The Ella Effect: The feedback we want
Today I wanted to address some feedback from a recent short story I shared.
https://vocal.media/fiction/ella-and-the-mountain-troll
The short story is about a character named Ella, a strong willed, focused young woman that won't let anything get in the way of her goals. She encounters a troll which she ends up hunting down for the sake of trying to impress the local Fighter’s Guild in her village. Of course, the young Ella makes mistakes, but as she does, she figures a way out of the sticky situation.
Cue the controversy. I was surprised when I got feedback that several were rooting for the troll when in my mind the Troll was the bad guy. Even on top of that some people didn’t like Ella, in fact calling her psycho.
At first this concerned me. Maybe I didn't write her character well enough maybe, she isn’t likeable, maybe I don’t know how to write? But the more I thought about it the more I knew her character development was exactly where it needed to be.
One of my goals in my writing is to help my audience feel like they are in the story. I want to find ways to help them feel like they are part of the adventure. So imagine you find yourself in a sticky situation and someone on your adventure is making a rash decision motivated by their own selfish desires? You're going to be annoyed by them, frustrated by their choices, and sometimes angry at them.
That is exactly what I want Ella’s character to be. People will either instantly love her or hate her because she's confident, she’s quick to make choices and sometimes we don't agree with her choices, but at least she is making them, and often she isn’t wrong. These kinds of personalities often steamroll other ways of thinking, and just when you think you know where the plot is going, Ella could do something that jeopardizes the safety of the entire team. People thinking Ella is a psycho, is exactly the kind of feedback I love to hear, because it gives me a peek into how my audience might FEEL around her, and that is gold.
So if you get a chance, go read her story, and let me know what you think. Love or hate her, I think she is going to help bring an adventure we will never forget!