Creating Characters Your Audience Will Like Instantly

Probably one of the best things I ever learned when it came to writing was a simple technique I picked up at a screenplay workshop I took while I was in college.  The guy teaching the workshop was a Hollywood veteran and script doctor, who ran a two-day seminar on writing great scripts, but he had one technique in particular that stuck with me, and I’ve found it to be invaluable in my writing.

Basically, the guy broke down some of the most popular movies of all time and looked at the structural techniques each movie employed to make itself resonate with audiences.  He analyzed movies like E.T., Star Wars, Rainman, The Godfather, Indiana Jones, Amadeus, and many, many others.  Then, he came up with some interesting concepts around which each movie created iconic and memorable characters.

It was from him I learned the four main tricks writers can use to make their characters INSTANTLY likable.  And I mean, instantly.  As in, from the moment the reader is introduced to a character, they are rooting for them.  And you can pretty much apply these techniques to any character in your story, and use them as often as you like, to keep the audience loving the characters and wanting to follow them on their journey.

Without further ado, here are the four techniques of making characters your audience will like instantly…

1.  Make the character funny.  This might seem like a no-brainer, but let’s face it, everyone loves to laugh.  A character who is flip, witty, irreverent, sarcastic, or flat-out funny is a character audiences will immediately love.  You see this all the time, in movies, TV shows, and literature.  The funny-man characters are always the ones the audience loves best.  Remember Urkel, TV’s favorite nerd?  He started out as a minor character, but people loved him because he was so funny, and he became a breakout star.  What about Riggs from Lethal Weapon?  He wasn’t just a bad ass, he was also a smart ass, and people loved him.  Percy Jackson?  Well, in the books he’s quite the smart ass (I choose to ignore what they made him in the movies) and he’s tons of fun to read.  So by making a character funny, you make them instantly likable and the audience will want to read more about them.

2.  Make the character extremely good at his job.  On a subconscious level, people are extremely attracted to characters who are very competent, to the point of being experts or legends in their fields.  There’s a certain admiration that goes along with watching someone who is so good at something, you wish you could be like them.  Batman?  Who doesn’t wish they could be at good at fighting crime as Batman?  Or James Bond – that guy is like the best secret agent in the universe.  It’s no wonder we love to watch 007 in action!  How about Hannibal Lecter?  That guy is the greatest serial killer ever invented!  Whatever profession your character engages in – be it a lawyer, a cook, a cop, an auto mechanic, a superhero, etc. – if you make him or her extremely good at it, they will be instantly admired by your audience.

3.  Make the character a victim of undeserved misfortune.  This is a favorite of mine, because piling undeserved misfortune on people is not only easy, but it makes them instantly sympathetic to the audience.  Seriously, whenever we see an injustice done to someone, we immediately feel sorry for them and want the misfortune to be rectified.  Remember Les Miserables when Jean ValJean gets wrongly imprisoned for stealing bread to feed his starving family?  Or how Luke Skywalker’s family gets murdered by Stormtroopers?  What about when Spartacus gets his wife stolen from him and sold into slavery?  But undeserved misfortune could be anything – a car accident, an injury or handicap, financial loss, a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife leaving them or cheating on them – it doesn’t matter.  As long as your character is suffering from something awful they don’t deserve to suffer from, your audience will immediately sympathize with them and want them to succeed.

4.  Put the character in danger.  This is another technique which triggers something basic within us.  when we see someone in danger, we immediately want to see them OUT of danger, because that danger triggers our own fight or flight mechanism.  So seeing a character in jeopardy makes us root for the character to survive their circumstance and get to safety.  Indiana Jones is notorious for this, because each movie opens with Indy in extremely dangerous situations.  Horror movies do this too.  Remember Scream?  When Drew Barrymore is being stalked by the killer at the beginning of the movie?  The entire audience immediately identifies with her and is scared for her!  This is one of the reasons why the opening to Scream is one of the most memorable openings to a horror movie ever.  By putting your character in danger when the audience first meets them, that character will immediately become one the audience wants to see succeed, and thus, identify with.

You can, of course, combine these techniques to make your characters even more likable.  A funny guy who’s also the recipient of an undeserved misfortune?  Dude, you can’t go wrong!  Someone who’s good at their job and in extreme danger?  BONUS!  And, of course, if you can make it so your character does ALL FOUR techniques, you’ve got the making of an icon on your hands.

Of course, you can also layer these technique in over time as well.  You can introduce a character by showing he’s funny, then show he’s good at his job, then put him in danger, then give him an undeserved misfortune – or any combination thereof.  This can be effective in creating a “character arc” that shows the character is going through a journey of some type.  So they don’t all have to happen at once.  The more of these you can layer into your story, the more your audience will identify with your character.

These are all very simple techniques to use in your characterization within your story – but they are all extremely effective.  The next time you’re watching a movie or a TV show, or even reading a book, look at how characters are introduced, and you’ll often see one of these four techniques employed.  And if you start using them in your writing, you’ll have characters your audience will easily fall in love with.