When I was eight, sitting on the concrete steps in back of the elementary school during recess, the class bully walked up and kicked me square in the back. The thud of his sneakered foot knocked the breath from my chest but I pretended not to feel a thing.

In fourth grade, the teacher asked me to close the classroom door and I accidentally caught my finger in it. I quietly returned to my seat and completed my work, as if the accident were criminal. That evening the ER physician drilled a tiny hole in my nail to release the pressure from the bleeding underneath. "Why didn't you tell someone?" I was asked over and over again. But to me pain was something you held close and kept to yourself.

Connecting Points. As a writer today, I know that I must reveal my characters' weaknesses, their flaws, hurts and heartaches. As human beings we need to see each other's vulnerabilities. It's how we relate to one another. The same holds true for our characters. They need to bleed, if not actual blood, than emotional. Readers want to see their humanity, know that they share something in common, allowing them – at least for the duration of your story – to walk in their shoes. Young adults live out their own difficulties, dramas, and disappointments, every day. Give them characters they can connect with by exposing their wounds to your readers. When I sit down to write, I turn my characters inside out and splash their vulnerabilities all over the pages.

Revealing through dialogue. In Paul Zindel's classic My Darling, My Hamburger, the author invites us into the story with dialogue, allowing us to eavesdrop on his characters. Without halting the conversation, he slips in description that reveals to us the essence of the story: high-school seniors seeking acceptance.

Five hundred words into the novel we're already seeing their personalities and finding out which of the characters we share common ground with.

Revealing through Action. In 13 Reasons Why, author Jay Asher gives us meaningful descriptions that serve to move us nearer the MC's state of mind by wrapping us in his emotional state and drawing us through the events of the story. The book's third sentence: "I rub two fingers, hard, over my left eyebrow. The throbbing has become intense.

On page 2: "I set my cup of gas-station coffee on the counter. . ."

With these two glimpses, we can relate to that feeling of pressing on when we're physically spent. Then he gives us this gem on page 12: "I let my face fall into my hands and I slide my fingers back into unexpectedly damp hair."

He's sweating bullets and his anxiety makes us read faster.

Revealing through Thoughts. The Burn Journals, a true story of Brent Runyon's suicide attempt at fourteen, gives us these powerful images, all on page one.

"If I ever have to hide from anyone, like a burglar or something, or just really want to be by myself, I can come here and lock all the doors."

"I run the whole thing back in my head. I did so many things wrong, I can't believe it."

Page one! And we're hooked. Runyon hasn't wasted words with empty description. He gets right to the core and tells us what matters. We see a kid full of regret and we can already feel some of the weight that he carried, settling in on our own hearts.

The next time you're looking for ways to form a bond between your characters and your readers, take a look and see if you've made them human enough. Remember that even Superman had his kryptonite and whenever Lex used it to cripple his abilities we could empathize on a whole new level.

Today, I wait for my family to leave for work before stretching and exercising the torn tendon in my arm. I'd rather they didn't know I pulled it while lugging firewood. Show my hurts to others? I'm still working on that. But my characters – let me tell you about them. . .