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

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Combination of violence and stupid things reminded me: Criminal Minds has, over the course of four seasons, substantially rewritten my reactions. I used to see an agent pursuing a suspect and think, "Shoot him, shoot him, why don't you just shoot him!" and then pause and think, "Oh, right, civil rights, trial by jury, proportionate use of force, innocent until proven guilty, all that good stuff." Now I don't have that gap between my reactions and my beliefs. I'm glad it's gone.