Protagonists. How to establish a bond between the reader and the protagonist from the get go.

They’re people of action who speak their minds, kick ass, and take names, and, most important, who act when in real life we’d be cowering.

—Jessica Morrell, Thanks But This Isn’t for Us

 

I’ll usually see an interesting or innovative plot, but it’ll be stocked with cardboard story people—characters just stuck on the page because the author put them there. 

 After you conceive a compelling main character, you must go a step further and figure out how to create an emotional bond with your reader. 

There are four time-tested ways to do this. Master the dynamics of identification, sympathy, likeability, and inner conflict.

Find out more at Gsediting.com and Storytellerbooksllc.com

Shut up!

Ironic that a podcast about self editing does not seem to have an editor. Maybe they had a point, they just never got to it.