6 Steps for Luring Your Readers Into Emotional Investment

Hey-hey, Dragons! I promised a new post and now HERE IT IS. I actually managed to do it during the same week as the PSAT and a college info night, so BE PROUD OF MMEEEE. (JK, it's okay to not be proud... I'll just heap a load of dishonor onto you, your family, and your cow -- no biggie. 😜)

Today, we're talkin' emotional investment.

Have you ever cracked open a book to find the characters so dull and boring? Maybe cliché, too? Perhaps the writing's fantastic, -- maybe even the best you've ever read -- but you just don't care?

Now, have you ever opened a book to find that you do care? Like, a lot? Have you ever found yourself so obsessed with such a book that you daydream over it in class? At work? On the way to the grocery store? This is called emotional investment. And congratulations, my friend, because whether you want to be this invested or not... you are, now.

You can have a fantastic world. You can have a brilliant writing voice. But ultimately, what will draw your readers in the most is your characters.

1. GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS MOTIVATION

What does your character want? Why do they want it? Solid -- even changing -- motivations allow your readers to relate to the character. We're all on a quest for something; find our what your character's "something" is.

2. GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS MORALS
(YES, EVEN YOUR VILLAINS 😉)

Everyone has morals. True, they might not align with the traditional sense of right and wrong, but they make us human. Morals give us reason -- for our actions, our choices, our worldview.

Not only that, but morals provide a boundary, a line your character simply refuses to cross. So what happens when he does overstep his boundary?

3. GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS CONSEQUENCES

So your character oversteps his moral boundary, out of ambition to achieve his goal, which (ideally) would leave your character with the consequences of his actions, thus raising the stakes.

I once heard an interview on The Very Serious Writing Show with K.M. Weiland, author of Dreamlander, Behold the Dawn, and A Man Called Outlaw, along with several books on writing. In this interview, K.M. discussed how consequences are rarely dealt with in fiction, but how they provide such a massive impact on your plot, your characters, and your world.

In the very beginning of Downton Abbey (don't worry, folks, this is spoiler-free! 😉), Mary makes a huge mistake, which leads to direct consequences within the same episode... but throughout all six seasons, more consequences (yep, from that one mistake!) continue to haunt her.

4. MAKE YOUR CHARACTERS GRIEVE

Consequences lead to grief. Wanna raise the stakes a bit more? Then give your characters even more reasons to grieve. No, it doesn't need to be death or cancer or lost love, but those are certainly options you can go for! 🙂

If you're are going for death, cancer, or lost love (anything majorly weaving in other characters), be sure to take the same measures with these new characters as you are with your old ones. Give them motivations, give them morals, give them flaws. The more human your characters seem, the more beloved they'll become to your readers. 💜

5. GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS HUMOR

It can be the darkest tale in the world, but I still believe that there should be a little bit of laughter hidden within it. Humor gives your characters -- and your readers! -- a break from the sorrow, a break from the grief, a break from the consequences. Go ahead and give your characters all the grief in the world, but be sure to give them a little bit of humor, too. 😊

6. GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS HOPE

I'm a firm believer that hope should be in every story.* Hope gives your characters reason to go on, pushing, shoving, striving to reach their goal. And if your readers are enduring a difficult time in their lives, and they're living through your characters... then that hope might be just what they needed, too. 🌟

*Did you know that there's a whole community centered around the idea of hope in YA literature? It's called #rebelliouswriting, and you can check it out here.

Thank you so much for reading, my sweet Dragons! Is there anything you think I missed? Any ideas you'd like to contribute?

❤,

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recovered from Pixabay.