drakai]

Maybe it's just me but I really dislike characters that are too good. Never having bad thoughts about others, never doing anything wrong or getting depressed over it for the rest of the book when they do. They just don't feel real.