Intro
I've been blogging about how to write in a more literary fashion. Step one to any writing is to make the reader care. A story is an emotional and/or intellectual voyage that sweeps the reader up and doesn't let them go until the end. You can choose any number of ways to make the reader care. If a reader doesn't care, they're not likely to want to keep reading your book.
Loss
Caring can start because the character has lost someone or could lose someone--a parent, a child, a friend, a pet, a home. But the character has to truly show they care in order to get at the reader's heart. Just losing a loved one isn't enough unless it was or is close to the heart. I read a book in which a parent lost a child, but the book treated this fact as unimportant, which left me, as a mother who has lost a child, feeling cold and angry. You have to treat that loss as meaningful.
For Example
There are countless stories that start with loss or threat of loss. Think of Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the first scene, we learn Hamlet lost his beloved father. We're swept up into his voyage to learn what he's going to do about it. The Last Unicorn starts with a magical creature who learns she has lost her entire species and that she is the last. Charlotte's Web starts with the threat of loss. We care because the pig, Wilbur, is in constant threat of death. Fern, Charlotte, and the rest of the characters spend the whole book trying to prevent that loss. Pride and Prejudice starts with the threat of loss of a home and all possessions when their home gets entailed away. Everything after that starts with a reaction to the threat of loss. In each case, a loss or threat of loss is at the heart of the story, so it gives the story meaning and helps the reader care.
Make 'em Laugh
It can be because your character is funny, witty, charming. Austen's Emma hasn't gone through any meaningful loss, but she is witty, charming, and full of life. We care about her story because we want to find out what she does. We care because she is the kind of character that we want to be or want to meet. Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson goes through the painful loss of his mother, the pain of disabilities, and makes you care even more because he's witty. He combines several of these ways to make the reader care. If you can make your reader laugh or cry with your main character, you've got them. They're feeling something, which means they're caring.
Bring Them Along
The reader can care because your character cares so deeply about a person or a cause that the reader can't help but care about whomever or whatever it is as well. Think of a romance novel, any romance novel, where you're swept into a boy meets girl--or however it works out--and the one character becomes the reason for the other's existence. We can't help but love them both. Stephenie Meyer's Host is a good metaphor for this. An alien enters a human's brain, and that human feels so strongly about another that the alien can't help but fall in love as well, not just with the one individual but with the whole race. Think of your reader as that alien in the brain. What can make that outsider--the reader--care so much that your world becomes their world, and they want it to continue?
Reflect
Look long and hard at the beginning of your book, the first few pages. Hand them to a reader. Find out if those pages make the reader care. If not, find a way to the reader's heart, or you'll lose them quickly. Read the books that make you love, laugh, cry, scream. Which books transport you? How did they do it? How can you do likewise?
