Teaching Persuasive Writing with Frankenstories

When talking about character, we mean it in the sense of “character reference”: it means the credibility, background, motivation, and authenticity of the speaker.

A good persuasive speaker will make an effort to establish their credibility and character, especially if the audience is unknown or actively hostile.

In character mode, a speaker tries to provide answers to any or all of these questions: 

• Who are they? Where do they come from?
• What is their interest or investment in this issue?
• What do they want? Why?
• How much do they care?
• Are they credible within this domain? (Are they well informed? Well regarded?)
• Are they virtuous? (Good, kind, generous, honest vs evil, cruel, selfish, dishonest)
• Are they agreeable? (Willing to see other points of view? Accept reasonable compromise?) 
• Will they make any concessions?
• What’s their status? (Are they high or low-status? Can they modulate status?)
• What’s their general attitude? (Are they cheerful, good-humoured, resentful, hostile…?)
• Who are they like? (Are they like the audience? Or someone the audience like?)
• Who are they not like? (Are they unlike someone the audience usually hates?)
• How do they demonstrate likeness or difference? (How do they use codes of language, dress, behaviour, and so on?)

If you wanted to condense these questions, you could say they are essentially focused on either virtue or identity.

Character is essential to trust, and trust is the bedrock of persuasion. If the audience does not trust the speaker, then they may respond badly to any attempts at emotional persuasion and they may dispute even base, ground-truth facts in a logical argument.

In a challenging context, a speaker's persuasive goal might simply be to have the audience accept the speaker’s good character (saving further influence for another day).