Pulling at Heartstrings: How to Effectively Move Your Readers

“Readers will only care about your story as much as you care about it.”

–Anonymous

I’ve heard this more than once throughout the past four years of my writing life. So much has been impactful to me through those years, but nothing more so than this: caring about your story so much that it spills over into everything you do in your writing. 

Throughout my journey in writing, I’ve learned four things that have been a tremendous help in learning how to use my writing in a way that moves readers deeply. These four things are what I like to call the four R’s: 

- Realistic Characters

- Reasonable Backstory

- Relevant Topics

- Real Experiences

These four R’s are the key to moving your readers to greatness. In this article, I want to explain how we, as authors, can use these four things to influence our readers deeply. 

Realistic Characters

First off, the key to writing emotionally compelling stories is to have relatable characters. What I mean by that is that your characters have to be realistic and real. They should be flawed, lovable, and have a distinct, yet realistic, personality. Take, for example, these three characters:

Flawed - In the Bible, King David was a great warrior. He conquered the Philistines, was called a man after God’s own heart, and followed after Him closely. However, when faced with sexual temptation, he fell–he committed adultery, then murder, then married the widow. This is what makes David such a remarkable character. He was imperfect, but his repentance and acknowledgment of his faults are what make him so commendable. 

Loveable - In The Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee is often the favorite character. The simple reason: he’s uneducated, loyal, sacrificial, and sentimental. While he doesn’t know basic math or, at times, common sense, he saves Frodo in his time of need. We’re drawn to Sam not because he’s impressive, but for the exact opposite reason. It’s his unimpressiveness and unconditional love for Frodo that draws us to him. Loveable characters can be the best characters we make sometimes, for the simple reason that they’re so uncommon. 

Distinct, yet Realistic - As Billie talked about last week, we need to avoid stereotyping people. However, in reality, stereotypes are often true, but slightly different from person to person. We need to use stereotypes with a unique twist in creating our character. Gruff older men with a soft spot for a little girl are often true stereotypes, but they can also be unrealistic at times. Maybe make it for his wife, for a young boy, or something else. Make his personality clear, but drop small surprises along the way. 

Now, you may be asking how making good characters relates to a good story. In reality, it’s quite simple. Here’s an example that’s commonly cited in the storytelling world: If you read a news story about thousands of people in Africa dying every year from Malaria, you’ll be sad, but probably won’t spend the whole next month grieving the deaths of those people. However, if your best friend died of cancer, you would probably grieve for months, even years. The relationship you have with the person determines how you react, and this is exactly how it works with storytelling. The more you draw your readers into a “relationship” of “knowing” your characters, the more they care and are emotionally invested in what happens. 

That’s when you can move into the second step. 

Reasonable Backstory

Once you’ve established your characters and created a bond between character and reader, you can slowly reveal backstory. Backstory is a bombshell that can be used either tremendously well or tremendously terrible. With so many books out in the world, most of the common backstories have been used and reused over and over again until every twist has been used.

To create a reasonable backstory, you need to start by evaluating your character. What flaws or strengths do they have that came from their past? What would the most reasonable, realistic reason be for these? Is their past traumatic, simple, or a mix of the two?

After evaluating these, insert these scenes slowly throughout your book, or insert some scenes that show the backstory, not just telling. Revealing information through a narrated story is so overused. One of the most common ways to do this is from a girlfriend to a boyfriend or from a guy to a girl he likes. When you reveal your backstory, use either very realistic ways or very unique ways. Don’t settle for the typical stereotypes.

However, some of these stereotypes can be truly real in life. If you create a character who struggled with depression or anxiety in the past, it can be realistic and helpful to explain this to a friend who is struggling with the same thing. That puts a practical twist on the issue and changes the typical narrative. Since this is also a common topic in today’s culture, it can have a big impact. 

Relevant Topics

Tied into our second point of reasonable backstory, relevant topics can be the most impactful part of your story. Relevant topics don’t have to be about current events or social issues necessarily, but simply topics that affect your readers. In order to know what relevant topics are, you need to know your audience. Are you writing to adults, teens, middle grade, or elementary? 

Each audience has different needs, and these stereotyped needs can be off slightly, but here’s a basic summation of their common relevant themes:

Adults: Issues in established or serious relationships, work struggles, or mental health issues.

Teens: Beginning relationships/romance, identity, mental health, and finding their place.

Middle Grade: Puppy love/crushes, school, and navigating the move from child to teen

Elementary: Minor issues, girl vs. boys, small dilemmas, and parent issues.

Knowing your audience and their maturity is essential to knowing what they’ll relate to, which affects how the story influences them. Using topics that are timeless across generations of teens is also an amazing strategy.

To do this, reflect upon your own life experiences. If you’re a teen, writing for adults may be hard, but researching is a great way to find out. Interviewing others and using your own experiences helps you find truly relevant topics.

Real Experiences

Finally, and tying into the above paragraph, using your real-life struggles and joys is a huge way to influence your audience. Draw deep, using your pain and joy to fuel your writing. If you research some of the most well-known authors, you see that a lot of them use their own experiences or the experiences of other people in their writing. 

Take, for example, Kara Swanson’s book Dust. One of the best YA books that I’ve read, this book provides a fantasy twist on Peter Pan to combat depression. Claire, the main character, struggles with depression after her brother was kidnapped, and puts a negative spin on everything in life. Peter, the other main character in the book, struggles with his childish freedom starting to fade away as the pain of life shows in his own life. The book is emotionally charged, realistic, and expertly crafted. 

What many readers don’t know is that Kara herself struggled with depression, anxiety, and many other mental and physical ailments as a teenager. She drew from her own true feelings of depression in her book, which charged it so deeply with reality that it shook me to my core. She showed beauty through ashes, pain in joy, and so many other things. 

Using your pain, no matter how hard it is, can grow your writing exponentially. Using your joy, no matter how sad you feel, charges your writing in a way that readers can legitimately feel inside. Take your feelings and weave them into the tapestry of your work. Draw from your own life to create stories that draw readers in and connect them to the lesson of your story. It doesn’t even have to be big–using a pain as small as how you cried over dropping your ice cream cone as a child in an elementary-age book can be very relatable as well. 

Conclusion 

In summary, we can influence our readers through using realistic characters, a reasonable backstory, relevant topics, and real experiences. Draw from the well of your heart and charge your story with truth, love, and power. 

But the most important thing that can move your readers is the One who holds the key to their hearts. Pray over your story, no matter how small, that it would impact who God wants it to. Use biblical themes, evidence, and morals to charge your story with another level of influence. 

Now, go out, Radiant Writers, and shine your light for the One who deserves all our praise. Use the verse below as your goal for influencing your writing:

"Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep." 

- Romans 12:15 

In Christ,

~Alaina