How Did the Author Make You Like That Character, Part 2

Without sympathetic people in your story, you might as well be writing a grocery list. ~Jack M. Bickham

Isn’t that true? When I have no feeling one way or the other for characters in a story, I put the book down. And let me say here that a pitiful character won’t hold my attention long. Characters must do and think likable things to make me keep reading and worrying about them when there is trouble.

When I closed the book, A Caribbean Mystery, by Agatha Christie, I sat thinking about the heroin...