How do you make a reader care about a character?

[jaykayeight]

Make it a very sad vore story.

I like that idea, but I don't know how to make a vore story sad. In fact I haven't read any sad stories, I have read Stephen King, Jean M Auel and Robin Hobb, I haven't read Walking Dead though. Are any of those sad books? At least it's a new search term for google and youtube. Actually I can't even think of a sad movie I've seen, but lots of comedies, like Superbad. But I've never read a comical book though.

You know, its funny: I glanced over your story a few days ago and somehow in the back of my mind there grew another story about your surrounding

For several hundreds of thousands of years the metabolism of female humans have been climbing. When the hunter gatherers learned the skill of making more sophisticated tools the amount of calories that each hunter could collect increased. The bigger a woman is the more children she can get, so the event of sophisticated tools lead to evolution favoring bigger females. The female humans would grow well past their sixteenth birthday whereas male humans shrunk somewhat and reach their full height at fifteen. An alpha female could dominate a large territory together with some sisters, while keeping other competitors away. They have evolved ways of dominating and controlling the males. The more males they dominate the more hunter gatherers they have to bring in the food and make tools and clothes. One way to dominate a male is to swallow him alive, thus usually leads to the male being let out again in order to be useful. An alpha female would test the loyalty of her males by asking them to let her eat them, although most stronger alpha females can force an average male down their hatch most often social pressure was used to force a male to agree to go down. Today we live in modern civilization, but it is still common for girls to test their boyfriends, although very few end up being digested. Women who have digested more than a couple of men often have a bad reputation, unless the men agreed to being digested, usually due to a dare or on a gameshow.

I thought, that there might be a tradition that evolved during the generations, passed on from mother to daughter. The children might not be into vore from the beginning.
And so as they get into their teen years, during puberty, their bodies make a significant change towards being pred and prey.

The mothers would hide their actual eating habits for a good time, until their daughters come of age. Maybe you show it only by the girl wondering why she doesnt see her mother eat while she feeds on ordinary food. Now during that growing up phase, the girl befriends also other boys. Maybe one in particular.

She grows fond of him and they go through alot, like siblings, like friends, share good food as she gets to know also his lovely parents. Though sometimes they seem to be a bit sad and depressed when looking at their son, when nobody is watching, but share in the happy moments as well. The girl gets really fond of all of them, its a very warm and friendly surrounding - somehow contrasts her own home with her mother being reserved and sometimes even cold.

This all changes as the girl reaches the age of her inaguration. The mother now opens up more and shares her experiences, somehow gently leading her into the secrets of womanhood. She explains the bodily changes of the girl very discretely, maybe with a sense of humor, easing the troubled mind of the girl.

But then shows her the place where she eats. The revelation of this old secret is an utter shock for the girl. She denies and pushes it as far from her than anything. But in her heart of hearts she knows there is something changing inside of her. She craves something she cant find words for... until her mother speaks them out.

The mother explains how she would go about it and, as her daughter got over her first shock, even demonstrates this on one of her meals.
The bodies of the males change also during puberty, but more for their being food. There is a certain way she holds the boy, and rubs on certain spots on his body that seems to calm him down. Maybe he is in some state of bliss or trance with his eyes rolling back, not able to fight the things happening to him.

The girl has to think about her boyfriend all the time. She just stares at the process it stasis. Stares at the boys own belly, still moving in attempts to breathe, while the wet mouth of the mother slowly slides down, claiming more and more of the body.

She wants to flee with her friend. But he knows all about his fate already. He tries to calm her down. She hides at his place from her mother. She feeds only on his food, which is good and healthy in her younger years but not the thing her body needs now. Her health is declining, she doesnt eat at all.

As her condition gets worse, and she wouldnt listen to his pleadings to eat at least a little bit, he gets out seeking help in desperation. She has now nightmares of him getting eaten by everybody outside. She sees him getting pulled by various hands, bodies rub on him, wet mouths opening up for his face, his eyes are white as he is in stasis.

Hungered, troubled and somehow still in her feverish dreams, she flees home and after a while seeking, finds her mother with him in her clutches. His face is just the way she dreamed of him, with his eyes already turned inside his head and white.

She cries out his name but both of them are unresponsive. The pred has her prey. Everything is now merely biology. Maybe his lower body is already well stuck in her mothers mouth with her eyes white as well, unresponsive. The girl grabs his face and kisses him over and over again. Strokes his face to waken up. Her hot tears rub on his pale cheek. But all in vain, after a few attempts to wake him up, she just breaks down bursting out in tears now completely. Her body is rocking and shakeing as she leans over the bulging belly of her mother. She wont let go of his body as it is pulled in further inside. Her hot tears cover the naked belly of her mother.

After the mother regains conciousness, the girl is just croutching and shivering at her feet. She gently strokes her head. She leans over and grabs an old picture showing her
in younger years together with her boyfriend. A silly foto taken in a photo-booth, both are very happy.

EDIT: But maybe the saddest part would be to realize, that this is part of their society. Those are considered merely growing pains. In a few months she might have even forgotten her traumatic experience. But will surely fare with her own daughter just the same way.

[BelleJar]

I would work on world and character building
Give amanda (or whoever you wanna make your main) some feelingsother than hunger, greed, and lust. Maybe give her avtual friends or family
Maybe give your secondary characters a bit more backstory?

[spanxthanx]

A world in which people get vorish desires during puberty sounds interesting, I'm not sure how it would be sad though. Wouldn't that be what she wants? At least what the reader wants.

Anyway, I've been learning a lot about creative writing in the past week, view point characters, third person, plot, progress, motivation and so forth. If anyone is still reading this thread and want to learn about creative writing I'll summarize what I've learned, the way I interpret it, because it wasn't always an easy subject to understand. I underline all the terms first time used.

A _story takes place in a _world. A story can be _abstract or _concrete. Abstract means less information about the same _thing, concrete is more information. Something is abstract or concrete relative to a thing. For instance, if you describe the clothes a character is wearing: she was wearing -boots -shirt -skirt... and so forth, then the scene is becoming increasingly concrete with respect to what she was wearing, but the fact that she was wearing for instance a 'shirt' does not count as information about her 'boots', thus the scene is not becoming increasingly concrete with respect to her 'boots'.

A lot of people give the advice "show, don't tell", I've heard it many times before, but never understood what it meant. But it simply means to make the story overall more concrete, but it shouldn't always be towards the concrete side, sometimes it should be abstract. Or it should be abstract relative to certain things. I'm still learning.

A world is some kind of reality, sometimes it could be the real world, sometimes a world very different from the real one. A world is a fractal, and a novel is also a fractal. A fractal is something that contains less information than it could have due to self correlation. It is for instance believed by some economists that most price charts are just integrated white noise, that is to say not a fractal and thus not predictable. But if you look at some charts, like a Bitcoin chart, it clearly looks like a fractal. The letters on a page are of course correlated to each other, but the letters are only the representation of the story, it's the information in the story that matters. To give an example of the self correlations of a story consider a character, maybe you know their: -age -sex -gender -occupation / lack thereof -hair color -race... and so forth. Some of these are clearly correlated. The story is information, mostly about characters, that illustrate the world with examples. If for instance you wanted to write a story about the real world you would write about murderers and terrorists, this is what mainstream media usually does. Most stories are usually about extreme things, like dragons and swords, not scrubbing the floor of a stable. I don't know why, I'm still learning.

The reason that most people emphasize the motivation of the characters is that it's an aspect of their behavior (a _thing, mentioned earlier). Without the motivation the behavior becomes too abstract.

A world can be specific, for instance the world of a thief, or it can be more generic.

Based on the story the reader makes conclusions about the world. Some people emphasize the importance of not contradicting these conclusions later in the story, I'm not entirely sure why. The way a reader makes conclusions is to assume that what they read is somewhat typical, if for instance "Bob spat out the ice-cream" we assume that it's not just because he doesn't like it on Tuesdays of odd weeks while wearing a green t-shirt. If that happens to be the case it's important to tell the reader. But conversely, if "the protagonist suddenly realizes that he is the reincarnated dragon of destiny that has the power to spit swords out of his mouth", we assume that it IS just because of some specific details that apply just to him. I'm not quite sure I understand exactly, but perhaps it's possible to write a story without understanding everything.

Some people emphasize the importance of "progress" or "character arc" or "story arc", I'm not yet sure why. I'm still learning.

Some people warn against using a "deus ex machina" in the story, perhaps this is because it's not typical. If you could understand everything about car crashes in which Superman intervenes, or everything about car crashes in which Superman does not intervene, I'm quite sure you would choose to understand everything about car crashes in which Superman does not intervene. Because that's the typical case, but then again having a "magical flaming sword imbued with dragon-slaying abilities" <--- deus ex machina !?!

A "simile" is a comparison to something else. Like "he had good eyesight, like an eagle". There are many pitfalls associated with using similes, but I think it can be important to learn to use them. Ellen Brock made a video about this subject.

Here are two of my sources:

Ellen Brock
https://www.youtube.com/user/KeytopServ ... _polymer=1

and Brandon Sanderson
https://www.youtube.com/user/zmunk/vide ... _polymer=1

A lot of the lessons that I have learned require, I think, more space than a single paragraph to apply. I'm not sure what to do for short stories, perhaps this is the reason novels tend to be a certain length. I'm currently writing a lengthy story, but I won't mention anything about it yet because I'm afraid my world (the fictional one) will fall apart if I talk about it. Has anyone else had this apprehensiveness about prematurely talking about a fictional work?

[fixated1]

The simplest answer is your protagonist needs a goal.

It only gets more complicated from there, but I'll tell you some other key points you can add for more depth. They need to change near the end of the story. Either they grow and overcome a weakness or they can descend deeper into their flaw and fail, but they need to change.

One common tactic is to give your character a "ghost". It's something that happened in their past that haunts them and relates to the change they're trying to make.

Make these goals and ghosts clear early on and make the characters have at least one likeable trait and you will have a compelling character.

[spanxthanx]

... They need to change near the end of the story. Either they grow and overcome a weakness or they can descend deeper into their flaw and fail, but they need to change.

Wow, that's precisely what Brandon Sanderson was talking about. Maybe soon I understand this topic.

[Artemis]

Well, to be clear this is an extremely subjective question. It varies wildly depending on who you're trying to appeal to and there are several extremely common fallacious trains of thought that heavily complicate the question. The big ones being:

Popularity = Good: Popularity is really more of a neutral trait. It's very easy for writers to be fooled by the idea that the more people who like their writing, the better it is. There is a strong correlation, yes, but there's also a very strong correlation between popularity and pandering to the lowest common denominator. And that's exactly what's going to happen if you put too much faith into numbers. When it comes to fans, quality over quantity still applies to a degree.

Everyone's opinion matters: An extension of the above logic really. In a world where a lot of people don't care about a good story and are just here to fap, the fact of the matter is that if you're trying to write a good story, you should probably not take criticism from them to heart. These people are reasonably common for understandable reasons, but since their priorities are fundamentally conflicting with your own, you're going to get screwed over if you don't learn how to identify and ignore bad advice. On the flip side, don't invest heavily in numbers and then just ignore people who actually are interested in a good story giving you good criticism. I've seen people who do this on DeviantArt, where they just kinda decide "X people like my work, so Y people don't matter." This is when you actually become the guy who can't take criticism.



That being said, there are a few tips I can offer from my own perspective. I'm just kinda skipping the stuff I think is probably pretty obvious to most people and aiming for advice I suspect might actually surprise and help someone.



De-fetishize their portrayal: Making a character likable and fuckable are two different worlds. The only people you're going to make happy trying to accomplish both simultaneously are the people I just finished saying you should probably avoid. |D If you can save the fetishy writing for when someone is actually getting eaten, you've made a pretty good start. That might even be enough if you've got plenty of non-vore content in your writing. But as a rule, if your readers are frequently busy getting off there simply isn't going to be time to really appreciate any meaningful character depth. Basically, pacing becomes important--as does restraint.


Make them relatable. Then get clever and help people who normally wouldn't be able to relate to them do so: That second part is really important because it allows you to avoid pandering, giving you a lot more flexibility on what you can write. If you skip that part and just focus on making characters relatable, you may just write yourself into a cliche corner. This is also admittedly an advanced skill that can be really hard for a lot of writers.

[spanxthanx]

De-fetishize their portrayal: Making a character likable and fuckable are two different worlds. The only people you're going to make happy trying to accomplish both simultaneously are the people I just finished saying you should probably avoid. |D If you can save the fetishy writing for when someone is actually getting eaten, you've made a pretty good start. That might even be enough if you've got plenty of non-vore content in your writing. But as a rule, if your readers are frequently busy getting off there simply isn't going to be time to really appreciate any meaningful character depth. Basically, pacing becomes important--as does restraint.

I have a fetish for large muscular women, and if someone is a hulk of muscle 3m tall, how am I supposed to describe that in a non fetish way? I've been trying to use similes, so perhaps there's a character who is afraid of horses, because they are large, and then I can describe the 3m height as intimidating.

[fixated1]

How to describe something you have a fetish for in a non fetish way... Dial it back? Whenever you feel yourself getting wound up by your writing step back, relax and tone it down. Focus on the parts of it that you're neutral to maybe.

[spanxthanx]

I wonder if anyone cares about these characters. The characters are the girls Kendall and Adeleine and the boys Tor and Arvid. The boys are triplets and sextuplets and the story takes place in a world where girls are a lot bigger than boys, but boys get born as multiplets and they often think about themselves as just one person with many bodies and minds.

It was morning but Kendall was still in bed. She dreamt about ants, she had her own antfarm but there was only three ants and one queen in it. She was the queen and the ants where each a different color. Three triplets slept on the floor under the bed, they each had the same given name, Tor. Individually they were known as Tor followed buy a color. Tor Green, or just Green, was sleeping in the middle and Kendalls 355 kg body weight was threatening to push the underside of the bed into his face. Tor was only 88 cms tall and weighed five and a half kg, once Kendall had rolled over them one too many times in her sleep they decided to sleep on the floor. Collectively Tor was referred to as just Tor and it was Tors task to cook Kendalls breakfast. Kendall was having 10 kgs of mashed potatoes with butter this morning, that meant about 70 potatoes and since Kendall only had one pair of hands Tor had to peal them for her. Kendalls room was upstairs and as Tor was headed for the stairs he heard Kendalls older sister Adeleine lecturing her boy Arvid who was a sextuplet. Adeleine was 12 years old, Kendall and Tor were both 9, Arvid was 15. Tor continued to the kitchen and after he moved the heavy pot to the stove Pink and Green started pealing and Red started walking back and forth between the tap and the pot with a half liter pitcher. As the pot was starting to fill up with water and potatoes Arvid showed up, "What a bitch, oh well her highness is having macaroni.", "Cheer up, that's less work than pealing these potatoes, I think there's at least 50 of them.", "I wasen't talking about food." Tor wondered in what way macaroni wasen't food. Arvid saw his puzzled lock and guessed the only part Tor had registered was 'having macaroni', but then he shrugged and went back to lifting heavy bags of macaroni. No pealing was needed and although it took a while for the water to boil Arvid was soon done. He needed to go to the restroom but decided it might be better to wait for Adeleine to come for her macaroni, so he could tell her that he was going to the restroom. He looked with patient eyes at the clock and thought that he would soon be in school.

Upstairs Kendall realized that her three ants had the same exact colors as her boy Tor, then she got happy about having twice as many people who she could put to chores, then she realized the ants weren't really people and she didn't particularly like ants, then she realized that she didn't actually have an ant farm, then she realized she was dreaming, then she woke up. With her dream still lingering in her head she remembered she had told Tor how much she liked mashed potatoes yesterday, then she felt that her belly was hungry and she wished that she had a nice full steaming pot of mashed potatoes. Then she thought that Tor was usually quite good at predicting what she wanted, hoping for mashed potatoes she rushed to breakfast but saw Adeleine eavesdropping at the head of the stairs and whispered "What are you doing?", "Arvid needs to learn a lesson, he thinks I ate someone yesterday.", "But that's illegal!" Kendall locked around as if the house was being raided, like those shows on TV. "Relax, it's not that dangerous, besides it's just a lie, I had to scare Arvid. I think he might be trying to find someone else." Kendall knew that Adeleine could be suspicious, she thought awhile about what to say, Adeleine knew what Kendall was going to say when she said it, "Don't worry, everyone knows he's yours, if there's a law against eating boys there has to be a law against stealing them.", "Don't think about it Kendall, just go eat your mashed potatoes." The mention of mashed potatoes put a smile on Kendalls face and drew her towards the kitchen.

Earlier when Kendall was dreaming about her antfarm Adeleine was dreaming about a golden statue with six faces. The six faces faced six different directions and it was impossible to hear what a face says without standing in front of it, but then the other faces could say things that you didn't hear. There were high school girls standing around the statue and Adeleine was afraid they were trying to steal it. She walked around the statue through the crowd of high school girls to see what each face was saying, but as soon as she got in front of each face it's mouth would shut and twitch into a guilty smile. She looked around and saw a crowd of girls looking greedily at her statue, then she realized that it wasn't even bolted down. She wished that the statue was safely locked up with many bolts and chains in her basement. Then she realized that the statue went to high school and couldn't be locked up during the day. Then she wondered what a statue was doing in high school. Then she sat up in her bed with a start and realized that she had been dreaming. Then she thought about Arvid and looked under her bed. "Are you all there?", and then remembering what she had told Arvid yesterday she added "show me one hand each." Still wearing her panties Adeleine jumped down on the floor to get a better look under the bed, she reached in and dragged all six of Arvid into the accountability of full light. "All six of you, good, otherwise y'all end up like this unlucky dude." She tapped her belly for emphasis. She collected Arvid into a heap, two boys wide, three boys high and sat down on top with her knees at Arvids shoulders and her feet at Arvids feet. Putting a tiny amount of her weight on Arvid. "There, now you can't move, perhaps I can go back to sleep without any nightmares." Adeleine bent down her chest towards her knees, arms in front of her and head hanging uncomfortably. She shut her eyes for a while but realized she wouldn't be able to sleep, then she sat up again putting a little more of the weight of her butt on Arvids legs. "Well well, looks like I got Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue and Violet all pinned to the floor, no running around and giving poor Adeleine trouble catching y'all or y'all gonna end up turning into rainbow soup in my belly." Adeleine remembered that she had a troubling nightmare, but she couldn't remember what it was about. She looked at Arvid as the feeling of her nightmare lingered on. "I'm gonna make a surprise visit at Oulu high, and if y'all not staying together I'll hunt you down and gobble y'all up. I don't even care about going to prison, not as long as I have rainbow soup in my belly. And when we're grown up and wed it will be legal for me to gobble you up. Yummy, rainbow soup. Go make me some macaroni. I'm gonna call you Rainbow Soup from now on. Go make me some macaroni, Rainbow Soup" Adeleine saw the frowns on Arvids face and wondered whether she had said too much. She pushed her hands under the backs of the two Arvid in the bottom and lifted to stand them up, then gently pushed them toward the door. She thought that maybe Arvid would feel better once he was in the kitchen, if she had said anything wrong he would forget about it when he was busy making macaroni. She sat on the floor a while after Arvid had walked out the door and tried to remember what her dream was about. Then she realized she was still in her undies and dressed in front of her mirror. She put a white band with pearls on it around her hair, thinking that she would wed Arvid as soon as they were both old enough, all she had to do was keep him away from other girls until then. As soon as they were wed he would formally be her property. Locked in legal, maybe even physical, chains and bolts. And when she no longer had to worry about some other girl stealing him then she didn't have to be so hard on him anymore, she would never have any nightmares anymore and his frown would turn into a smile. They would both be happy and he would thank her for keeping him close until they were wed and everything was the way she knew it had to be. Then she realized she had been fingering her white hairband so she put on the rest of her clothes.

In the hallway by the stairs Adeleine met her younger sister Kendall and she wondered if she had ever been as young and naive as her. Then she decided that it's best to let Kendall be a child for as long as possible and maybe Tor would be more loyal than Arvid, besides they were in the same class. After Kendall ran down the stairs towards the kitchen Adeleine remembered that she was supposed to have eaten some dude yesterday. It didn't show, she supposed it wouldn't necessary show if the guy wasen't too big, maybe some young kid from a kindergarten or an elementary school kid that was already half digested. She had never actually eaten anyone, she knew it was illegal to eat someone you didn't own, but she had to scare Arvid enough to keep him in line. Then she wondered what kind of girl Arvid thought she was. A smile dawned on her face when she realized it, the kind of girl who turns y'all to rainbow soup if you step out of line. When they were wed she could tell him that she hadn't actually eaten anyone before, but until then it could be useful to keep him just a little scared. Then she realized she might have to go to the bathroom if she had eaten someone yesterday, better go flush so he hears.

Arvid was dreaming that it was back in the days when he was single again. He had to find a girlfriend, otherwise he would end up like those old guys in the park. Although they didn't get to be very old, there was a rumor that there was a nasty girl in school who used the cover of darkness to scoop those homeless dudes up and make her belly their new home. He was staying with a girl in his class, but she already had a boyfriend and she seemed to be the monogamous type that only needs one, but Arvid suspected she might intend to use him for other purposes, and he didn't intend to stay around to find out. And he didn't like the idea of sleeping in the park and finding out if the rumors of the nasty girl was true. But he met a nice girl who admired him, she lived in a magical house that only had one room. She led him into the room and put him on the pedestal and told him that he was only allowed to look at her. He didn't mind looking at her, but after staying still for a while and just looking at her he began to feel stiff. The color of his skin was beginning to change and his limbs hardened to plastic and he couldn't move the joints himself. He had turned into a toy soldier. Then he saw that he was no longer on a pedestal, he was in a box with other toys in it and she was having a tea party with some older girls. They couldn't stay because they were on the way to a party, he tried to follow them but then he saw that the toybox had a lid and it was bolted shut from the outside. When the little girl was left alone on her teaparty she started crying, she threw a temper tantrum and started threatening to eat boys who were so mean and didn't want to come to her party. He offered to come to her party, now he was no longer in the box. He stood on her tea table and she told him to only look at her. He wondered where the older girls had gone to and his head started turning around, but then she opened her mouth and he could see the pool of digestive juices all the way down there. So he had to will his mind not to think about the other girls. Then he felt his mind grow stiffer, he could no longer move mentally. Then he was just a mere toy and she giggled with joy. She took him up and started playing with him, she could be a little rough even though she was a pretty girl. She was a little girl, but a little rough, then something almost hit him in the face and he woke up realizing that it was the bottom of Adeleines bed that almost hit him in the face. He was sleeping under it, Adeleine seemed to have some bad nightmare, she was moving around restlessly. The feeling of Arvids own nightmare lingered on his mind, but he couldn't remember what it was about. The bottom of Adeleines bed bounced up and down, Arvid looked at it with fear, but he thought that she would wake up soon, and he better be under her bed or somewhere else when she does, but if she suddenly woke up and caught him just crawling out from under her bed but with no idea where he was going he might find it difficult to explain that he was just going to the restroom. Adeleines nightmare seemed to last a while and Arvid was just starting to think that he could already have been in the restroom when Adeleine woke up. No doubt she would interrogate him about her nightmare, somehow they were always his fault. She reached under the bed with an arm that was about as thick as Arvids torso and before he could understand what was going on he was tumbling around. When his world stopped spinning around she was sitting on top of it. Somehow she managed to sound more childish than threatening when she called him rainbow soup, then she pushed him towards the door so hard that he almost lost his balance because she wanted macaroni.

In the kitchen he met naive Tor, for his sake he decided to pretend to be upset about having to make macaroni. Tor was naive like a toy, he seemed to like making potatoes. Arvid figured that he didn't mind being used as a toy since he was one. But Tor was six years younger, in high school you wanted a girl to use you for a little more than just macaroni. Arvid remembered that he had still not gone to the restroom, but he decided to wait until Adeleine deigned to come eat her macaroni. Then he heard a flush from the toilet and a loud moan. He knew that some girls gloated about the boys they eat, but somehow Adeleine was sounding childish. Then he wondered how girls his own age celebrated after eating someone. He decided that he would pretend to be slightly scared when Adeleine came from the restroom to the kitchen, maybe if Adeleine thought he was scared she might be slightly less suspicious, and then a middle school girl just might not come to his high to embarrass him.

[d3fn932bdeleted]

Relatability, likeability, and personality.