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

[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.