How do you make a reader care about a character?

[spanxthanx]

I wrote a story a while ago:
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=49501
But the problem is that not even I care about the victims, and the reader can probably see long ahead what's gonna happen in the story. But when I read The Ship of Magic I cared about what happened to some of the characters, why? What are some of the techniques that writers use? And how come I didn't care about the vicious slave-driver? Is there a way to make the reader care about an evil character?

I've been trying to write vore, but it's never really good and I have realized that maybe it's because I don't care about the characters.

[dreamweevil]

You're absolutely correct that you have to care about the characters before the reader will.

I just read that story and it's a nice effort towards world-building, and the overall idea makes sense: in many species females are dominant and larger than their male counterparts-- what if that's humanity's future? (Very nice touch on the palentologists discovering that it used to be the other way around, a long time ago.)

But now that you've got an interesting world to explore, you still have to decide what story you want to tell within that world. What makes that story worth telling in the first place? Which character are you following and why? How is this experience not like every other in that world? Why are you telling this story now?

My constructive advice would be to take that basic premise (that world) and write a new story in it. Put yourself in one of your character's shoes. If you're a male, and every female in this world can completely digest "one or two" males before she so much as earns a poor reputation for herself, I think you'd be instinctually scared out of your wits whenever a female was nearby. Other men would caution you about getting lured in by a woman's appearance. But overall you'd be resigned to your fate... or would you?

If you're female, what's your motivation? How do you collect the biggest "harem" of males and keep them in line? Do you like this arrangement or are you rebelling against it in some way? How to you treat the men you associate with?

Your story is well-labelled as a first draft, so many of the problems are just that... first-draft issues. Try a second draft; try to live in that world in your head and tell that story. You'll likely see a huge difference in the outcome, and in how much you end up caring about it.

dw

[RuffledFerret]

Fortunately for you, this is a rather common question among writers in general and isn't limited to only vore works. Try a quick internet search and you'll find many results.

[CratedCheese]

I'm not really a writer or really that well versed in this stuff, but the only advice I can give is treat as if characters are completely real with their own goals, dreams, interests, ambitions, etc as well as how they view the setting through their perspective. Even evil characters have some kind of experiences and motivation that lead them to that point, which makes for a good villain when you learn about how and why they became the villain.

[hibbyjibby]

Now, I'm a writer myself (in the loosest sense of the term), and from what I've tried, I find the best way to make someone care about a character is to either make them relatable to the reader, or making them seem like real people. A flat or static character, characters with maybe one or two defining traits, isn't going to get anywhere near the same reactions out of the reader as a dynamic, developing, and well-rounded character would. A lot of OC's on this site are exactly this; flat, one-note, and outside of a possibly appealing visual design which does nothing for personality, they're boring and a dime-a-dozen. Hell a lot of the more known OC's on Eka's are like this. Won't name names, but they're out there.

If you want a good example, look at Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The first and third Jojo's, Jonathan and Jotaro, are flat and relatively static. Not inherently bad, but they are these things. Compare them to someone like Polnareff or Joseph, who change and develop over the course of a story/adventure. You could call them Dynamic, or Rounded characters.


A successfully written character is fleshed out, and changes overtime. They have a personality, interests, preferences, thoughts and beliefs, likes and dislikes. If it's a series, they have character development too. Meaningful ones, like they give up or change, or even accept another idea or something major like that. I've helped a few artists, one in particular anyway, make a few OC's, as well as flesh them out more than just being a vessel for kinky stuff. It helps make writing for characters, who have clearly and well defined traits, much more easy as opposed to a flat, simple fetish character who'd have no depth.

Also, it might be appealing to make em fetish-bait for a writer, and God knows how often I've been tempted to do that. Nothing wrong with it either, but don't go overboard and make Waifu-Bait either. Be tactful about it. There's the kind of Mary Sue that is overly perfect and specifically catering/pandering to a certain audience, and the other that is bland and boring like oatmeal with no toppings that everyone still loves because of poor writing. Neither extreme is good, and that goes for most things. A middle is best; Give them some virtues, give them some vices.

Much like how CratedCheese said, if you write an Evil character, you still need to write them as if they're still a person. Because they are. Don't go overboard on vices, because then that's a villain that can't get anything done. There's something called "Villainous Virtues", which basically are positive traits that define why a villain can accomplish anything. All too often you get villainous or rival characters that have poorly or ambiguously defined traits. Avoid that.



So yeah, kinda long winded but, I tried to cover most bases. Think about a character less as a vessel for what you, the writer, want to see, and think of them as an actual person. A little depth goes a long way.

[Miridium]

I know nothing about storytelling but I do know that both Marvel and DC comics have their separate unique ways of doing this:

DC - make people want to look up to them.

Marvel - make people relate to them.

[Borealis]

I've actually tried to focus on this myself recently. A lot of my traditional and recurring OC characters are conceptually quite fun but many of them are definitely vessels for enacting a spin on the fetish and really need expanding on in the future.

I've tried to break away from this a little bit with my latest couple of stories, but it is difficult.

I think I have been better with this recently though, and in my recent experience a lot of it is about breaking the habit of hammering home physical appearances over and over again and instead emphasising a characters traits and foibles and giving them interesting actions and dialogue that reflect these and weaving them into the narrative. For people to care about characters I think it is very important to relate to them. Not even directly, but to simply empathise with their quirks and traits. Even a total fetish character designed for vore can have at least a little set of character interests, dreams, quirks.

As a writer I think you know when you've made a good character as well when it comes to the finished article. My pred character in my last story is my favourite that I've created so far and after writing it I literally felt like I knew her, like she was a real [furry] person. To get into your characters heads, I'd imagine listing a lot of traits in a bio could be rewarding, even if only a few of them are actually evident in the final piece.

[Twister88]

I think the problem is that you only treat the victims in your stories as victims and not as actual people, and that will of course make it quite difficult to care about them since they don't really have any personalities. When you write your next story, spend some more time developing the characters so that the reader can relate to them at least a little bit. Perhaps you could base your characters personalities on people that you have met in real life if that would make it easier.

[neversurrender21]

a character must be that. a character, not just walking lunchmeat. make them relatable, make them have hopes dreams and aspirations. give them family, give them friends. put care into each character. i know it can be tough, but keep at it.

[Kurczak48]

To make person important you need longer time than one short story... It's hard to make character worth remember within one story.

It's because reader must accept them as a person in the first place, as neversurrender21 said. Those important characters usually have their own "revealing" arcs or various acts where you get to know their life, how tough it is for them or how they live.

There is also not-always-effective shortcut of "sugar", make them adorable/cute/lovely. If people will love them, they'll care about them, though not as much as "living" person with full personality and background.

[dreamweevil]

To make person important you need longer time than one short story... It's hard to make character worth remember within one story.

It's because reader must accept them as a person in the first place, as neversurrender21 said. Those important characters usually have their own "revealing" arcs or various acts where you get to know their life, how tough it is for them or how they live.

There is also not-always-effective shortcut of "sugar", make them adorable/cute/lovely. If people will love them, they'll care about them, though not as much as "living" person with full personality and background.

I was thinking about this last part and a couple of techniques that help a reader care about characters (even in a very short story). You can't fully flesh out a character in a very short story: but you can get the reader to do that for you. That's one reason why "a cute girl" works: your mind fills in the rest of that description automatically. You can already see her size, race, eye color, hair color and style, even what she's wearing, though the author hasn't actually given you any of that. You have to give just enough detail for the reader to believe they already know this character. (The author has to be careful not to conflict with the reader's imagined version of the cute girl later on!)

[Tassie]

I think there has to be an emotional "investment" in a character in a way that someone can relate to or feel sympathy for them or knows how they feel, and then use that as a sort of frame to build on before someone can or will understand what a character is experiencing.

Shallow characters and foreign characters, no matter how well written are difficult to feel for. There also needs to be a good balance of keeping a story moving and interesting without making it either a instruction manual or snippet from a pointless action flick.

Doing that in a short story is very difficult.

[CurioHeart]

As it's already been pointed out in this thread, you need to care about the characters before the reader can- flat/static characters like [strike]Neil[/strike]Meil (I love how quickly Amanda mentally changes his name, by the way). There are actually quite a few ways you can do that, but pretty much all of them point toward fleshing them out like you would any major character in the same story.

In the Creative Writing class I'm taking, we actually recently covered one way to accomplish this- the "Cultural Iceberg". The idea behind it is this: The closer you are to the top, the more that particular aspect is noticeable within that culture. Though it was largely developed for cultures, you can apply it to individual characters as well. Essentially, pick a small list- say 5-10 items- from one of the "icebergs" at varying depths (try to include at least one or two towards the bottom), and then try to answer them from the character's perspective.

You can also analyze their thoughts relative to other characters in the story:

• Why does Meil want to get to know Amanda better? You establish at the end of the story that he seems to love her (at least a bit), but what about her attracts him to continue this?
• Other than their physical differences, what sets Amanda and Henrietta apart? How did Henrietta "convince" James? Is this something she tries to do frequently, or only on occassion?
• You mention Brad is attracted to Amanda's physique. Is it because of anything in particular about her, or does he not really know?

Note that all three points have one thread in common: Motivation. This is where conflict in stories come from, and it's also part of what makes us care for them.

It's been my personal experience that most characters need to be "asked" a bunch of questions to really figure them out, though I've also had a few that just "clicked." In the past I've made use of character sheets to help me figure out their appearances and what-not, but it never really helped me figure out their personality and past- the two areas that really make characters, like people, come alive. The discussion my class had on it, however, helped me figure out where I was lacking, and what I could do to fix it. The problem is that I simply didn't have any starting questions to ask of the characters to help me write about them better.

In general, I think dreamweevil's advice is pretty sound. One thing that seems a bit lacking to me, however, is what caused the shift from the apparent tribalism of the past to the significantly more egalitarian society now. I think figuring out that will help you figure out ways to help you- and, by extension, the readers- care about the victims. If it helps, by the way, you can also work backwards to answer that question- sometimes it's the easiest way to find the path through the maze of time and societal pressures. You also don't need to know the entire path- just the key things that caused the changes in attitude. I recently had to do exactly this for a world that a number of my stories are taking place in: I realized that the behavior of the characters within one of the stories didn't really make sense, so I needed to figure out the cause. (It's NHEverland in my Gallery, if you're curious, though the story that made me realize this isn't yet finished, and may not be for another month or so.)

Also, in answer to your question about caring about evil characters, it's entirely possible- and it's been done a great many times. The best villains are often those you care about. The two first examples that pop to my mind are Artemis Entreri, from R.A. Salvatore's The Legend of Drizzt, and Borderlands 2/Pre-Sequel's Handsome Jack. Both are unmistakably evil, though in two entirely separate ways, but the way they're written also makes it extremely difficult to not like them, let alone care for them. Make the character relatable to your readers, and you're more likely to find yourself with a sympathetic villain that they can get behind.

[Jayezox]

One piece of advice I didn't read on here is give a character some weaknesses or at least one glaring one. Giving a character weaknesses is a good way to break them up from being a Mary Sue. Just don't make the weakness something that adds to the Mary Sue archetype such as being compulsively whiny or extremely strong and headstrong at the same time. Those two weaknesses get really annoying along with some others I probably didn't mention.

[spanxthanx]

A lot of good advice here, and elsewhere online of course. The difficulty of developing prey characters is that they end too quickly.

A lot of people seem to emphasize motivation somewhat, I never thought about what motivation the prey characters would have, or perhaps I just figured that the physical description of the predator would suffice as a motivation. But maybe that is an idea that only works in movies, so I have to come up with some motivation.

I didn't even know what an 'OC' was. A character that changes over time is an interesting idea.

Those icebergs contain a lot of good ideas for fleshing out characters. I'll try to think more about what's different in the world, or how a character is different.

I've found Sanderson on youtube, he has a lot of good points. I didn't know that third person narrative was that common, I once tried to write a story in second person to make it more immersive, but from Brandon I gather that's a horrible idea. Ideally I would like the reader to forget the voice of the narrator and just experience the story.

I think I have come up with a way to flesh out characters, but it requires a lot of writing. But I'm thinking that preds will inevitably be more fleshed out than preys, because they last longer. Sometimes how a pred eats prey now and then is a part of their character, and I've found out that I need the characters to explore each other, so the preds might have to eat some people while we're getting to know everybody, if that makes any sense. I'm not sure if it does, I'm just trying to sort through all the advice and ideas.

[CurioHeart]

I've found out that I need the characters to explore each other

In general, this is key to character development, though it's not just about the characters exploring each other- they also need to have something to push against- it's how we as people grow, and it's how characters grow, too.

Honestly, you're right about preds being more fleshed out than prey, unless you somehow manage to have a prey that actually succeeds at death-avoidance in a world that can literally eat them alive. It's also entirely possible to still make them seem real to the readers, even if the reader doesn't necessarily "care" about the prey. Overall, I think Borealis summed it up pretty succinctly, and it applies equally to all characters, whether they're major or minor, pred or prey:

[A] lot of it is about breaking the habit of hammering home physical appearances over and over again and instead emphasising a characters traits and foibles and giving them interesting actions and dialogue that reflect these and weaving them into the narrative. For people to care about characters I think it is very important to relate to them. Not even directly, but to simply empathise with their quirks and traits. Even a total fetish character designed for vore can have at least a little set of character interests, dreams, quirks.

There is one caveat, I think, to the advice about fleshing out characters in short stories (especially in vore stories): That advice is, in my opinion, primarily focused on the development of your main character(s)- in this case, Amanda and Brad. None of the other characters are really around long enough for you to get a good sense of them, with the exception of Neil. Though he's around for quite a bit of the story, we never really learn much about him beyond that he likes using statistics to win bets, he's arrogant, and neither Amanda nor Neil like him even though he likes Amanda. However, as the story's primary prey, you're also not going to get a chance to develop him in the story without giving him a significantly larger role- which may also change the story's outcome; instead, it may be better to develop him out of the story so he isn't just "the victim."

As far as narratives are concerned, try not to trouble yourself too much with whether the story is in First, Second, or Third Person points of view (including their sub-types); the most important thing is, as dreamweevil mentioned, knowing what story you want to tell. The perspective may well turn out to be an unconscious part of that particular story. This isn't often the case, though, and usually requires its own attention to figure out:

• Do you want it to be from one person's perspective? Try using First Person, Second Person, or Third Person Limited Omniscient.
• Do you want the reader to feel more like they're part of the story? Try Second- but be cautioned in doing so, as it's a challenging undertaking and can be easy to screw up if you're not careful.
• Do you want the reader to be able to see everyone's thoughts- or, at the very least, more than one person? Stick with Third Person, and make sure you signify to the reader- usually through some form of break, like a horizontal line- whenever that change occurs.

It may also turn out that, as you're writing or editing, you may realize that the perspective you're using isn't the most effective. This is entire okay, and it happens- it also shows growth as a writer when you're willing to make necessary corrections to improve the story's quality.

Now, for one last bit- an aside regarding your story in general, rather than focusing on your characters.

Honestly, the story you have so far is pretty good, and really only seems to suffer from "first-draft issues," as dreamweevil phrased it. Though I found the inconsistency of perspective to be distracting from the story itself, you seem to have a great foundation with which to start. You've clearly put a lot of thought into the world, which is awesome- just don't be afraid to let the story or stories change how the world works, as long as it makes sense within the context of the story.

You're more than welcome to message me if you'd like to discuss some of these a bit further.

[jaykayeight]

Make it a very sad vore story.

[Aickavon12]

If you want to make people care about characters. Invest time into them. The most beloved characters are those with personality, heart, a goal, and especially time.

I'm going to use the Walking Dead here. When some random person that just join the group dies, people don't bat an eye, but When Glenn died who's had so much time invested into him (he'sbeen there since the beginning), everyone lost their mind.

[spanxthanx]

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.

[Borealis]

Make it a very sad vore story.

My saddest story is possibly my "best", in my opinion, and of course it is my least popular here in terms of "faves", haha, so I'm not sure if this helps much! I think sad and poignant moments more than have their place in vore narrative, but I don't think this is the right scene for making entire stories that are overly melancholic and gloomy. Absolute respect to anyone trying to go down this route though! And I've got a future one in the works that'll have a rather sad/bittersweet ending...

There's some great advice in this thread, though.

I still think that fleshing a character out with interests, quirks, weaknesses, little talents, and stepping back on repeating their physical descriptions is the best way to go forward. It's something I'm working on myself. I find making a sheet helps (I've got two pages about my character Florrie, which I wrote out the first story I did featuring the character, it was extremely useful for that and her second story, and will be useful going forward as she will be reappearing), as if you're making a character to roleplay with. Not even like a sexual or vore roleplay sheet, just a sheet of a person/anthro/whatever and what makes them them.

While I've seen this be contentious on a thread here before, I don't think there's anything wrong AT ALL with being inspired by people you've known for little aspects of the character, either, as long as you're not shoehorning that person into the story. But if you found it adorable how- say- your crush back in high school used to readjust the frames of her glasses when she was listening to the teacher, and you think that'd be a cute character quirk/mannerism for your slightly dorky Vixen girl, then use it! It's a descriptor that takes up just as much words, and works far better than mentioning her D cup breasts for the third time. Perceiving how people act, and the differences in how people act, is the crux of character, I suppose.