A gal in my crit group threw this out for discussion:
What makes a good character? What captivates you in a character? What makes a character memorable?
I wish I knew. Wouldn’t that be the golden ticket? To know what makes for captivating, memorable characters?
So here’s a list I have had in my head for a while, in no apparent order. And I think it’s a good list. I’m just not sure how to put it into play.
- Strength of will (needs to want something and to have the will power to go after it)
- Larger than life (says and does the risky, and fun things our inhibitions won’t allow us to do and say)
- Active (as opposed to passive, sure, but also as opposed to reactive)
- Conflict (if he doesn’t get what he’s after his life will change negatively in a big way)
- Flawed, with certain flaws (acceptable flaws are too honest; too clean; too messy; lying, cheating, stealing to save a baby brother or sister; stubborn as long as you’re fighting for right.–flaws that are not acceptable would be sleazy rapist; pervert; adulterer; or even whiner. Nobody likes a whiner.)
- Witty (fast thinking–always ready with the funny response.)
- Mostly honest (maybe he’s blind to his weaknesses, but I like a character is not purposely deceitful. I just am not attracted to liars and cheats unless they have a good reason for lying and cheating.)
- Good looking (Hmmm, how important is this? One of the beauties of the fictional character is that you can look on the heart in a way man is not usually permitted to do. So we can judge a character by things that are deeper than skin deep. Still, if the character is ugly, we have to very quickly give him a soul so beautiful that the reader is attracted to him, despite his deformity.)
- Relate-able (we have to be able to relate to him–if he’s too perfect we won’t relate and if he’s too flawed we won’t relate. We want flaws we can forgive and goodness we think we can attain for ourselves.)
- Self-sacrificing (the character who sacrifices what he’s worked the whole book to get, is truly “my hero” and he seems to be everyone else’s hero, too. We love the guy who will lay down his life for his friends.)
OK those are ten for starters. Do you have any to add? Feel free to comment on these. I’m going to take each one and dig into it in the coming weeks. If we don’t create lovable characters, no one will read our books. No one will care.
Name a favorite book. Wasn’t the character in that book a dear friend? Oh, how I loved Charles Wallace when I was young. I wanted him to be my baby brother. I didn’t relate to Meg, but Charles Wallace grabbed me. I think he grabbed L’Engle as well, since the books that followed were his books and not Meg’s.
I loved Heidi and Oliver Twist (I have a soft spot for orphans) when I was a kid. I loved them for their goodness in the face of adversity. And I think they shaped my life–they are partly responsible for how I face adversity (not that I’m good, but that I want to be good). How did those characters capture me? They had almost all of the things in my list above.
So let’s think more about this in the weeks to come. Let’s examine some characters we’ve loved and see why we love them.
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Well, I’ve already told you I think vulnerability is a big one for me.
I also think a character who is self-aware is engaging. I mean, he may not be perfect, but he knows he’s not perfect and he wants to do better, try harder, improve, strive. But if he is blind to his weaknesses? He looks a little like a buffoon.
Becky
Rebecca LuElla Miller’s last blog post..Who Would Imagine a Triune God?
I like the vulnerability thing. I do think that’s probably an important trait.
Self-aware? I’m not so sure about. I’ll have to think over some favorite characters and see if they are self aware.