Before conflict can be ignited and injected into your plot, your reader has to find a way to care about what’s going on with your character.

I always try to start with an intriguing, strong situation to put the reader into the context of the story and to get them to hook into my idea or concept. To do this, to create a bond between your character and your reader, you have to give your reader a reason to care. And readers want to care. They’ve bought your book to enjoy the story, the plot, the characters, so they want to care. So, how do you do that? How do you hook them from the start?

Donald Mass, master editor, in his book in Fire in Fiction, advices writers and entertainers to create an immediate bond between readers and protagonist, it is necessary to show your reader a reason to care. Mass says that pushing a shopping cart is not a reason to care. Demonstrating a character quality that is inspiring does cause readers to open their hearts.

But how do you do that?

First of all, I believe that liking and caring are interconnected. They’re really close to each other. And I think that when you like someone-a character-you also care for him or her.

Well, in my humble opinion, the best way to make your reader like and care about your character is to show how good your character at a particular skill. Let’s think about John Grisham’s The Firm. The protagonist Mitch is a bright, hardworking young lawyer who aces his exams, gets early and leaves late, went to a fine university. He is an over achiever and is committed to the firm and his personal success. But that’s just the start. Once you get to act-2 we see Mitch getting into trouble and putting his skills to test. He uses his talents to respond to the FBI knocking on his door, to care for his wife and his brother in jail and to devise tactics or actions to deal with his bossess as he discovers how crooked they really are and what’s goiong on in the firm.

As you see, we need to learn stuff about the character to like him or her. So, our first commandment is to write and show our protagonist doing the thing he does best. In Mitch’s case is being a young lawyer interested in a succesful career. If you go back, our example, you’ll notice that at first, Mitch does what his job and profession require of him. We see him being a great employee and adapting to whatever work comes his way. Then he enters the conflict. Once he realizes he is into some sort of trouble, other skills and abilities come into play, so he adapts and does other things.

So, the point here is to show your character doing the the thing he does best according to the situation you put him in. Like Stephen King says, he starts with a situation and makes it worse and worse for the characters as he moves along.

Three questions to keep in mind would be:

What is the situation/problem I want to put my protagonist in?

What skills/abilities he uses to get out of the situation?

How do I make it worse for him so he can really shine?

 Other ways to brainstorm and show a characters in order to make the reader care:

 Show inspiriring character quality:

Empathy 

• Allows people to connect with others while maintaining a sense of self
• Can change hearts and minds

Integrity 

• Acting with integrity, even when no one is watching, can inspire others
• Can serve as a beacon of hope and remind others of the goodness in humanity

Confidence 

• Can inspire and uplift others by providing an example of something real and achievable
• Confident people believe in their talents and skills

Respect 

• Showing respect to everyone, no matter their standing in society, can inspire people
• Can build trust across divides and establish love

Honesty 

• Inspires people to be truthful and sincere throughout life
• Can reinforce a person’s courage and confidence

Resilience 

• The ability to overcome adversity and challenges can serve as a source of inspiration during difficult times

Other inspiring qualities include: 

• Courage
• Love and appreciation
• Equality
• Emotional health
• Collective power
• Making a difference

Unsettling problems into ordinary situations happening to good people:

Brainstorm or Google unsettling problems to everyday people and introduce them into your character’s life at the height of his happy life.

Use a shadow from the past.

A problem, debt, or person looking for revenge comes back and haunts the character’s present ordinary and perfect life threatening him or her to destroy it.

The longing for positive change

A character who wants to do better. Someone on a self actulization path. This is part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Self actualization is a human need common and shared by all of us.

Make your flawed protagonist a man with enemies

Think flaws for your character like can’t leave the past behind, hubris, flaring anger or others and turn that flaw into the source of conflict with an old enemy.

Best of luck.