: Re: Will my readers find it hard to care/identify with a character who seems to lack human emotions? I'm writing my first novel. One of the main characters was born without a soul. This is her

@BetL639

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I am confused. Does without a soul mean without emotions? Or is the reverse true: no emotions means no soul? Emotional repression is more common than I care to admit, and at least according to genesis animals don't have souls and I know from experience that they have emotions. Therefore souls and emotions may or may not be synonymous depending on your definition of the word "soul." It seems to me that you are describing emotional repression/autism. Forest Gump is a prime example. Their fundamental need is for friendship and acceptance. Often times they can't accept themselves, which only compounds the problem. It is only through emphasizing that the character is behaving strangely with the motive of reaching out and grasping after a somewhat imaginary friendship to satisfy her relational hunger. Characters of this nature are typically introverts and often melancholics who tend to fixate on a certain friendship to the exclusion of all others.

If I was incorrect and you wish to emphasize the deficit of a soul and not necessarily emotions then this paragraph may help... else wise quit reading here. Maybe describe her with positives instead of negatives, which means starting with something lesser and adding instead of something greater and subtracting. Unless of course you wish to vilify her. We use insults to reduce people to objects (he is a dick!), and we exaggerate their positive qualities to flatter them (he has a big heart...). It seems that you wish to portray her in a positive light. Therefore I suggest starting the description with something less than human aka an animal and adding the human physical features and intangible attributes like intelligence. Emotions seem to come naturally enough to animals, which display primal responses not entirely unlike young children. I think the refinement of societal structures beyond a basic hierarchy or pecking order may also be indicative of human attributes. Comparing apes and humans would seem the simplest, but using any specific animal would complicate the narrative like a fractal.

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