So, I'm writing a fic, as I'm sure many of us are. It's not very popular (at only 96 views), though it does seem to be rather well-received by people who read it (28 likes, no dislikes). The main complaint that I've been getting from my readers is that they have trouble identifying with my protagonist. That seems to be an issue for the first 30,000 words or so, and then they start to identify with him as things start happening.

My problem is this: people lose interest within the first three chapters. They have trouble relating to my protagonist, and I'm wondering: why? What can I do to get people to want to know what happens to him in the beginning of the story? It's not a problem later on. My readers seem to be really interested and looking forwards to new chapters as they get past the beginning, but it seems that many potential readers lose interest before that phase.

How do you make readers relate to your protagonist within the first 5,000 words?

I'm in the same boat as you.

give him a character trait that people can grab onto.

Make him sad, angry, cynical, anything that juts out and gives us a reason to either hate or love him. You don't really have to make him relatable, just accessible. Give us an Idea of how he ticks and hint at his inner struggles (realy, just a hint, to much information is deadly as well).

That, or just make him cool. ^^

Opinion: If you haven't gotten the reader interested in your main focus in the first *50* words, the next 4950 words you write won't mean a hill of beans.

782248 Here's a good starting question: What does your protagonist DO in the beginning? Hopefully the answer is something, because a very good way to make a reader lose interest in a story is to have an ineffectual protagonist.

782248
That's... a pretty huge and complicated question, it would have been easier to peek at yours. Alas, since you've pulled your story, it seems like, nobody can offer you specific advice.

However, drop offs in viewers over time in chapters is entirely normal, I should note. You'll never get 100% reading through. You'll lose most of that number just after the first chapter, no matter how awesome your work might be, since most people can tell if it's a story they like, just from there.

Anyway, there's no way to make everyone relate. Unless you've invented mind-control writing.
Nor will everyone ever be able to relate to any given character. Some of us might relate to Twilight. Some of us might relate to Trixie. Some might relate to Rarity. None will likely relate much to all three. But we might be engaged by all three, or enjoy all three, and that's really what's important.

Either people are just not using the greatest wording, or your protagonist is really... unusual.

Is he, like, massively powerful, or perfect? Insane? Alien? Totally depressing/depressed? Are they extremely logical? Or extremely irrational? Any massively extreme personality can keep people from relating.

Not to imply it's the case here, but it can also come from a character not being written terribly well, and thus seeming flat, or unemotional. Character motivation could be the problem too. If the actions of a character don't flow from their observed traits, or the events of the story, it'll seem like they're just doing things randomly, and people will scratch their head in confusion, and be unable to get into the character's head.

How to get the reader to relate to your protagonist?

All you need to do to make the readers sympathize with them is to simple give them attributes of what the reader might experience or is already experiencing. It's like how Luke Skywalker from Star Wars is so relatable to many viewers in the first few minutes of his appearance. He's a young man, looking for something more in life, while living with his aunt and uncle working on a boring farm. He seeks adventure, he makes friends and loses friends.

A lot of things can make characters relatable, to the most simple emotions that the reader may have experienced.

Did the protagonist lose a friend? Are they in love? Do they feel sad? Angry? Happy? Depressed? Lonely?

Just the simple fact that they show similar emotions to the reader can they become relatable.

Now, I haven't read your story, as I don't have the time, but these are my thoughts on making a relatable protagonist.

Did they lose a loved one?

I don't think the real issue is relatability, as on many occassions a character's appeal is that he provides a unique perspective to things we could never find on our own (imagine, for example, an insane character).
Yet, what these kind of characters share with very relatable ones is that they're intriguing. And what makes a character interesting, is quite easy: the same thing that makes a person interesting (with one small exception). The author simply has to draw in the reader by showing something unique about the character in question, something that really makes him stand out. This usually comes from the way the character is introduced to the reader (i.e. riding into town on a meteor, or as somebody who compulsively counts cracks in the sidewalk). One noteable exception is the fact that, while a person in real life can look interesting, a character does much less so, since the reader can't actually see him (although a character's look can make other character's interact with him in an interesting way).
Now, sometimes it makes sense to start of a story with more than a little exposition, which can scare of potential readers. A simple technique to still get the reader drawn in is the flash forward. A flash forward is use almost exclusively to prematurely spark interest in a character or in a conflict.

782312
Essentially, he makes a critical mistake (agreeing (under threat) to take some cargo somewhere, which results in his entire crew becoming enslaved in the next chapter). However, that happens at the end of the first chapter, which is mostly spent establishing the characters and world with some everyday slice-of-life conflict.

782316
My story is right here.

He's not unusual. He has no extreme personality. He is designed to be, more or less, an average pony living as close to his dreams (not very close) as he can. I think he might be -too- average.

I doubt it's the writing. My readers seem to think that my characters are extremely well written, and the best part of my fic.

Just give them a reason to care.

Start with giving your protagonist something, then take it away. Outline an interesting personality trait of theirs, etc. Just do something that makes the character seem tangible right off the bat.

Spend some time at the begining to flesh out your character and make it come to life. Make us feel like we're that character. If you don't take the time to establish something that makes the character noticeable then it's easy for people to lose intrest in it. It's kind of like how Applejack or Rarity tend to go a long time between spotlight episodes and in the mean time they get shoved into the background, the exception here is that by this point the spotlight eps have already established what they are like. If those episodes didn't exist they would estentially be background characters.

Long story short, try to make the character 3-D. If we the readers can't find something about a character that intrests us then we are naturally not drawn to them.

782361
Ahh, apologies. It's a mature rated fic, and I'm at work, so I keep those filtered here. Thus it showed you as having no stories published.

I'll have to look at it later, possibly.

I think he might be -too- average.

That's a possibility. You can go too far with Joe Everyman, and thus make a character that's very... grey. Extreme unremarkableness is an extreme just the same.

782362

Just give them a reason to care.

Start with giving your protagonist something, then take it away. Outline a quirk of theirs, etc. Just do something that makes the character seem tangible right off the bat.

Wellllll, to get specific, I think people can go too far with gimmicks and stuff. It doesn't really matter if a character talks with a lisp, or has glass eye, or always flips a coin with telekinesis or something. Quirks aren't really that huge. But certainly that's very true for personality traits, and so the sentiment is very much spot on.

Trixie gets her popularity from her hamminess. Twilight wouldn't have been half as fun without her naive bookworm status. Rarity wouldn't be Rarity without her melodrama. Character needs to be interesting, end line.

It doesn't even really matter as much if they're likeable, so long as we want to see more (As with Trixie).

782420
I consider quirks the same as personality traits.
Maybe my Psychology classes deceived me in how this apparently works.

In any case, what he said.

782465
A quirk is just an idiosyncratic behavior. As far as the definition goes.
Which could be as a simple as 'Always chews gum', which, hey, if you want to call a personality trait, go for it. But it sure as heck isn't going to be winning anyone over to a character.

782531
Oh, silly me then. Gonna edit that quick...

Hmm. I think I understand the issue. A protagonist is a "main character". They're the heroes, the guys who move the story along, correct? And the issue that I have with current popular culture and with so many protagonists on this site is...

And I know that some of you are gonna think this is stupid, I freely ADMIT this...

...there's no good guys.

Already I can tell some of you started laughing UPROARIOUSLY at this. I'm talking "BAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-He-he can't be SERIOUS, that's the stupidest-HAHAHAHAH!" type of laughter, you're wheezing in your chair, hell, maybe your knees are buckling from the chortling you're doing. You're laughing, I know. You think I'm being a fuddy duddy.

This is the thing. I almost NEVER write for or play a bad guy. In anything. I think a story should be about protagonists. Heroes, good guys, people the audience can either admire or relate to. And more often than not, many of the so-called protagonists in so, SO many stories I've read here on this site or on others...that's not the case. The protagonist is either evil as all hell, or far too wo or one-dimensional. They essentially just care about sex or food or beating up anything that isn't them. In short...they're animals. They have no depth, no characterization, no COMPLEXITY to them. And I don't think that's the way a story, no matter what the subject matter, should be about.

So often on this site, the majority of the cast is utterly, buttf--k EVIL. And I don't think that's the way it's meant to be. Let's take "human in Equestria" tales. That kind of work should really not be totally about the ponies and your reaction to them, but about your character's humanity, your morality, your compassion, your ethicality and moral code. It should be about the protagonist struggling to maintain themselves in a new world. And PLEASE, don't have your protagonist be the kind who goes "I wanna be all emo, dude, this beast that crawls in the dark and brooooods!" Or a Changeling or dragon or predator character that's all "I kill and feed not because I must but because I can". That is SO one-note, so paper-thin, so...forgive the terminology but...freakin' LAME. BORING. There's nothing TO these guys. And I don't mind reading or watching characters with a specific kind of "one-dimensionalness" to them if they're entertaining.

Now, if you've got a villain protagonist or the like who's entertaining, a lot can be forgiven in a bad story. Let's take, for example, "It", the mini-series that appeared on TV. Curry's character is a RIOT. He's IMMENSELY entertaining. Oh yeah, he's all about how you're gonna FLOOOOAAAAAT, but dammit, he's fun to watch! A character that's fun to read about can turn a normally "flat" character into something you WANT to keep reading about. Or take the Warden from the "Story of Ricky". He too is immensely entertaining. Yeah, he's very two-dimensional, he's essentially just a "twirling mustache, mwa-ha-ha" type of evil prison warden, but he's so over the top and commands such attention from the audience you wanna keep seeing him. To me, THOSE are the kinds of "villain protagonists" that are the most well done. They should be entertaining if they're gonna be "flat".

So that's the best advice I can give you. If your protagonist can be related to, admired or sympathized with in how he acts, lemme recommend you make him as entertaining as you can.

782605
Sure. That's a thing.

However, more and more, it's on the wane! It was more an issue a few years back.
People are pretty much sick of broody, grim, cynical antiheroes at this point.

I haven't noticed it being a particular problem in the FiM fandom, myself.

But heck, there are a lot of fics, and I don't read all genres (like HiE) or levels of quality (or lack thereof), so maybe I've just had the privilege of missing out on these fics you mention.

782605 I would add in Soon I Will Be Invincible (non-pony) to that list of villans who make you care. Its hard to read at times from the prose, but it can really make you look at your own characters. Grab a copy at the library.

And Keepers of Discord for Pony, because although Discord is the main focus, the stream of secondary characters just chip away at your heart until the end, and you should have a hankerchief around when you read it.

Well, i can't say that much, but people tend to relate to the bad sides of a charracter. DIsplaying those a few times early on might help. ALso painting a full picture of his personaliyt as early on as possible helps.
Idealy they should have a general iead about how the charracter is after having read the first 500 words

782248

So, I'm writing a fic, as I'm sure many of us are.

That's the understatement of the century. (Nevertheless, tastefully done.)

The problem here may not be that the character in question is enough like the reader, but is not interesting to the reader. Writing done wrong often ends up with the protagonist being a stranger on the street, a face in a crowd, too much like us in my opinion. To translate, the protagonist is stagnate, and being stagnate they are introverted. We don't really get to see who they are, rather, we see a shell just like the multifarious millions we pass by in our lives without a second thought.

How do you get past that shell? The answer is simple. You need to cut them open. Wide open. Take that scalpel called conflict and rip open that membrane sack of a shell. Then the reader can see the heart that beats in them, the lungs that rise and fall, the palpitations of the intestines and undulation of the liver. Only when the reader sees this will they be able to see the similarities, for they are aware that in their gut lie the same stuff.

Conflict, however, is not enough. You need the right conflict. You need a sharp, diamond-edged blade to cut into them, not a hack-saw or a butter knife. You need a conflict that will call into question the character's strongest and most sacred belief, mottoes that they themselves never knew existed. Then you will have conflict. Then you will have character!

(Most of these thoughts come from my reading of Wired for Story by Lesa Cron. I trust you to take it with a grain of salt until I am able to put it to the test, namely with A Ghost Story. And please, upvote if you agree, downvote if you disagree.)

783547

This is good. I do, indeed do this.
Unfortunately, it is done at that 30,000 word mark, when my protagonist (a simple merchant pony), kills another being for the first time.

Such conflict is hard to do in the beginning. :C

There is a reason why the angst genre is both so loved and hated.
We can relate to a character who has more problems than the average joe, more or less anyhow.
Heck, I am very guilty of this myself. Just set up a fine sob story for your character, and volia! You got yourself a character who might be just the right bait to lure your readers in... Hopefully.
If not, then prepare for pain without end.

782605 No shit sherlock? But that depends on your definition of the good guy.
Do you know why the changelings are so popular on this site? We're a bunch who are in some ways, counter culture. Have you heard about the one called Cadence and Shining Armor? Pfft, so smug and arrogant that it makes me sick. Parading themselves as the ultimate good and all that. (Note: Written for dramatization and making the comment a little more interesting.)

Now the changelings? They have all sorts of opportunities behind them.
Unlike ponies, you could devise a number of troubles that these bunch of rogues have to go through, not unlike our own society to be honest.

783602

Have you thought of starting the first chapter with the murder, then flashing back to show how he got to that point?

783792

I've considered it, but...
If I did that, I might have to change my narrative style to more of a storytelling one, and then there can't be any suspense about his survival. Meh. Maybe I will.

783945
You could also use the blurb (the short description you give for your story) to tell the main point, then your reader will be more interested in the lead-up, knowing that all the events prior to it will cause your protagonist to kill.

782248
Okay this will sound wierd, but it's a figure of speech so bear with me,
Make the character Human
Make him/her feel like we do, they don't have to have the same problem as everyone, but everyone has a problem, and seeing other people struggle with theirs will make readers relate, it's all about the struggle, if life isn't fought for, it isn't worth living (or reading)

783755

Dude. There are LITERAL MANIFESTATIONS of metaphysical forces. Please don't play the "good and evil are points of view" card. Not in MLP. Not when we have literal elements of harmony and somebody who is actually the personification of chaos and discord himself. That kind of thing won't fly.

784621 Pfft, anything is possible my friend. What if these so called Elements of Harmony could be corrupted?

But on another note, Really?
Do we HAVE to conform to your viewpoint? Forgive me if I have misinterpreted your comment, but it seems you want to make so that only fanfiction that meets a certain criteria can enter this site. So does that mean we should purge the archives of anything that isn't related to canon? Then why even bother writing fanfiction in the first place? It is only going to be voided by canon. Might as well take out that pesky alternate universe tag there, eh? The purity of the fandom shall not be tainted by worthless and ill trite drivel! (In before someone uses Godwin's Law.)

But I digress. We write fanfiction because we have the freedom to do so.
Why do we have to conform to a criteria that someone else wants, just because they feel like it?

Please don't play the "good and evil are points of view" card. Not in MLP. Not when we have literal elements of harmony and somebody who is actually the personification of chaos and discord himself. That kind of thing won't fly.

Real arrogant there. What makes you the sole arbiter of truth here? Anything and everything can be twisted, and this is such a shallow minded viewpoint.... I just hate when others want to force their canon on my own. Why should I obey yours? Should we murder those who do not conform? We might as well slaughter the families of the writers who do not write her eyes as magenta, or those who fail to include Alicorn Twilight should be burned at the stake!

785089

Dude, there is a thing called "keeping true to the spirit or the show", or keeping things "canon". And if you want to INVERT that, fine, but you should do so in a way that isn't half assed. There are always going to be standards for writing. For example. Rape. Don't. Not unless you are really taking it seriously, or doing a joke to show you don't understand the subject matter at all in a kind of shock humor thing. And even then, it should be built up to and foreshadowed and not used as a motivating factor for a woman, which is not only cliche but offensive because in the hands of a bad writer it is "something that happens to women".

Basic standards of writing should be adhered to when you write fanfiction, and I don't just mean grammar and spelling but story structure, rising action, climax and the like. It isn't that hard to conform to some basic standards which are set up for the sole purpose of making sure your story isn't a mess.

And please don't use the "we shouldn't limit first amendment exercises" excuse or anything because we already have limits on that. It is called "child pornography" or "libel" or "yelling fire in a crowded theater". There are rules EVERYONE has to follow. You don't just get to say or write whatever the heck you want if you're gonna put zero thought or effort into it.

I will be HAPPY to tell a writer how they can improve. Provide constructive critique. But I won't tolerate work that's blatantly bad or trying to push a message that is blatantly amoral or immoral. My conscience won't stand for it.

785144 And who said I wanted to be half assed about it? And who said I wanted to be a complete, immoral basterd about it? I just want the freedom to expand, and not be hindered by others. To me, it just reminds me of tyranny in other forms. It may indeed be a strech to compare it so, but why limit ourselves? Take Luna's season 1 representation before Season 2 came around. Tell me this, should we delete stories that used her former representation? Should we condemn and stone those who continue to use that representation as worthless heretics?

That feels like the message that this fandom is telling me, to go die in a fire for even daring to think something as such.

This? Apparently there are even some groups that have purged their archives of any existence of Season 1 Luna. Pfft. If you ask me, try to write any new fanon should go shoot themselves. Too naive for their own good. Unfortunately, it seems that I was a complete idiot to be this naive dumbass. Now that I think about it, perhaps the Nazis might have a bit of logic to their madness. Though biologically complete and utter bullshit, there is some soundness. If someone doesn't conform to your beliefs, kill them. Isn't that so simple? It work for humanity for many thousands of years in the past. It worked for the Romans, so why not us? Why not banned those who do not conform, such as myself? Oh yes, I might have gone off the deep end, but I am being told that I should not even consider my own beliefs, that I should go burn and die for them.

If so, then why not go to some bronycon and root out the infidel (Such as those who still make red eye Scratch, or worse, ship Big Macintosh with somepony else other than Cherrilee, or even worse than that, dare ship gays.) that dare to desecrate this fandom. Pfft, Love and Tolerance my ass. Whoever follows that creed needs to be pushed off a cliff, preferably while on fire. That is a sign of weakness, is it not? The Romans did not get to where did by pussyfooting it.

Ugh. I have such a headache right now.

785304

Engage in hyperbole much?

Lemme take this smaller. If I typed this "." and you said it was ANYTHING other than a period, anybody else reading it would ask you if you needed your eyes checked. There are some basic standards of writing we all adhere to. In fact, I did an entire blog on the subject. But for pete's sake, quit bringing in the Nazis!

785659 Ugh... Sorry. I get very defensive about this kind of stuff. Just at a very bitter and angry time at the moment. It just feels that the atmosphere is rather oppressive, even though it isn't... This isn't the first time that a moment like this has happened.

Engage in hyperbole much?

Unfortunately, quite so indeed. I am not exactly well spoken when it comes to matters such as these.
Even though I prefer logic and reason to an emotional outburst, I sadly use the latter far too often for an intellectual debate. It just that I like the freedom to experiment and go into bold new directions, to break the norm so to speak. And how would that be wrong? Sure, I would be in favor of preserving the traits of what makes the characters, as well as their trademarks. But is there any harm in bringing an experimental twist to fiction? Unless if the fanfic in question would actually decide the fate of an entire people, then I see no harm in it.

As for that Fanon Luna I mentioned earlier, would it be so wrong to continue using that version of how she is depicted? It certainly isn't aligned with canon, but that didn't stop us from using her character. To throw it out seems... I don't know... I mean, if we were just going to throw her out like this, then why did we even develop a fanon character in the first place? It just doesn't seem worth the effort. You might as well write on a strict show basic only. Anything else might as well be tossed to the fire, creativity and quality be damned.