Connet Your Reader With The Bad Guy
Posted on October 26, 2011 by mandicasey
When I write my novels, there is always a bad guy. In my latest release, Bizarre Life of Sydney Sedrick, I actually have a few. But in the end, there is always the baddest of the bad. I think to have readers fully connect with your writing, you need to have them experience and feel what the bad guy is feeling, why they do what they do – even though we don’t like it – what perspective they are coming from, and what their background is.
There is a reason the bad guy is bad, and it’s not just because he’s bad. Maybe something happened to them in their past? Maybe someone did something to someone they cared about? Regardless of the fact that they are bad, show the reader how the bad guy feels, make them feel it too.
There is usually some driving factor that causes the bad guy to do bad things, and a lot of the time it’s not just because they like enjoy inflicting pain onto the main characters of the story. Well, most of the time.
Just like the main character, know everything about the bad guy and sprinkle details throughout the story. Another great way for the reader to emotionally connect with your story is make them afraid of the bad guy, make them feel empathy towards the main character and feel happy that they themselves don’t have to meet the bad guy in a dark alley or have the bad guy slither out from under their beds during the middle of the night.
You're absolutely right, getting the reader emotionally invested in your characters is one of the most important ingredients in great story telling. If your reader doesn't really care what happens to your characters they wont care about your story. I have really been concentrating on this factor and finding ways to increase reader interest in characters, good post!
ReplyDeleteRight on.
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