Open Up And Bleed Dept.

A fellow author of mine posts a regular video diary where he talks about various things writerly, and in a recent posthe described how one of the ways to introduce a character to the reader in a galvanizing way is to make the character the recipient of undeserved misfortune. Emphasis on theundeserved; you want to make it clear they didn't have this coming, and so we feel for them and want to see them do well. Harry Potter is one such example; the kid's living under the stairs when he first ge...