In a post on Writer Unboxed, Donald Maass says that if readers don’t care about what’s happening in your story, they aren’t likely to continue reading. “Even novels with sparkling prose, a strong narrative voice, a clever premise, all the goodies, can leave us feeling ‘meh’. We just…don’t…care,” Maass says.
But why does that happen? “The question isn’t what makes us care, but who,” Maass writes. “The protagonist? You’d think, but actually who makes us care is someone other than the main character.” Instead, Maass suggests that the narrator is the character who brings the reader into the story.
Maass examines a few recent novels that strive to make an opening impression on the reader. The narrator wants the reader to understand the importance of an element of the story world, or an important point about life, or a powerful emotion that will figure into the story. “The narrator has something important for us to see, a point to make, a feeling to hold onto,” he writes. “What we’re drawn in by, the reason that we begin to care, is that the narrator cares, greatly, and conveys that on the page. Why? For us.”
In other words, when the narrator cares deeply about something, and is able to convey that importance to the reader, the reader also will begin to care.
