Characters are the best part of any story, to me anyway. From magical creatures to brooding heroes to ditzy protagonists, if the character is interesting, so is their story.
When Harry Potter first came out, I was a children’s librarian and had the perfect excuse to immerse myself in those books. The kids loved the books, so the reference librarian and I started our library’s Harry Potter Club. Kids and their parents alike joined in the fun.
From the first page when Vernon Dursley starts noticing weird things happening all around him, I was hooked. The characters carry the reader to fantastic places and into fantastic, even dangerous situations. There are joyful triumphs and tragic defeats. And each of the events that move us through the stories change Harry and his friends.
My reading taste is eclectic and I don’t consider myself to be a fan of any one genre. I read reference and nonfiction as much as fiction.
Some of my other all-time favorite books include To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier, Princess Bride by William Goldman, What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson, Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, books by Dave Barry, Erma Bombeck, and so many more.
Each of those books have great characters. We root for them and fear for them and willingly ride along wherever they take us, living vicariously through them from a safe distance. They take us places we will probably never go and places that don’t exist in reality.
Writing good characters is not easy. It’s hard to put a character you love through the hell you need to create good story. But if you don’t, what is the point of the story? What lesson will they learn? If they don’t go outside of their comfort zones, our comfort zones, and confront problems, they don’t have a story.
Putting characters through the wringer, upping the ante, and forcing them to the brink in one way or another is what makes them somebody worth reading about. Whether they are on the brink of financial ruin because they cannot resist anything on sale, trying to understand injustices, pursuing the bad guy, or just trying to be a good mom in the suburbs, challenges create change, or at least reveal character or the lack of it. Change, growth, failures, triumphs… just throw it all at them and see what happens. It could be fun! (And possibly therapeutic!)
I do believe that a great character makes a great story because the story is what makes the character great. Sounds like a riddle wrapped in a riddle. Maybe it is. Or is that just the seed of a story some unwitting character will stop and pick up off the ground? One can hope.
Thanks for stopping by.
-Fran Beally
Fran Beally's Blog 