One curious example were the first two parts of Lynn Flewelling’s Nightrunner series. The story was boring. A typical quest for an artifact. Nothing new whatsoever. And yet I couldn’t stop reading because I liked Alec and Seregil, the two main characters, and wanted to find out how they would survive and develop. And I was rewarded by the third part of the series, which had a much more complex plot.

But I actually have two main reasons for putting down a novel.

1) The characters don’t interest me. I don’t care what becomes of them. Recent example: The Lies of Locke Lamora. (I still haven’t given up entirely but it doesn’t look good… I just don’t care what happens to L.L. though the language is beautiful.)

2) Language and description doesn’t get past high-school level. Right now, I am close to despairing again. I’ve tried three different new authors since Christmas and haven’t gotten past page 20 or so because on 20 pages I haven’t found a single thought or idea or piece of description that had me thinking: wow, nicely put! I mean, it is mostly trite and mediocre, as if the author had jotted down the first image or thought that came to him. Flat, unimaginative language puts me off before I can even get to whatever exciting development the plot might take on page 50 or so.

The most recent book I did NOT buy despite interesting-sounding jacket blurb: because the first chapter began with six very short sentences — the paragraph sounded as if straight out of a Stepping-Stone book — and the seventh was a line of very obvious dialogue. That is enough to discard a novel/entire series. (Unfortunately, perhaps, but there it is. Too many books on the shelves.)

Combinging point 1 and 2: I don’t care for the flippant or pouty narrator, using too much slang and colloqualisms. This happens mostly in urban fantasy. Perhaps the genre is aimed at teenagers, but I don’t want to be talked to like I was a teenager. I can’t stand this “and-all-the-adults/rest-of-the-world-suck” sort of tone.

(I do like Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, and the early Vampire Files, the early Southern Vampire Mysteries, but I can’t get into Phaedra Weldon, Wraith – only one example among many. It is a matter of taste to be sure.)

In order to like a book I would say I have to enjoy two out of three things: plot, character, writing. If the plot is really good and I enjoy the writing style then I don’t mind the characters being a bit flat or dislikable. The same thing works the other way around, if the plot is a bit flat or boring, but the characters are interesting and real and the writing style works for me, then I’ll still like the book. The third way to turn my three point system, with the writing style being boring or just not working for me, is the hardest one to work. I read through The Wizard of Earthsea series because I’d read the first book and liked character and plot, but haven’t been able to make myself pick up any other book by Ursula K LeGuin because her writing style just didn’t work for me. And the system doesn’t always work anyway — if the characters are extremely boring or the plot is exceedingly dull then I might not enjoy the book even if the other parts are good.

So to move back to the idea of characters being likable, I would agree with what a bunch of other people have said that the character doesn’t have to be likable so much as interesting and real. I know for sure that I don’t have to be able to identify with the character to like them.

I was talking to a friend of mine about this book I was making her read (well, at the moment there weren’t any other books available, so I was pretty much making use of the opportunity…) where she found one of the situations the main character had to go through completely unrealistic. She said no normal person could endure what the character endured and live through it. Therefore, she couldn’t identify with the character as she (character) wasn’t real, so she (friend) couldn’t enjoy the book as much. My answer to that was who knows what people can endure if they have to (just look at Holocaust survivors for proof) and I don’t read fantasy expecting everything to be real to life. So what if the character could do something I couldn’t - I can’t create fire with a touch, either. About a different character in the book my friend said that she disliked him completely and could never forgive him for what he did to the main character and therefore never wanted to read about him. So in this case I would say my friend wouldn’t like a book about a character she dislikes. On the other hand other friends and I find this character to have many layers with funny and ruthless all mushed together and love reading about him. So I would say that what one person dislikes about a character another will like or see more to that character than one trait.

Ultimately, for me, it gets down to plot, character and writing style and how much I’m willing to put up with one to enjoy the other.

To answer the question, I don’t necessarily have to like them as long as I can connect with them.

What about from the author’s perspective? Obviously some of you know authors who have (or make you think they have) contempt for all the characters in some of their work, but what about for you? Do you have to “like” or at least form some kind of personal understanding of your characters to write them? Or to put it another way–perhaps this is putting it another way, it might be a completely different question–do you always, sometimes, never write characters that have more than a bit of yourself in them?

Speaking as an author: I must understand my characters’ motivations, whether I like them as people or not. But “understanding” doesn’t mean that they have “more than a bit” of myself in them. Some of them don’t even have a little bit. Others do. Closer observations of other people will reveal many fonts of inspiration quite far removed from oneself.

Speakiing as reader: count me among those who don’t care of the characters are all despicable. If they and their circumstances are sufficiently interesting to me, a story has me hooked. If they present a character I could, based strictly on character traits, identify with but make her (or his) predicament hum-drum or simply not within any of my spheres of concern, and I won’t even give the work a second glance.

(Unless I’m acting in my editorial capacity, in which case I broaden, or add, spheres as necessary for the anticipated audience.)

I’m mostly drawn to characters who are vulernable and multifaceted. They may or may not be like me. I can’t always explain what draws me to a character, but once I’m hooked I can’t put the book down, and I have to immediately jump on Amazon and get the next if it’s a series. *grin*

What they cannot be are twits.

Astonishing how many heroes and heroines are.

Twits, I mean.

Can’t stand ‘em and don’t read ‘em.

I also really dislike characters that are cookie cutter standard issue. Ooooh, tomboy, doesn’t like dresses, likes to fight, all feisty, ooooooh, good character, I like her, I identify with her — oooooh, girlygirl who believes in love, likes to keep a clean house and run her business competently, can’t break heads with one blow or stab with zippy rapier strike to the heart, bad character, not somebody I identify with — gads, can I just say how much I don’t read books with those characters?

And how I cannot stand ‘feisty?’ Caricatures these are, not characters, not personalities. Taking fencing lessons and wearing dresses are substitutes for real psychological creation.

Love, C.

The characters don’t neccessarily have to be black and white, but they have to have something that makes me hope in some way that they’ll succeed at what they are trying to do, even if that means they have to die to do it by the end of the book. I also have to care about the villians of the story - they have to have something deeper than an urge to rule the world. There has to be a motivation that I can identify with, that makes me understand why they do what they do.

Even if I DO like a character, the kiss of death for me is if the characters don’t grow or learn or change at all throughout the book. I think that makes any book completely forgettable.

Hrm, I can get on board with that but only to the extent that the growth and change makes sense. I’ve seen characters who, in the course of a couple of paragraphs, experience profound enlightenment and are suddenly reborn as kinder, gentler, utterly different people - and, of course, they never relapse into their old behaviors. They are Forever Changed ™.

On the other hand, some characters remain precisely who they are throughout various hardships, and that’s a victory of sorts.

In thinking about it more, I suppose I require two things: I have to care about the character and I have to find his or her actions believable and consistent with what I know about him or her.