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

[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.