Using Rooting Interest Techniques and Their Opposites to Dial Up or Dial Down an NPC s Likability and the Degree to Which We Identify with Him or Her

Using Rooting Interest Techniques and Their Opposites to "Dial Up" or "Dial Down" an NPC's Likability and the Degree to Which We Identify with Him or Her

Any Rooting Interest Technique, flipped upside down, can make a character unlikable and make us unwilling to identify with that character. For instance, it's a Rooting Interest Technique to have a character risk sacrificing himself for another person who's in danger. Flip this upside down, and it makes the person unlikable.

Thus, we have a sort of dial by which we can control exactly how much we like (or identify with) any particular character.

There are many uses for this "Rooting Interest Dial," such as:

• Creating flawed heroes, and preventing heroes from being "too perfect."

• Creating villains whom we like some of the time or about whom we're ambivalent (for example, "cool villains" of the films Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, and The Usual Suspects).

• Making a character who would normally be unlikable into a hero. If you remember the movie Rocky, you'll find that he's a quite likable hero (because of all the Rooting Interest Techniques employed in the creation of his character). It makes us overlook his job he's an enforcer for a loan shark.

• Making a character go from being unlikable to likable over a stretch of time.