WRITING TIPS to Hook your Reader and Keep them Hooked.

Ch 5: A simple technique to help you create believable characters.

If you've followed suggestions in the earlier chapters, you should now have a main character(s) who a.) wants something that you expect it will take them until the climax of the book to attain. (Or to realize they don't want after all, or to totally lose if you're writing more of a tragedy.)

And b.) May have an ITCH THEY CAN'T SCRATCH - See chapter 4.

But how can you make your main character unique? How can you ensure you're not falling back on traits or plot points you've seen other writers use, rather than allowing your character to make their own decisions? If you have an active character that drives the story (which is what most readers and agents and editors are looking for) then your character's decisions are everything. They are what makes her confront the boy and tell him she saw him with another girl, or ignore him and stop answering his telephone calls. They're what makes him step in and fight the bullies of a guy he doesn't even know, or find a teacher, or call the police, or walk away and try not to think about it, or join in and help the bullies. The decisions your character makes form the backbone of your character and subsequently your plot. Katniss Everdeen decides to volunteer and take her sister's place in the Hunger Games. Her decision reveals who she really is: She is a girl willing to sacrifice her life to protect someone she loves, and she is courageous. Without this we wouldn't have a story.

There are two basic parts to your character's decision making process:

Part 1: The Barrier - This is whatever is getting in your character's way; what is stopping them from achieving their goal?

Part 2: The Decision of how to get around The Barrier. (Including, the character's indecision/ hesitation.)

PART 1: We have to understand all aspects of The Barrier from the point of view of the main character. The better we understand how difficult it is for the character to overcome the barrier or problem they're facing, i.e. what they stand to lose, the more invested we'll become in the character's decision.

For example: In the very first paragraph of Book 1 of The Hunger Games, we learn that the 'Day of the Reaping' is enough to give Katniss' sister bad dreams. Throughout the next few pages as Katniss meets Gale in the woods, the Hunger Games, and the threat of the reaping lurk beneath everything. They are referred to implicitly and explicitly; in the empty village streets; Katniss and Gale's feast in the forest; Gale's suggestion they should run away; their bargaining at the pit; and even the clothes people are wearing. We learn how Katniss fears the reaping and loathes the Hunger Games. We learn that the Games are a fight to the death with only one victor remaining. They are brutal and gruesome and from Katniss' own perspective, being picked would be a death sentence.

Simultaneously, we learn the lengths Katniss has gone to, to protect her younger sister. She isn't worried about her sister in the reaping because she has forbidden Primrose to increase her ballots in the game in exchange for food (unlike Katniss herself.)

Collins takes her time ensuring that we understand the implications of the reaping and the Hunger Games, as well as Katniss and her life, before the scene of the reaping. Then, she doesn't just throw Katniss into the worst situation possible by having her name picked from the ball of names, she turns Katniss into an active protagonist. The name that is picked is Primrose Everdeen. Katniss has about thirty seconds to make a decision that is for herself, a death sentence. And it is this decision that makes us invest so heavily in her character. It's the decision to take her sister's place that makes us love Katniss, despite her faults.

PART 2:

The clearer the mental twists and turns your main character goes through in coming to a decision, the better we (the reader) will understand them. And the better we understand a character, the more we're going to 'believe' in them as a 'real' person. We like to know what's going on inside their head.