Are your protagonists living?(Darrell Case) He chases her through a dark forest. She is screaming. If he catches her, he will kill her. She trips on a root falling. He stabs her; the knife entering her back. She dies. Do I care? Am I bored? Do I lay the novel down never to pick it up again. Or if I do, it may be a year or two down the road. I don’t know this woman or her killer. They are faceless for me. They are cardboard characters. They have no depth. I cannot relate to them. It is alright if I know nothing of them at the beginning of the story. However, as the narrative goes along, I must become acquainted with them.

I want to know how it started. I want to know why he is killing her? Did they have an argument? Or is this a random killing? What are her last thoughts? What goes through her mind as the knife enters her back? Do I feel her pain? Does she know her killer? What of her family? Does she have children? Is she a sister? Does someone love her? Will they search for her body or will she just disappear? Is she a cardboard character? Or does she have emotions? Feelings? Pain?

 

You get the idea. As a reader, I need to know something about her before I care. Before or after the killing. She needs to live. What is she screaming? Of course, she is begging for her life. What is going through her mind? Is she thinking about her children? Are they alive? Maybe this killer has murdered them. Perhaps she is the last one he will kill in her family.

And what about her killer? What is his or her motivation? Is this a random killing? Thought out and planned? What is it in the killer’s past which makes them murder? Have they done this before? Are they a seral killer?

You may not answer all these questions at the beginning of your novel or story. And if you try to answer every one before starting your book, you will never start. Or if you do, it is difficult to finish, if at all. You must make your characters breathe. To have a heartbeat. To have emotions.

 

Let your protagonists feel despair, let her feel pain. Loss of hope. How would you feel if it happened to you? What would your last thoughts be? Would you weep? Put yourself in her place. Your adrenalin would pump. Fear would overwhelm your heart. Life would come down to just the next few seconds. It wouldn’t matter if the car payment is due or you have no money for food. Your life depends if you can outrun or outsmart this killer. As if they become the character in the story and it is their life on the line. Your reader’s heart should speed up. They gasped. I want my reader to become so lost in the story they can feel the same emotions as if they were the victim.

 

---