Confession Writing - A Sympathetic Main Character

 Anyone who has taken a course in creative writing, probably has heard this before, but to get published you must have a main character who is sympathetic.  By this, I mean one people can empathize with.  No, they do not have to have gone through the same situation your main character is going through, but they must empathize with them.  After all, would you really want to read about someone you cared nothing about?

This does not necessarily mean the person is above reproach.  Just that they are struggling, as any human struggles, with any one or more difficulties in their life.  You can make even a mass murderer sympathetic if you work at it.  You just need to give them a sympathetic past and enough redeeming qualities to make a reader care about them. – Now, I don’t recommend you try making your main character too vile, and still try to redeem them.  If you want to make someone that evil, you might want to pit them against your main character.

Which brings me to secondary characters.  I’ve been told not to have so many characters that draw away from the main character.  This can happen if you allow the secondary characters to play too big a role in the story.  Think of it as a movie.  You may have one main character, a person or two who are close to them, and the rest are pretty much extras.  They are just filling in some empty space.  Oh you can make them cute and lovable, or you can make them sneaky and conniving, but you can’t make them the lead character. 

But you can give them their own story.  I’ve done that on more than one occasion when I’ve liked working with a character.  I later gave them their own plot and their own life to live within that plot.

By now you may be thinking, with me writing about all this making them this, and giving them that, it is sounding more and more like writing fiction.  Aren’t confession and personal experience stories supposed to be true?

The answer is yes.  There is supposed to be some truth to these stories.  That truth can be complete, like telling something that really happened in your life.  Or, it can be bits and pieces of the truth.  The fact is, while the basis of the story is true, you are using a good deal of literary license when writing these stories.

However, whether it is a story about you, someone you know, or a stranger in the next booth you overheard talking while you were at lunch; it is up to you the writer to tell that story in a way that will be interesting to the reader.  And one of the most valuable things you will do to keep your reader reading, is to win them over in the first few paragraphs with a sympathetic main character.

And while I’m on the subject of winning over your reader; I must add that if your goal is to see your work published, you need to remember the editor is the first reader you need to win over.  So, take time to look at the publication before you submit your story.  Read several stories in several issues just to get a feel for the type of stories the editor likes.

If you find yourself saying I have a story just like that, don’t sent it.  At least not yet.  Most editors do not want carbon copy stories.  Nothing will lose readers faster than having them say, “Haven’t I just read this story last month?”  I doesn’t even have to be the same story, just too much like it.

What I am saying is, learn what the editors like from what is already being published, then write something just as good, but different.  And get a copy of the publication writer’s guidelines to help you remember what they like to publish, and more important, what they don’t want.

I wish you the best with your writing.  I don’t know what story you have running through your mind, but I wish you the best at developing a main character your readers will truly care about.

If you would like to learn more about some of the longest running women's confessions and their guidelines, look here.

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