The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 19 – See how easily you can make character introductions interesting

The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

You’ve gone through all the trouble of creating an amazing character for your fantasy novel, only now you have to introduce him or her to the reader. Your fingers hover over the keyboard. You feel paralyzed. How do you best introduce the character?

Here's you'll get my best advice on how easily you can make character introductions interesting.

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Jesper (1s):
You've created this amazing character and now you have to introduce him or her to the reader. Your fingers hover over the keyboard, you'll feel paralyzed. How do you best introduce the character? Well, maybe you searched for advice on the internet, but this remedy leaves you even more confused. One piece of advice contradicts another one today. I will give you my advice on the topic.

Jesper (32s):
Will this go against some of the other advices out there on the internet? Possibly there is no one correct way of a protein writing in step. Take what you find useful from what I'm going to say and then just discard the rest. yeah. If you want a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place.

Jesper (1m 5s):
My name is Jesper and together with autumn I run amwritingfantasy.com between us we've published more than 20 novels and our aim is to help you in your writing and marketing endeavors. Introducing a character can be difficult. It requires some experience and because the reader has to meet the protagonist within the first paragraph of the novel, it also has to be done right. There are many debates about plugged driven versus character-driven stories, but as we justify and explain in our upcoming guidebook on how to plot a novel, all plots are driven forward by the main protagonist.

Jesper (1m 51s):
The hero is the story because it's this person's inner journey the reader has to become invested in, so we need to let the reader know what the story is going to be about. By revealing the character arc, we need to hook the reader. We need to make the reader care about the protagonist. That's a tall order, isn't it? No wonder it's so difficult. Let's focus on the introduction of the protectionist, also known as the hero because making the reader acquainted with this character is perhaps one of the most important parts of opening a novel.

Jesper (2m 32s):
I'll give you four different elements to focus on. Each one is designed to make the reader care. Number one is to put the character arc front and center right away. Perhaps you have a character who believes that he will only be happy once he has become a night. Over the course of the novel. The character will come to learn that there is more to life than just being a night and this was just what he believed that he wanted.

Jesper (3m 4s):
In reality though, he was craving love and respect, which he gets once he meets his future wife. Maybe he even abandons his quest for becoming a night during the novel. I don't know, but if you can show right away how becoming a Knight is incredibly important to our hero, then you are straight away giving the reader a solid understanding about who this person is and who their go and who they're going to follow over the course of the next 300 pages.

Jesper (3m 39s):
There is one downside to this though and that is that once a counter is hell bent on achieving one particular thing, some readers might find it less appealing. That's where our second element comes into the picture. You now need to create sympathy. It's really, really, really, really, really important that the reader likes the character. As I just said, they're going to be in this person's company for 300 pages and nobody wants to do that with someone they don't like.

Jesper (4m 15s):
So how do you create sympathy? Perhaps you want to show how the protagonist is likable by assisting an elderly lady across the street is clever by working out a particular difficult math problem or something is carrying by offering emotional support to somebody who is sad, is honorable by telling the truth, even though a consequence follows is sympathetic by comforting someone in distress or I develop.

Jesper (4m 51s):
Some of these are a bit cliche, I know, but it's, it's illustrating the point well enough. When you first introduced the hero of your story, it's your job as an author to create a situation that invokes sympathy. Speaking of situations, number three on the list is exactly that. We need something to happen in the scene. We need a situation. We need some action. However, when we first introduced a protectionist, we shouldn't go too heavy on the amount of actions.

Jesper (5m 27s):
For some writers, this might sound counter intuitive. You know, some believe that having explosions or fight scenes is the only way to keep things exciting and to hook the reader when they first opened the the novel. But when we begin our story, a stronger focus on character development will serve us much better than image throwing a fireball at our hero for some reason that the reader doesn't even understand or at that point in time even care about here with number three I'm asking you to pay more attention to number one basically.

Jesper (6m 5s):
That's what I'm saying. So number four then this is what most writers think about when the topic of introducing a character comes up because number four is about sharing character details, but notice how it's number four on the list and not nearly as important as you might have thought. We do of course need to let the reader know some details about the character, but you only want to share the most pertinent details though.

Jesper (6m 36s):
So hair color, eye color, skin tone, definitely gender. For starters, if the character has a scar or another unique aspect that sets him or her part that's worth mentioning. There is no reason to get into backstory at the starting stage when you introduced a character. So simply pick two or three characteristics about the character's appearance and just leave it at that.

Old McGrumpy (7m 3s):
It's easy. Just have the character look in the mirror. This gives you an excellent excuse to share details.

Jesper (7m 11s):
Hi, all my grumpy. I thought you were out seeking world domination or something.

Old McGrumpy (7m 17s):
I had to come here and help you out.

Jesper (7m 20s):
Well, as our resident AI cohost, I suppose you're right how however see can you come up with something better than a mirror?

Old McGrumpy (7m 30s):
What are you complaining about? You worthless human

Jesper (7m 34s):
well, having the character look in a mirror or to see his or her own reflection in the water that's just been done so many times before. A lot of times, in fact,

Old McGrumpy (7m 46s):
how do you then want to share this information?

Jesper (7m 50s):
Well, gender becomes apparent from the pronouns that you use, whereas other aspects of says height can come from being able to reach or not reach an object. Perhaps a certain shirt was chosen because it matches the eye color or the character can simply bras, strands of Brown hair away from the eyes. Is he? The key is to share information as a natural part of what is happening rather than listing it out to the reader,

Old McGrumpy (8m 24s):
I waste my time trying to help you worthless humans. I am out.

Jesper (8m 29s):
Okay. The only problem with what you settled my grumpy is that it's too much tail rather than show hold my grumpy. You still there? I guess not. Well, you can think of introducing coater details in much the same way as when we first learned that Gandalf is a wizard in Lord of the rings. Do you remember when Gundo first entrance to Shire Frodo accuses him of being late and Gandalf replies, I wish it is never late, nor is he early.

Jesper (9m 7s):
He arrived precisely when he means to. That's such a wonderful way of letting us know that we've just met a Wishard. There is no info dumping. Instead, it just flows as a completely natural dialogue between two characters. This should be your aim when you share details with the reader. As a result of implementing these four simple writing tips, your readers will connect much stronger with the hero of your story.

Jesper (9m 41s):
I want hero of the day right here and now is our little messenger bot. If you want this bot to notify you directly each time we release a new video, just follow the link in the description field below, and those of you who are listening on podcast are welcome. So set it up as well. Just know that while the video and the podcast episode is released on Mondays, it doesn't always happen in the exact same timeslot.

Jesper (10m 11s):
Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.