There are many ways a writer can harm their own novel. There is one type of character that, if not done properly will annoy readers like me. I’ve seen a lot of books or other literary works with poor characterization consistent with the inability to keep the audience’s attention solely because the author solicited for it without using creativity. The genre comes from stories that feature a victim as the main character.
The biggest problem I have with stories that have a victim as the main character is that the author will often force me to feel a certain way about the character. The writer tries to tell me how I should feel about what the character is going through or what has happened to them. This breaks the famous writing motto, ‘show, don’t tell.’ When writers show their readers, they are begging for the reader’s emotions with their words instead of using imagery or other literary agents to provoke a reader to make up their own mind about the situation.
This sad attempt to draw a reader in has the tendency to insult a reader. Once this occurs, the reader is now void of passion and interest in reading your book. To avoid turning off your readers, here’s what I suggest.
- Just Tell the Story
Allow the events of the story to unfold naturally and your story will figure out it’s own tone.
- Show the Struggle
If you revolve your story around a human struggle, it will be much more interesting. This shows the reader how deprived the character is of normal human pleasures and needs. Later show how the character overcomes it.
- Use Humor
Choose whatever type of humor you like, whether it’s sarcasm, dark humor, or whatever, a well placed, humorous line will lighten up the mood instead of purposefully triggering your audience’s emotions. (If your reader feels any emotion, they’ll feel it regardless of your humor.)
- Focus on Literary Languages
Don’t forget to focus on your poetic devices or maintain your colorful literary language to create vivid scenes or action sequences.
- Dialogue Matters
Writer with this type of character should allow the dialogue to move the story forward.
If you have a character who becomes a victim in your eyes, let the reader decide if the character deserves a victim status. There’s nothing worse than having a reader who disagrees with their writer.