Do Be Cruel. Put your character in hot water from the start. In the most powerful stories, an intensely conflicted situation starts on page one, or even before page one. Your main character is smack dab at the center of that situation, in hot water that will become hotter and hotter, then hotter still. But first, you must set up this situation and second, you must set her up to be smacked down hard by the consequences that follow.
Do Be Cruel. A story that shows you how. Please forgive me for taking you back to Tara when we all know it’s a politically incorrect place to be. But Scarlett O’Hara’s doings and undoings will never be Gone with the Wind when it comes to great storytelling technique and that’s what we’re focusing on here.
Do Be Cruel. Margaret Mitchell knew how to twist and turn a yarn. She tangled us into her plot, tying us more tightly to her main character with every scene. Scarlett herself adds knots to that tangle by making choices that raise the temperature of the hot water she’s in to boiling and beyond.
Do Be Cruel. Set your character up for a long fall. For your character’s downfall to be significant, we must see and, more important, we must feel her topple from a great height. Scarlett is the perfect protagonist for such a plummet. She’s the southern belle of the southern ball at the start of her story, confident to the point of unabashed arrogance. “Fiddledy-dee,” she says to any suggestion that life could go anywhere but her own totally self-centered way. She and her hooped skirt are bouncing toward a precipice for sure.
Do Be Cruel. Set your reader up for a fall also. In order to “give a damn,” a phrase that will figure in Scarlett’s downfall, your readers must sympathize with your character’s motivation. We must understand what she wants and why she wants it. We must want it for her too. No matter how ruthless and manipulative Scarlett may become, we must be on her side, at least in the beginning. We are on her side because what she cares most about is Tara. What she wants more than anything is to preserve her home and, deep down at heart level, we get that.
Do Be Cruel. Create a catastrophic story environment in general. What could fit that bill better than a war? Not just any war, but the war that split a country in two and sent Scarlett’s future fantasy crashing to smithereens at her satin-clad feet. Your story may not involve a civil war, but it needs a bloody battleground all the same. A catastrophe that embroils your characters in fiery controversy, the more fire, the better. A cataclysm that leaves casualties in its wake, with your character only barely escaping the flames.
Do Be Cruel. Create a catastrophic personal obstacle as well. What could fit that bill better than doomed love? It worked for Romeo and Juliet. It works for Scarlett and Ashley Wilkes too. She makes a bad choice while he, being a fairly weak fellow, makes it worse. Can you think of a couple less temperamentally suited for one another? Not to mention Melanie and the whole aristocratic arranged marriage thing. Plus some additional disastrous choices on Scarlett’s part, with a bit of Rhett Butler in the mix. Catastrophe, here she comes.
Do Be Cruel. Don’t forget that romance is a battleground. If you’ve read my previous posts on character creation and taken them to heart, your main character already has way too much trouble on her plate. The last thing she needs is to fall in love, either wisely or unwisely, at this point in her story. But your author job is to hot the pot under this person you want us to care about, even love. The heat of a relationship she doesn’t need but can’t resist is kindling waiting for a spark. So light that match and let it flare.
Do Be Kind to your storytelling career. The name of this game is Hook the Reader, and your most powerful playing piece is a powerful protagonist. The heroine we love from beginning to end. Or, if you make it work the way Margaret Mitchell does, the character we simply can’t let go of, even when the deluge she wades us into burns our own satin slippers straight off our toes. Either way, she makes us say, “Frankly, Scarlett, we can’t help but give a damn.” Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.
– R|R –
Amanda Miller is in steamy hot water and just might drown. Join her there for a great read in Alice’s latest novel, A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.
What readers say about A Time of Fear & Loving. “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”
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First, we discovered why your main character is so important. Your main character’s story is what connects you with the reader, the avenue by which you draw her in and make her care. Once you have made her care, she is hooked, and that narrative hook is essential to writing a successful story. The reader must become emotionally involved with your character, not just a little, but intensely.
You need a single, specific main character to do this work, and you must give her a name. Naming your character gives her substance and reality, especially in your own consciousness as her creator. Crafting the very specific substance and reality of your character’s context is your goal at this stage of character creation. The context of your character as a person, the details of which may or may not appear in your story but will immerse you in her humanity.
You and your character have become one being. Your souls have melded to become the place from which you will share her secrets, speak her truth, and write the very best story of her you have in you, perhaps the very best story you have ever told. I, for one, can’t wait to read it.
Amanda Miller’s life is full of Peeps and Predicaments. Experience them yourself in Alice’s latest novel, 
If you are not working on a novel now, choose a character from someone else’s story. Use that character for the exercise to come in this post. Feel free to change that character from the original author’s version. My personal choice would be Scout Finch, daughter of Atticus, in 
Why is a strong main character so important? Because when we read about his joys, his hopes and dreams. When we witness his admirable qualities in practice, or sometimes the qualities we less readily relate to, as with Jay Gatsby in 
The more we care what happens to your character, the more solidly your story hook is set in us. You are succeeding most spectacularly as a storyteller when you create a character whom we will care about not just a little, but intensely. The way we care about, even weep for, Celie in 
Amanda Miller Bryce is a captivating character. Find out why in Alice’s novel A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Meet Amanda