Says children’s-book author Elise Broach in a recent blog post about likable characters, “Nothing in a story keeps readers as enthralled as a character who has won their hearts.”

You’ll get no argument from me on that count!

Elise talks about putting your character in a jam to inspire sympathy. Always a good idea, because we tend to feel sorry for people who get a bad rap that they don’t deserve. “A difficult situation with a high emotional investment for the character sows the seeds of compassion and affection in the reader.”

She goes on to talk about “personality traits” that endear characters, or that put readers off: “spunk; persistence; courage; kindness; ingenuity; loyalty… funny” versus “boring or predictable… overly earnest or preachy or self-pitying… Whiny… Passive… mean to animals” and so forth. Definitely a thought-provoking post.

And here are a few of my thoughts.

Creating sympathetic characters does not need to be mysterious. This week we’ll look a couple of unlikely sympathetic characters. And I’ll give you an easy, three-step technique you can use to build sympathy into your own characters.