How to build sympathy for character

[CaptainCornhole]

This is gonna be brief cause I am about ready to leave for work, so I will put more detail into a later post. Anyhow the main character for this story I'm working on, is a character I want the readers to empathize with. To sum things up she doesn't function very well in normal everyday society, this is due in part to her shyness/social awkwardness/public homophobia. So basically in the story we are at the point where she wants to get away from it. And from there I plan on having her past experience shape her character in relation to her current setting.

Question is how do I build sympathy for her w/o making her into a Marry-Sue?

[KnightOnTheSun]

At 2/4/13 08:49 AM, CaptainCornhole wrote: This is gonna be brief cause I am about ready to leave for work, so I will put more detail into a later post. Anyhow the main character for this story I'm working on, is a character I want the readers to empathize with. To sum things up she doesn't function very well in normal everyday society, this is due in part to her shyness/social awkwardness/public homophobia. So basically in the story we are at the point where she wants to get away from it. And from there I plan on having her past experience shape her character in relation to her current setting.

Question is how do I build sympathy for her w/o making her into a Marry-Sue?

Have things happen to her that will make the reader empathize/sympathize her. It can be anything to make the reader care for the main character. You just need to have conflict: Man vs man, man vs society, man vs nature, man vs self, or in this case woman vs whatever.

Something has to happen to the character or else the reader won't empathize/sympathize with her because nothing of importance has happened to her.

[Blue-SilverDragon]

At 2/4/13 08:49 AM, CaptainCornhole wrote: This is gonna be brief cause I am about ready to leave for work, so I will put more detail into a later post. Anyhow the main character for this story I'm working on, is a character I want the readers to empathize with. To sum things up she doesn't function very well in normal everyday society, this is due in part to her shyness/social awkwardness/public homophobia. So basically in the story we are at the point where she wants to get away from it. And from there I plan on having her past experience shape her character in relation to her current setting.

Question is how do I build sympathy for her w/o making her into a Marry-Sue?

I'd try writing a lot of material- different angles, different levels of knowledge, etc, to build up a log of possible material to use. I'd find which entries would seem to work and try plugging them in; I'd also do more research on the subjects you've indicated to see what's going in give it a more creditable standing.

[CaptainCornhole]

To expand upon things and this character was born with a medical condition that caused her to live a sheltered childhood. Cause of said sheltered childhood she has had minimal social interaction thus having a hard time relating or interacting w/ others. Furthermore she is part of a minority that suffers from political, religious and social persecution. Given the reasons in the story it is somewhat understandable why that minority group suffers from said persecution, but the character is disconnected from those which bring about said persecution.

Now because she is lonely w/ little friends cause of her shyness and persecution, she has a desire to be part of the society that persecutes her. Even though she is lonely and has a desire to make friends, she also resents the same social group she wants to be a part of because the way they and the government treat her. She also resents herself a little bit for her social short comings because she isn't able to relate to those in society.

The point we pick up with this character in the story she has given up on society and is slightly bitter because of how they have treated her. Throughout the story I want to use her negative past as a means to bring about certain positive/negative character development as she encounter various situations and is exposed to different things.

Some of the themes in my story have to do with creation and destruction and the forces or the unknown around that whole process. I plan on having this character's back story play into that theme. The corruption of society, effects of persecution, and brutality of war are a few other themes I plan on exploring.

My main problem I think is trying build sympathy w/o turning off the reader making her out to be an innocent mary-sue sorta stereotype or seem spoiled/overly emotional in any sorta manor.

[TheInnerScience]

One thing to help is to make character relatible to the reader. This can be done in many ways, which can be done in manu ways. Either with a simple choose she makes, how she dresses, or acts. I think with ur current plot plan, you wont have much trouble.