Question of the day, #1

[mrissa]

So I was thinking about the recent rants from "oh noes, girl cooties in my SF" people. I was thinking about which traits of mine are most crucial to my reading experience when reflected in characters. I do not, for example, find it particularly difficult to care about male characters, or non-white characters, or homosexual characters. But I was pretty sure that if I thought about it, I would come up with some things where I really did want characters to be "like me."

What I came up with is loyalty.

I don't require a character with whom I can identify; caring is enough. But when a character is blithely disloyal to people who are showing them loyalty, I have a hard time not putting down the book and walking away.

How about you? What traits do you want to share--or at least not blatantly not share--with a character in order to care about their story?

Comments

[ckd]

exploring a deserted castle in your nightgown

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I don't want to write from the viewpoint of a character who Knows the Truth About Everything.

I would find it very difficult to write from the viewpoint of a righthanded character.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

...but what was the deserted castle doing in your nightgown in the first place ?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The one thing that is liable to make a character least sympathetic to me is out-of-scale pettiness and anthropocentrism. If you're supposed to be an eons-old cosmic force of vastly superhuman capacities, you'd better have a reason for wasting time mucking about with the talking monkeys and the talking monkeys being the Most Important Things In The Universe Really doesn't cut it. If you're supposedly deeply in love with someone, don't go off in a fit and threaten to break it all off because you saw them hugging someone you don't know. Und so weit.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

How would you count the Hitchcock-type plot where you have normal person going about normal life to whom Something Happens and who is then running around trying to stay ahead of plot developments for long enough to figure out what the heck is going on, but who really would like nothing more than for the competent authorities to take care of everything and sort it out so they can go back to their normal life ?

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Good question. It's a type of story that sometimes works for me and sometimes doesn't. In general, it works for me to the extent that the protagonist copes with the demands of the plot, however unwillingly, and fails to work for me to the extent that the protagonist tries to pretend that the plot isn't happening or spends lots of time complaining that it's unfair that this is happening to them.

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

I want some smidgen of logic to exist in the actions of the antagonist.

So if, for example, the protagonist is an employee and the antatonist is their mean-boss-who-hates-them. The boss should be looking for a way to fire them, not murder them.

I'm willing to read an entire book to find out if said movitation exists, but I'm not willing to read a sequel.

I also have little patience for antagonists who won't accept overwhelming evidence that they are wrong. I'm aware that this is probably the author saying 'look how unreasonable this person is', but I read it as authorial carelessness.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Independence. I want the lead character to be able to stand on their own two feet, or find the help and support needed for them to do that, and also own up to mistakes. Other folk have said honor, and that works for me too. Integrity, and a sense of personal responsibility. Which doesn't mean they can't swear or be violent or kill, but there has to be a reason and a sense they know why they are doing it, even if its something really sucky. I also like loyalty, intelligence and a ready wit.

Most of those have always been easy to find in male protagonists, its been great for the past 10 years or so finding them riding high as traits in female protagonists without having to really hunt the books down, though if its well written with a good story I'll read most things.

[hbevert.livejournal.com]

I really care when I'm reading about characters who are crusading for justice, but superheroes aren't the thing I want. I want ordinary people who are trying to make their normal human-being lives more noble and who are trying to improve the lot of others in the face of systems and institutions and cultural norms that are destructive and unjust. I want to be like that type of person myself.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

They pretty much have to have empathy. They don't necessarily have to do nice things with it, but I've met narcissism and it was quite dull.

Apart from that... I have Issues with characters who believe in some variation of the "because I said so" answer, team leaders who expect obedience in the absence of reasons, but that won't stop me from reading/watching if the other characters are interesting enough.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I have stopped reading books when I realized I just didn't care what happened to the characters. But that's neither necessary nor sufficient; if the story is well-written (defined subjectively, irrationally, and differently over time by me) then I'll read it for that. A lot of stuff I read for humor value is like that.

The only trait I can think of that would make me not care about a character is being boring. Others can make me like or dislike a character, but wanting to see someone get hurt is a form of interest.

There is no trait that will automagically make me care about a character, if the author does a bad job (e.g. makes it more effort than it's worth to figure out what's going on).

[brooksmoses]

What's particularly bad is when characters are stupid only in ways that advance the plot, and smart otherwise. But I suppose that's really more a failing of plot and writing than of the character themselves.

[theslice.livejournal.com]

For me, it's quite simple: if a character has no care about the consequences of his/her actions, I have no care for his/her fate and may just forgo the story if it stays that way. Now, if the character starts out that way but goes through a growth/transformation, I find that engaging.

The loyalty thing is iffy in my opinion. I think some truly interesting character traits can come out of someone who is disloyal. I believe you find betrayal in some of civilization's greatest literature. In fact, a disloyal character makes a great antagonist to a hero.

Not that I want to give the movies any legitimacy, but the /story/ of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars universe is a compelling one - he's disloyal to his Order and his Teacher yet the plot is built on that disloyalty and eventually finds redemption through his own son.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's why I phrased it as a personal rather than a universal: in order for the disloyalty to the Order and teacher to be compelling to me--as those movies weren't--it would either need to have a character like Obi-Wan playing a strong role and having a great deal of loyalty, or else we would have to add in another, conflicting loyalty for Anakin. Because as it was, I just didn't find his fall very interesting.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Girl cooties? For really real?

I can't stand it when a character starts falling in love with someone who's a total jerk to them.

(And also, now you know how far behind I frequently get on my friends page!)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Girl cooties" is my scornful paraphrase, but the person in question was very explicit that the presence of wimmens in "his" genre was ruining it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Also the shorthand name that pops up associated with your lj name makes me sometimes think of you as "Abra Southwest."

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

I'm--amazed that that sort of relic still exists, and am pleased I haven't noticed them.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

I like it! Kinda rural mythic.

Really, I just decided to put my full name on my journal front but not linked to all my comments to help keep search results on my name relevant.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That makes sense.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They are not worth your time, truly.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

But if I ever need another pseudonym, I'll keep "Abra Southwest" in mind.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Or stuid in ways that are like a B-grade horror movie: No! Don't go up those stairs!

The book I came closest to flinging recently was one I bought because the main character is a Philadelphia rower (a novice). The nearest approach to flinging was when she goes out in the middle of the night on the Schuylkill River in a single (repeat: she's a novice - and those things are extremely tippy) because her boyfriend has vanished after an argument and she figures he's gone off rowing to let off steam. And when she finds him unconscious and bleeding on an island, with a mysterious motorboat docked there, she gets *back in her boat* to row off and try to find help. Instead of in the motorboat, which the bad guy promptly uses to come after her.

(Also, I can speak from experience: the "finding help" bit is not so likely, because if you stand beside Kelly Drive, even if you're standing there bleeding, no motorist will stop. Even in daylight.) I will not be buying further books in the series.

Cooties 'n' Cuties

[jymdyer.livejournal.com]

=v= Girl cooties? To paraphrase a recent U.S. President, "Bring 'em on!"

Aside from the little matter of women being, you know, more than half the human population and all, I welcome the idea of more female characters being written by women. I'm not a gender essentialist or anything like that, but in practice I can't help but notice that a lot of male writers, especially in SF, tend to script a dull gamut ranging from fantasy cuties to fantasy gun-toting babes. I prefer cuties (and even not-so-cuties) to be more realistic, even in speculative fiction.

Re: Cooties 'n' Cuties

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly: realism and cuteness do not have to be antagonistic forces.

(Gratuitous picture of goddaughter who is both real and cute.)

Sometimes I read something that is clearly the result of an old fella who wrote exclusively male characters being told to write more women, and in some of these cases I think, "No, no, go back to writing fewer women! Because yours suck!"