No matter how great your premise is, no matter how strong your story’s hook, readers really only care about your characters. They care about how your character navigates the premise, how your character is centered in your story’s hook. They want someone to root for.
For me, a writer who loves a suspenseful story with a good twist, this lesson was difficult to learn early in my writing efforts. I would send out my manuscripts to agents and get glowing compliments—but ultimately, no offers. And it always came down to the same problem: It’s a great story but I didn’t connect with the characters.
It wasn’t until I learned how to open a story in a way that centered my character’s most compelling traits that I found success at publishing my novels.
Today, we’ll have a mini-class in which we look at five keys of character introductions. These five keys should all appear within the first several pages of your novel. Your goal is to ensure readers can quickly connect to your protagonist so that they feel compelled to read on.
I’ll go in-depth on these five keys with an example from a fantasy novel, The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig. And you’ll get to download your own full-color checklist to use over and over again with the novels you write.
The Writer’s Attic Classroom is a series of writing classes available only to paid subscribers. I hope you’ll join in!
