All posts by Pintip

Lessons from the Playground

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Recently, when I went to pick up my children from school, my five-year-old daughter burst out of the classroom, leaped into my arms, and buried her face in my neck. When I asked her what was wrong, she said her best friend had told her, “I don’t like you anymore.”

Wow. It’s hard enough to hear this kind of sentiment as an adult. But for a sensitive five-year-old who has never experienced rejection? Devastating.

I’m happy to say it all blew over. After a little investigation and instruction from the moms, apologies were said, the girls hugged, and now they’re friends again.

Afterwards, my daughter and I came home and had a long talk. About friendships and strategies and coping mechanisms. And what struck me the most about this conversation was how wise I sounded. How, coming from an adult perspective, I could so clearly see the “right” solution to my child’s problems.

At the same time, I recognized I was being something of a hypocrite. Because, you see, the lessons I was trying to teach my daughter are the very ones with which I’ve been struggling.

Here are some of the things my daughter and I discussed:

1. You shouldn’t want to play with someone who doesn’t want to play with you.

So simple, right? So true. But if that’s the case, then why does rejection hurt so much? Whether it’s by an agent or an editor, a loved interest or a friend, rejection sucks. Big time. But it shouldn’t. Instead, we should just see the pass as information gained and move on with our lives.

For example, writers look for a literary agent in order to find an effective advocate for their work. If an agent does not love your work, then he/she, by definition, will not be an effective advocate. So you shouldn’t want to work with an agent who doesn’t want to work with you. Right? So simple. So true. And so much easier said than done.

2. If someone is mean to you, walk away.

It is so easy to get caught up in other people’s drama. To get drawn into an argument, to retaliate to their hurtful behavior. When the truth is, it is so much simpler to step away and focus on your own work, your own interests, your own family. I may have given this advice to my daughter as if it were truth, but it is something which I constantly have to remind myself.

3. If you want to have a friend, then you have to act like a friend.

I think we all learned this friendship adage a long time ago. I know I did. And yet, I am still learning the corollary: If you want to be a writer, then you have to act like a writer. That means, working on my manuscript, whether or not the muse strikes. It means being willing to do the hard stuff, the parts I may not particularly enjoy but that need to get done. It means getting up to write another day, no matter what blows have been dealt the day before.

4. Just because your friend wants to play with somebody else doesn’t mean she likes you any less.

This, perhaps, was the hardest truth for my daughter to swallow. In her mind, preference for another friend automatically equals rejection of her. As adults, we know better. Or do we? If the writing corollary were true (someone else’s success has no bearing on our own), then why, in the midst of our sincere excitement, do we feel that tiny twinge of, well, rejection when we hear another person’s good news? I honestly don’t know.

Maybe it’s human nature. Maybe it’s because our hearts and heads don’t always align. Or maybe these lessons from the playground are just ones that we continue to learn, every single day.

What do you think? What lessons do you continue to learn as an adult? Why is it so hard for our heart to follow what our minds know to be “true”? What is harder– dealing with friendship drama as a child, or having your dreams rejected as an adult?

Winners Announced

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Thanks to everyone who stopped by the lagoon these last couple days! Beth and I had so much fun chatting with all of you, and I hope you had a good time, too.

The ten winners (chosen from a random number generator) are as follows:

Megan Connors
Laurie Sanchez
Cindy Skaggs
Mary Jo Burke
Stephanie Buchanan
Marnee Bailey
Orly Konig-Lopez
amber
Kimberly MacCarron
Tara Lynn Mosby

Congratulations to all of you!

Remember, even if you did not win, you should still feel free to query Beth.  Thanks again and best of luck in your writing careers! I can’t wait to read all of your books!

Directions from Beth on how to submit:
For anyone who would like to query, please feel free to do so by emailing me a query letter and the first five or so pages of your ms pasted into the body of an email. Please mention this blog. Send to bmiller(at)writershouse(dot)com.

For those who win the chance to send your partial, please send the first 3 chapters as an email attachment, in .doc or .docx format, double-spaced, along with your query, as well as a synopsis if you have one.

Win a Partial Request from Writers House: Agent Beth Miller Swims with the Mermaids

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I am thrilled to welcome the fabulous Beth Miller of Writers House to the lagoon today. And even more excited to tell you that Beth will be requesting a partial manuscript from ten lucky commenters. That’s right – I said TEN. No pitch necessary. All you have to do is leave a comment, and you’ll be entered into a drawing to receive a partial request from Beth.

Even if you have no need for representation, please feel free to say “hi” or ask Beth a question. (Just be sure to let me know you’re not interested in the drawing!) We would love to hear from you!

This contest ends Saturday, May 19, at 11:59 pm, EST. The ten lucky winners will be posted on Sunday, May 20.

Take it away, Beth!

1. There are stories of agents getting manuscripts shoved at them under the bathroom stall door. Has anything like that ever happened to you?

No, but I have definitely heard of that happening, especially at the larger conferences like RWA National. This is actually not a great way to approach agents! You don’t want to be remembered as “that lady who shoved papers at me under the bathroom stall door.” It’s a little creepy. We definitely prefer a face-to-face pitch or a query.

2. If your life story were turned into a movie (face it, “agent” is the perfect job for the lead in a romantic comedy), who would play you and the male lead?

Oh, if only my life was that interesting! May I request Gerard Butler for the male lead? Not sure how much of a role he’d have, to be honest, but it would be fun. And if so, can I play myself?

3. What is your guilty reading pleasure?

Lately, I’ve just been in love with YA fiction, so I’ve been reading more and more (and more) of it. My guilty reading pleasure is more of a confession that I re-read Anne Bishop’s BLACK JEWELS series about three times a year.

4. You have an unusual background for a literary agent. Can you tell us a little about that background and what made you decide to switch careers?

I have a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology (it started out as a Marine Biology degree, because I wanted to hug whales, but then I switched over in my junior year), and spent several years working in a research lab on Long Island. While I was there, I knew I wanted to go back to school (read: my folks were bugging me to get a Master’s) and I really didn’t want to go for a PhD; neither did I really want to stay in science.

I had always loved reading and writing, and had taken quite a few undergraduate literature classes, so I decided to go for a Master’s in Literature. While I was doing that degree, I was also doing some writing. All of that led me to join a local writers group, which in turn helped me find out about “how to get a job reading manuscripts, because that sounds awesome!” And that led me to the job listing for an assistant to Robin Rue at Writers House, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I have never looked back! Though I do try to go whale watching whenever I can…

5. What would your friends and family be surprised to learn about Beth Miller, the literary agent?

Well, I’m fairly certain my friends and family won’t be surprised by anything about me—I’m a pretty open book. Maybe you guys would be surprised to learn that I’ve been a certified scuba diver since I was 14 years old and absolutely love being immersed in a warm, tropical sea, surrounded by colorful fish and peace and quiet. Or that I used to be big-time into hair bands (Poison, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Firehouse, etc.). If there was a long-haired, leather-pants-clad eyeliner-wearing dude shrieking into a microphone, I probably happily shrieked along to it. I also have a stuffed llama named Sebastian (obviously after Sebastian Bach, Hair Band Singer Extraordinaire).

6. What is your favorite part about being an agent? What is your least favorite part?

My favorite part is finding something fantastic in the submissions. My least favorite part is receiving a pass from an editor on a project that I love and then having to pass that along to the author. That never gets easier.

7. What makes a writer a good choice for you?

Other than that unputdownable manuscript, it’s the sense that the author has a promising career—with more than just this one manuscript. It’s also the sense that the author and I are in sync with what each of us brings to the table.

8. Chemistry is an important component in the author/agent relationship. Is there any possible way for you to judge that through a query letter?

I think that it’s possible to get a sense of the writer’s personality through his/her letter, but I think it’s more likely to get that sense from how that writer interacts via email, and especially by phone. I want to work with someone who wants to work with me, so that’s one thing I’m hoping to determine from those initial communications.

9. Do you have any thoughts on contests as a means of writers reaching out to agents? What value do you place on contest submissions?

I think contests can be a great way of getting some feedback, as well as getting the attention of the judging agents or editors. But we also know that the entries are generally just a few chapters. Most people really work on those first few chapters, but what about the rest of the manuscript? So if I’m judging a contest, and those few chapters are amazing, then I will most certainly want to see more, and we’d go from there. I also think that while there is certainly a value to having contest wins under your belt, it isn’t necessarily a determining factor for me when I evaluate a query. So that may have been a vague answer, but it’s one of those judgment calls. I’d suggest entering ones where you are guaranteed feedback, and not overdoing it. The costs can really add up!

10. Any advice you’d like to give to writers hoping to catch your attention?

I would say that you should do your research. There is so much info out there on the internet about how to write a query letter and what not to do when querying. Your query should be personalized (I don’t mean you should make reference to my love for Damon on The Vampire Diaries, but you should direct your letter to me (and not Dear Agent, etc.). You should give a concise summary of your story, and a little bit about you, including, of course, your publishing history, if you have one (which is not required if you don’t!).

Beyond that, just send me something fabulous! I am looking for new talent, for something that makes me stay up until my eyes cross from reading, or makes me watch my subway stop fly by out the window, or makes me ignore the world outside for days!

Thanks so much, Beth! It’s been an absolute pleasure having you here in the lagoon!

Beth Miller is a junior agent at Writers House, where she has worked with Robin Rue since 2007. She has the pleasure of working with a long list of talented and fabulous authors in a beautiful old brownstone with many, many steps.

In her other life, Beth was a DNA sequencing technician at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. She much prefers books to E. coli, and enjoys scuba diving and road trips in her spare time. She also has a fascination for all things Scottish (including, but not limited to, men in kilts).

Beth is looking for romance and YA, though she would be happy to look at an action-packed thriller (think Clive Cussler or Vince Flynn) or a fantasy (think Anne Bishop or Juliet Marillier). She does not represent inspirational or religious fiction.

Five Things

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A very wise and extremely lovely mermaid recently told me about a trick she sometimes uses when she is feeling down: every night, before going to bed, write down Five Things you love about your life.

I immediately peppered her with questions. Can I cheat and just write down my kids and husband?

Answer: Yes, but the answers should be specific. Instead of writing my son’s name, for example, I should say I love how my son nicknamed himself “Jackhammer” and bounces all over the house impersonating a jackhammer (true story).

Can I repeat the answers from the day before?

Answer: If I want to. I’m not going to be judged or graded; this exercise is for me. I should do whatever works best for ME.

Then it hit me. Like so much of the writing process and life in general, there are no rules. There are just guidelines and structures that I can and should bend to accommodate my own particular circumstances. This might be obvious to most of you, but to me, it was a bit of an eye-opener. And it made me think of another Five Things I learned about, a long time ago.

In this list, a woman achieved balance and happiness in her life by doing the same Five Things, every day:

1) something physical
2) something mental
3) something that needs to be done
4) something for herself
5) something for someone else

I’d always admired the simplicity and practicality of this list, but I never felt like it applied well to my life. I was “cheating,” I thought, because I could cross off #3 and #5 immediately every day, by virtue of having kids. I don’t think a day goes by without #2 automatically happening, with all the demands of life. I always try to exercise every day, with or without a list, so that left #4 — doing something for myself. A worthy pursuit, to be sure, but now I don’t have much of a list, do I?

With my eye-opening realization, I decided to revise the list in order to challenge myself a little more.

Here’s what I came up. Pintip’s Five Things to do every day:
1) something outside
2) something productive with my writing
(writing itself, revising, editing, brainstorming, etc.)
3) something that needs to be done that I don’t want to do
This qualification takes out the routine things I have to do for my kids (feed them, bathe them, take them to school, etc.). Instead, it challenges me to do household stuff on which I continually procrastinate, such as pay bills, make doctor’s appointments, sift through my mail, etc.
4) something for myself
5) something enriching with my children
Again, this qualification eliminates all the routine things I would do anyways. It challenges me to carve out time to work on math with my daughter or writing with my son.

So this is my new list! Five Things I challenge myself to do every single day. #4 remains the same, while I have revised the other items to better accommodate my life.

What are your Five Things?

Happy Anniversary Waterworld Mermaids – Yay, Yay, YA!

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It’s our one-year anniversary! The Waterworld Mermaids have dyed the lagoon hot pink, added glitter and cranked up the dance music for our weeklong anniversary celebration. Each day we’ll be hosting a mermaid scavenger hunt. At the bottom of each day’s post you’ll find three questions about the mermaids who blogged that day, the answers to which can be found on this site. Answer the questions and be entered to win that day’s prize. Plus, on Friday we’ll be giving away a $130 Visa gift card. To increase your odds of winning the gift card, answer each day’s scavenger hunt questions. Every entry you make Monday through Thursday will give you an additional entry in the big Friday giveaway of a $130 gift card. So jump in the lagoon and get swimming with your lucky fin!

Yay, Yay, YA!

Today is a very exciting day in the mermaid lagoon. Not only is it the second day of our week-long anniversary celebration, but it is the release day of ENCHANTED, the debut novel of our very own Alethea Kontis!

Have you kissed a lot of frogs on your search for true love?

Have you ever fallen in love with your best friend?

Have you kept a secret from a crush — for fear that he or she would see you differently if he or she knew the truth?

Have you ever wondered if fairy tales really do come true? And what the world would look like if they did, all at the very same time?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, then you need to read ENCHANTED! And this is your chance to win your very own autographed copy! Because we are so excited about today’s giveaway, we are including a ceramic Frog King and exclusive YARWA swag as part of the prize.

 

 

* Alethea not included


Leave a comment with the answers to the following three questions (hint: answers found in the mermaid profiles) and be entered to win today’s giveaway and the grand prize – a $130 Visa gift card.
1. What year did Alethea hit the New York Times Bestseller List?
2. Name one of the coolest things Kim ever did.
3. What is the farthest place Pintip has traveled for a long weekend?

Thanks for joining us in the Waterworld Mermaid lagoon! Answer today’s questions in the comments below to be entered to win today’s prize and our big Friday giveaway of a $130 gift card. Only one entry per day. Be sure to leave your e-mail address in your comment. You have until 11:59 p.m. EST May 13 to leave your answers. Contest open to U.S. residents only.

The Slightest Smile

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As I wander through life, sometimes I feel so confused. So lost. As if I don’t even know the questions, much less have the answers.

And then I look into my son’s face as he drifts off to sleep. In the soft glow of the night light, his toddler features are small and perfectly even, his skin impossibly smooth. His eyelids droop lower and lower until they close, in a motion that is too slow for film but exactly right for real life. His lips curve in the slightest smile.

And I think: this. This is the meaning of life.

What is your meaning of life?

I’m As Hot As the Sun!

mermaids,

Analogies. As a writer, you might love them or hate them. I love them. To me, analogies can make a description come to life. They convey a nuanced shade of emotion. They showcase the voice of our characters. But best of all, they don’t need to be fancy or complex.

Check out these similes that have popped out of my five-year-old daughter’s mouth.

“I’m as hot as the sun!”
“I’m cold like Antarctica!”
“I’m as fast as a motorcycle.”
“This boo-boo is like a volcano — it has red in the middle.”

How much more interesting it is to read (or hear) these statements than their generic counterparts! What’s fascinating to me is that even though these statements were uttered by a five-year-old, they have all the components of a good analogy.

1) They are accurate, in the sense that the sun is hot, Antarctica is cold, motorcycles are fast, and volcanoes have red lava in the middle.

2) They are easily relatable. Since we all know that the sun is hot, it is easy to imagine how being as hot as a sun might feel — which is to say, blisteringly, swelteringly hot.

3) They are surprising. At least they were to me. The first time my daughter bounded into the room and uttered an analogy, I laughed in a rather shocked way. I just didn’t expect something like that to come out of her mouth. Nothing generic or cliche about these analogies.

4) They give a good sense of character. To me, these comparisons scream out the literal mind of a five-year-old. Antarctica is cold, my daughter’s thinking goes, and I’m cold. So I must be cold as Antarctica. Never mind that the analogy doesn’t make too much sense. It works, in the humble opinion of this proud mama, in the context of the speaker.

Not to be outdone, even my three-year-old son has been known to chime in with his own simile.

“I’m as hungry as a bear!”

This statement, I admit, may be less original than the others. But if you could see the stick-thin legs and big brown eyes of the speaker, you might agree that the cuteness factor makes up for the lack of surprise.

I think all this goes to show that good writing doesn’t have to be complicated. Too often, we bang our heads over story structure, character development, world-building, and the million other things that go into writing a novel. And we should. This struggle results in the knowledge we need to grow as writers.

But we would do well to remember that good writing is rooted in something basic and instinctive. Something even young children can grasp. Something we’ve been studying from our earliest years.

Maybe then we can remember why we entered this crazy profession in the first place. Because we love it. And we always have.

Flat Stanley

Book Review, mermaids,

I am a proud mama. My daughter has recently graduated to chapter books. With more words than pictures. And more complex story lines. And real chapters! I have to say, this is an exciting milestone in my life, although it’s probably about par-for-the-course in hers.

Like many of you, I am sure, my childhood was dominated by books. My parents used to yell at me to put away my book at the dinner table. I made my way, surely and methodically, through the children’s room at our local library. I looked forward to my airplane rides to Thailand, so I could read for 24 hours straight and no one would tell me to stop.

I’ve always wondered, will my children fall in love with words in quite the same way? Will their imaginations take them to lands no airplane can reach? When they pain of real life becomes too much, will they escape into stories and forget their problems, for just a little while?

I hope so.

A brand-new world is opening up for them, and I get to go along for the ride. Our first foray into chapter books is FLAT STANLEY, by Jeff Brown, which is the story of a boy who is flattened to half an inch thick when an enormous bulletin board falls on him. I’ve learned so much by reading this book out loud.

I’ve learned about world-building. At half an inch thick, Stanley can do loads of cool things other ordinary boys and girls can’t. He can slide underneath doors. He can be lowered into a sidewalk grate to retrieve dropped jewelry. He can even be placed into an envelope and be mailed to distant places, in order to avoid the cost of a plane ticket.

I’ve learned the importance of chapter hooks. Since these books are meant to be read out loud by parents a couple chapters at a time, the story must be interesting enough to hold the child’s attention from day-to-day. (Although not so interesting it has the child refusing bedtime and begging for more!)

I’ve learned that the joy is in the details. One evening, it was late, and I was skipping over a few words to hurry along the story (which I was re-reading for the second time). After Stanley slid into the envelope, I read, there was still room for an egg-salad sandwich and some milk. No, Mommy, my daughter corrected me. It’s a toothbrush container full of milk. Excuse me, I apologized, smiling. My dear daughter had just shown me first-hand that it’s the details that make a story come alive!

I expect I’ll learn many more lessons as I guide my children through the exciting world of chapter books. And I couldn’t be more excited.

What about you? Were you a bookworm as a child? What do you remember most about your favorite childhood books? What have you learned from re-experiencing the wonder of reading?

I Don’t Want To!

mermaids, Motivation

A couple of years ago, a friend observed me saying sternly to my toddler son, “Close your eyes. It’s time to sleep now.”

“That’s what I need!” my friend exclaimed. “Someone to order me to go to sleep.” She went on to explain she often stayed up way later than she should, checking email, surfing the Internet, updating Facebook. Her life would be much healthier — and more restful — if there was someone to command her to do the right thing.

I thought of her words over the holidays, when I had the great pleasure of spending nearly two weeks in Florida with three young children — my own two kids and my nephew. We had a fantastic time, going to Disney, building sand castles, and playing in the waves. But over the course of the two weeks, I heard a few key phrases over and over again. As I repeated myself for the hundredth time, it occurred to me how much more effective our writing lives would be if we all had an authoritative figure to put an end to our whining.

1. “Are we there yet?” Well, what did we expect? We chose to drive the 18 hours to Florida with a three-year-old and a five-year-old. Of course we’re going to hear these words. But as I told my daughter, asking the question doesn’t make the miles go by any faster. Just as checking your email doesn’t make the responses come any sooner and staring at the phone doesn’t make it any more likely to ring. Sometimes, as we wait impatiently to hear news about our manuscripts, the best thing to do really is to shift our focus. Play “I Spy,” as I suggested to my daughter, or listen to some music. Or perhaps write another novel.

2. “Spicy!” This is my son’s contribution, every time he saw any food with a hint of red in it. “It is not spicy,” I would respond. “You have to try it first, before you know if you like it.” How many times have we, as writers, balked at something before we tried it? I hate first-person, we might say. Or, I can’t write sex scenes. I don’t outline. I won’t write about the sense of smell. When I first had children, I heard over and over again that a toddler must try a food at least seven times before she knows if she likes it. Now, seven times is a lot, but the point is, your preferences may grow and evolve, so don’t be too quick to reject something before you’ve given it a real chance.

3. “I want to go swimming/to the beach/to the playground now!” Sound familiar? Anybody else want to have their books published right now? As I explained to the children, some things aren’t possible right this minute. Certain steps need to be taken first. Lunch needs to be eaten, swimsuits changed into, sunscreen applied. Sometimes, we need to wait for the other people in our party to be ready. It’s hard to wait – for anything. Patience is definitely a skill that has to be learned. But instead of whining or pouting while we wait, we can speed things along by doing our part. We can study our craft, learn, and continue to improve our writing.

4. “It’s my turn!” Sometimes, it seems like everyone else gets to push the elevator button, and we wonder if we’ll ever get a turn. But you know what? The elevator button will still be there tomorrow. Just because someone pushes it today doesn’t mean it will get all used up. There are plenty of turns to go around. It’s the same with publishing. It may make us feel badly about ourselves if someone we know gets the good news we’ve been anxiously awaiting. But you know what? Our turn will come. I promise you it will. We just need to show up at the elevator (or at the page) in order to redeem it! How sad would it be if your turn is just around the corner, in the form of your next book or your next submission, but you give up before it arrives?

5. “I don’t want to!” Ah, the big one. As our kids learn at such a tender age, life is about doing things we may not feel like doing. Eating our vegetables, brushing our teeth, going to bed at a decent hour. We may not want to write a synopsis, make revisions, listen to harsh (but constructive) criticism. We may not even want to get our butts in the chair and write. But you know what? As I tell my kids, too bad. You’re going to do it, anyway. Unfortunately, no one is going to tell us what we “have” to do concerning our dreams. But if we want to achieve our goals, we need to treat our “I don’t want to’s” as “have to’s.” We have to be our own authority figures — or we can ask our APs to help us out.

What about you? Have you ever wished for an authority figure to keep your writing in line? What are your kids’ (or nieces’ or nephews’) favorite whines? Have you ever found yourself giving someone advice that could just as easily be applied to yourself?

Why I Empathize with a Serial Killer

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I recently started watching Dexter for the first time. You know, Dexter. That tv series about a serial killer? Not my usual cup of tea, but I have to admit, within minutes of watching the first episode of the first season, I was hooked.

Dexter is a bona fide serial killer. He gets overwhelming urges to murder and feels absolutely no remorse in taking a human life. In fact, he doesn’t feel any normal human emotions at all and spends most of his life pretending to be a good brother, caring boyfriend, friendly co-worker. (He works as a forensics expert on blood splatter. Cute, huh?) Here’s the twist: he was raised by an honorable cop who instilled in him a rigid moral code, so that Dexter only kills people who “deserve” to die — other murderers, rapists, etc.

Dexter is the ultimate anti-hero. He’s the star of the show, we root for him, and we want him to achieve his goals. And yet, he’s a serial killer. One who takes extreme pleasure in violently dismembering people. (Yes, I have to cover my eyes during the scenes with the whirling chain saw and the spraying blood.)

So how on earth did the writers accomplish this? How did they get me to empathize with a serial killer?

For answers, I turned to Michael Hauge’s recent workshop with the Washington Romance Writers. (For more information, please see his website: www.storymastery.com or his book, SELLING YOUR STORY IN 60 SECONDS). During the workshop, Mr. Hauge listed five key factors for creating empathy and claimed that the hero of every successful movie or novel has at least two of these five. Please note these factors must come into play when the character is introduced. A character arc where the hero eventually learns to be kind may enrich a story, but it does nothing to create empathy for the hero at the beginning of a movie or novel.

1. Make the hero sympathetic/ put him/her in an undeserved situation. In the first episode of this series, we see Dexter going through the motions as he pretends to have the requisite human emotions. He yearns to feel something — anything — and thinks if he goes through the motions often enough, the emotions he pretends to feel might actually become real. We don’t know at this point whether Dexter’s situation is deserved or not, but we certainly feel sorry for him. All of us, at one point or another, have felt like an outsider. We have all pretended to smile or laugh when we really felt like crying.

2. Put the hero in jeopardy. From the beginning of this series, Dexter walks a very fine line between detection and safety. He murders his victims — right under the noses of his coworkers in the police department. He interacts on a daily basis with the very people whose job it is to catch him. According to Mr. Hauge, we empathize with characters we worry about. Because of the very nature of Dexter’s job, we worry from the start that he might get caught.

3. Make the hero likeable/ show the hero to be well-liked by others. Although Dexter hides behind a mask, he is clearly well-liked by the other characters on the show – his sister, his girlfriend, his colleagues. In fact, an early scene in the first episode shows Dexter bringing donuts to the office, while everyone slaps him on the back and tells him what a great guy he is. Moreover, in a poignant moment in the first episode, Dexter says, if I could love anyone, it would be my sister Deb. His words imply that he does not love even his sister, but his actions speak louder than words. He may say he is just pretending, but his actions indicate that he is a caring brother to Deb and a thoughtful boyfriend to Rita. As viewers, we suspect that even though Dexter can’t acknowledge it, he truly cares about these people.

4. Make the hero funny. Dexter himself isn’t funny, but the situations in which he is portrayed are certainly amusing. For example, while his colleagues are disgusted by the blood splatter at a crime scene, Dexter whistles cheerfully as he takes pictures of the murder victim. In another example, after Dexter shows thoughtfulness to his girlfriend, Rita throws her arms around his neck and exclaims something like, “How did I find the last decent man on this world?”

5. Make the hero powerful/good at what he/she does. Mr. Hauge told us that viewers and readers like to root for characters who can “get the job done.” Dexter is extremely good at what he does. His colleagues are in awe of his deep knowledge and instinct concerning blood splatter, and he is a very competent and efficient serial killer. What’s not to like?

So there you have it! Five reasons why I empathize with a serial killer, according to Michael Hauge’s factors.
What about you? Do you like watching Dexter? Who is your favorite anti-hero? Why?