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

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

I tend to walk away from characters
1)who radically break with the "person we were getting to know" (unless Hyde/Jekyll scenerio has been made clear as part of the plot)
- or -
2)who I wind up asking "why did you do that" to the character one too many times.
- or -
3)who clearly do not have a clue about the area in which they are supposed to be an expert (unless here it is some "wolf in lamb's clothing" scenerio)

[moiread]

#3: Oh, gosh yes.