Likeable Characters

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance (etc)...

Are Writers Selfish?

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Paul Whybrow

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Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
On the British television service Freeview, there's a channel called Talking Pictures, which shows old films from the early twentieth century, as well as later cult classics. This morning, I watched a low budget hot rod/ pop music/ monster/ science-fiction film called The Giant Gila Monster. Whatever happened to that sub-genre?

It was less than terrifying, the monstrous lizard being rather amusing, but the acting was fine, the script surprisingly true to life and the characters were easy to root for. Curious about its making, I looked online, and found this comment in the Wikipedia article on the film:

Dave Sindelar, on his website Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings gave the film a positive review. Sindelar wrote in his review of the film, "Whatever flaws there are with the story, I find myself drawn to the regional feel of the movie, and especially to the likeable characters that inhabit this environment.... It’s rare for a movie to have this many likeable characters, and I think the reason I watch the movie again and again is because I just like to spend time with them.

The Giant Gila Monster - Wikipedia

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This set me to thinking about which literary fictional characters I've enjoyed spending time with, especially repeatedly in a series of stories. As a writer, it sounds like an obvious prerequisite that readers should like your characters, or at least bond with them to the extent that they want to know what happens to them. Thus, the fate of villains is compelling; a character doesn't have to be a clean-living paragon of virtue to be admirable.

With my own Cornish Detective series, my protagonist Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kettle is a likeable chap, though he's definitely weird, and his left wing, green and arty approach to life will alienate some readers—which is fine with me—they might read on to see him get his comeuppance.

Books themselves can become friends and the characters in them allies to us in the loneliness of life; we want to know how they're getting on after we were last together.

In my chosen writing genre of Crime, some of my favourite likeable characters include:

* Inspector Salvo Montalbano—Andrea Camilleri's Sicilian detective.

* Dave Robicheaux—James Lee Burke's Louisiana lawman

* Harry Hole—Jo Nesbø's Norwegian copper.
Of the three, Commissario Salvo Montalbano would be the most convivial company, with his love of food, but the other two are rather tortured souls. Harry Hole is a trouble-seeking nutter!

In cinema films, the characters I relate to the most, and who I've watched repeatedly, are The Outlaw Josey Wales, played by Clint Eastwood, Blade Runner Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford and in the Alien series Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver. It's arguable that all of the themes of these films are Westerns, with an anti-hero as the protagonist—which might be a clue to my own bolshy character! :mad:

Who are your favourite fictional characters in print and on the silver screen?


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Wow, favorite characters are a matter of constant change for me.

In fiction, Jim from Huckleberry Finn, Doyle's Dr. Watson, Reginald Bell from the Perry Rhodan series.

From cinema, Victoria played by Dame Helen Mirren in RED, Walter Garber played by Denzel Washington in the Taking of Pelham 123 and Walt Kowalski played by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.

On another day the answer to this question would be different.
 
Holly Golightly
Beatrix Kiddo
Amelie
Others

Jubal Harshaw
Meredith Gentry
Mayfair Witches
Phèdre nò Delaunay
Morn Hyland
Isabel Archer
Elizabeth Bennet
Colonel Brandon
Sioned
Lola
....and on and on and on....
 
I think this is so important- in fact whether I come to like the characters is possibly the ONLY factor in whether I enjoy fiction or not. My rather idealistic aspiration as a writer is to create characters who are ostensibly annoying or difficult but to whom the reader warms by getting to know them - and as a result begins to see the (annoying) people around them in the same light. This is certainly the role fiction has played in my life and I resent it when a cynical author tries to drag me into their misanthropic view of their fellow humans, or an otherwise skilled author gains popularity despite their cardboard characters.

Who are my favourites? My tastes are old fashioned, so up at the top are characters like Mr Harding of Barchester and Dorothea of Middlemarch. But these are protagonists: My eccentric attachment to Walter Scott is because his protagonists are just a bland everyman who teaches us to turn our gaze outward and delight in the loveable characters of every class, gender, moral standing, intelligence and education who populate his world. I come out of his books feeling kinder and more interested in my fellow humans.
 
Not sure 'like' is the right term. My own literary heroes have always tended to be of the 'anti' variety with Sir Harry Flashman at the top of the tree. And whilst I would happily spend many a night in his company around a dinner table I would not want to do so with either my wallet, my daughter or my wife anywhere nearby because you could never trust the bastard not to try and have any of them away!

My own rule of thumb is to plumb for the interesting, rather than the likeable, both in fiction and the real world because if I need any more friends, which I don't, then I will buy a dog! :)

But I am blessed in that, I concede.
 
Not sure 'like' is the right term. My own literary heroes have always tended to be of the 'anti' variety with Sir Harry Flashman at the top of the tree. And whilst I would happily spend many a night in his company around a dinner table I would not want to do so with either my wallet, my daughter or my wife anywhere nearby because you could never trust the bastard not to try and have any of them away!

My own rule of thumb is to plumb for the interesting, rather than the likeable, both in fiction and the real world because if I need any more friends, which I don't, then I will buy a dog! :)

But I am blessed in that, I concede.

Your choice of Flashman, reminded me of an anecdote about actor Alan Rickman, told by John Sessions, at the end of this discussion on Q.I. about why British actors get cast as villains in Hollywood films:

 
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance (etc)...

Are Writers Selfish?

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