Save the Cat! and Other Cheap Tricks to Make Characters Likable

One of the great struggles in storytelling is making relatable characters. Essentially, it's a balancing act: on the one hand, the character cannot be too pedestrian, lest he be unworthy of being a protagonist. People don't watch television to see normal people, even when they watch reality TV: they want people who are, in some way, extraordinary or outrageous.

On the other hand, though, characters who are too extraordinary or outrageous quickly become boring or obnoxious (respectively). It's tough enough to get people to like real people—how on earth should one go about making them like fictional ones?

Blake Snyder wrote Save the Cat! in an attempt to give us some answers on the subject. His thesis is straightforward: early in our relationship with the character, have him do something that shows a spark of goodness, often an act of textbook heroism. "Saving the cat," if you will.

This is well and good, and it's worked for screenwriters since time out of mind. Once you know the trope exists, it's impossible to miss it. It shows up in Aladdin, when Al gives his stolen apple to another homeless kid. (We get almost exactly the same moment in Wreck-It Ralph, when Ralph gives his stolen cherry to the homeless Q*bert.) A willingness to save the cat is often what makes the hero feel heroic right from the get-go (even when the hero in question is a little rough around the edges).

However, I would posit that it's not the only way to make a protagonist. A quick trick to make a character likable (if not necessarily heroic) is to show that he's been scarred by the cat.

Because, honestly, cats are evil, and even if you save them they might try to rip your eyes out.

A character with visible marks of a hard life is immediately likable, provided he isn't bitter about it. Bitterness can work as a character trait, but audiences generally take a while to warm up to bitter characters. Folks who have clearly been mistreated, though, are often liked purely because we pity them. Never underestimate the value of pity.

This is the reason the Harry Potter fandom is so incredibly fond of Neville Longbottom. He's the universe's personal butt-monkey: perpetually inept, socially incapable, black sheep of a noble family, and deprived of parental love to boot. Nothing has gone his way, ever. Yet we Potterheads love him dearly, because Neville never lets it beat him into submission. This is the critical difference. Had he let it pummel him into giving up, we wouldn't be nearly so fond of him.

(Incidentally, showing that a character has been scarred by the cat is the most popular method of making us care about the villain.)

There you have it. If you're writing a character and nobody seems to like him, check to see: has he shown any sparks of goodness? Or, lacking that, has it been made clear that life has taken great pains to beat the character up?

Have you noticed any particularly egregious examples of Saving the Cat, Being Scarred by the Cat, Kicking the Cat, Feeding the Cat, or Otherwise Interacting with the Cat in things you read or watch? What about examples where they don't do this? How has it affected what you think of the characters?