Character And Why Listeners Attach To People

Stories about interesting events frequently fail while stories about ordinary ones succeed. The difference is usually whether there is anyone in them to follow.

Attention needs a point of view

Listeners orient themselves in a story by attaching to a person and experiencing events through them. Without that anchor, events arrive as information.

This is why an account of something remarkable can be dull. The listener has nowhere to stand and no stake in what happens next.

Establishing whose story it is, in the first few sentences, does more for engagement than any amount of scene-setting.

Wanting something is what makes a person legible

A character becomes followable as soon as they want something, because every subsequent action can be measured against it.

The want does not have to be admirable or large. Getting home, avoiding an awkward conversation or finishing before a deadline all work.

Without a stated want, listeners cannot evaluate anything the person does, and the story reads as a series of unmotivated moves.

Specific behaviour beats description

Describing someone as generous conveys less than an account of what they did, because the second lets the listener form the judgement themselves.

Judgements formed by the listener are held far more firmly than ones supplied by the teller, and they cannot be argued with.

One well-chosen action is usually enough. Listeners extrapolate readily and prefer to do so, which is why long character descriptions feel laboured.

Inconsistency creates interest

Entirely coherent characters are predictable, and predictable people stop generating questions. A behaviour that does not fit invites explanation.

Real people are full of these contradictions, so a story drawn from life usually has them available without invention.

The requirement is that the contradiction is shown rather than resolved, since explaining it away removes the very thing that made the person interesting.

Attachment survives dislike

Listeners do not need to approve of a person to follow them. Understanding what someone wants and why is sufficient, and disapproval can strengthen attention.

This matters when telling stories about difficult people or about your own worse decisions, where the instinct is to soften the portrait.

The softened version is usually weaker. What holds a listener is a clear view of why someone acted as they did, not a case for their being right.

The same applies to the teller's own part in a story. Audiences forgive almost any behaviour that is described plainly, and lose patience quickly with one that is being defended.