Welcome to Tuesday Book Chat. This is where we encourage book lovers to answer our bookish question of the week.
Today’s question is:
Do you think fictional characters have to be likeable ?
We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Please join in the conversation by commenting on this post or on the blog post shared in our Australasian Christian Writers Facebook Group.
Let’s chat!
It can depend if its the hero or heroine they need to have likeable characteristics. Or at least likeable by the end of the book. However it can depend on the genre but minor characters don’t need to be likeable. Imagine a suspense with all the bad guys being likeable. It doesn’t work. You need to have someone to dislike and want found out. The same in secondary characters often unlikeable characters add to the story.
Your turn.
I look forward to reading your comments here or at the FB group. Remember all comments go into the monthly drawer for a gift voucher.
Hi Jenny
Protagonists need to have a least likeable characteristics or have the strength to work towards bettering themselves spiritually, emotionally. We are all a work in progress so I’m not looking for (or wanting) perfection in the ‘good guys’ but a protagonist without any redeeming features? No, not for me.
I agree. I was thinking over night (had plenty of time as cats insisted on bringing in a couple of mice for me to catch). But i read a book which turned me of a genre because the hero was so pompous and arrogant that I struggled to like him. The heroine had trouble at times cos he would be better in private than in public. He did change right towards the end but the behaviour had me so frustrated. I did learn the author normally writes for general market still clean but where the behaviour would be more in accepted but in a Christian fiction read. The main characters have to have redeeming characteristics or readers will turn off.
Thanks, Jenny.
Hi Jenny, Great question! I do think the importance of likeable characters depends on the genre. Romance readers tend to look for likeable characters, but what makes a character likeable is kind of like asking how long is a piece of string.
As a reader, I’m more interested in understanding why characters behave in certain ways. If they have logical reasons I can empathise with, I can happily stay in their headspace and experience life through their eyes.
The characters I tend to dislike are the ones who do and think and say things that don’t make sense, or my strong first impression of them is negative. Sometimes characters will grow on me, and I need to be patient to discover during the story why they’re behaving in certain ways.
Turn to Me by Becky Wade is a good example – I really didn’t like or understand the hero or heroine at the start, but I pushed through and ended up loving the book. I kept reading because I trusted Becky Wade to deliver a great story.
If I’m reading a romance, and I’m questioning by the end of Chapter One why the hero would be attracted to the heroine, or vice versa, and the author is new-to-me or not an auto-buy, I’ll probably give up and DNF the book. The exception is a well set up ‘I hate you’ enemies-to-love romance, where it’s circumstances that are forcing the hero and heroine to be together rather than their individual choices.
Thanks for your thoughts. Reading the question I read it as all characters in a book. Which as I mentioned in suspense you don’t want a loveable villain. You want one to dislike. I still remember one in Carla Chapshaws book The Guardian. I would have liked him hung, drawn and quartered but she said she wasn’t able to have him meet such a fate with the line she was writing but he did get his just deserts just not what I wanted.
Also secondary characters don’t have to be likable. Sometimes the hero and heroine need that character to bring them together.
But for a hero/heroine they it helps if they are at least a little likeable I don’t want to read a book with a hero who is domineering and abusive. I also don’t want to read a heroine who is a bully or shallow and self absorbed. I know faults are good but in a Christian book these characters are better if they are secondary characters.
Agreed, Jenny.
I agree, in a suspense the villain needs to be a villain, and do terrible things. That said, there are some authors who can pull it off and create likeable villains. So much depends on the character’s background and the story set up.
In a historical romance, I’m more inclined to like an alpha hero and a more passive heroine with little personal power because it fits within the framework of the patriarchal society of that time period. Move those characters to modern times, and many of those historically accepted behaviours won’t be acceptable or make sense in the present day.
I recently discovered there’s a contemporary romance sub genre called ‘bully romance’ to cater for romance readers who like reading about these types of characters and seeing their victims take revenge on their abusers, etc. I can’t see how clean/wholesome bully romance could fit within Christian romance as a subgenre, but I could be wrong. There tends to be an exception to every rule.
Great comment, Narelle.
Thanks Susan 😊
If I don’t like the main characters, I won’t finish reading the book. Even villains can turn me off if I really hate/am disgusted by them. Secondary characters don’t normally bother me that much.
thanks for commenting. I agree if I can’t connect I will DNF. I once read a book I really didn’t like the heroine as she was whiny cos she was single and turning 30 and life was ending. (I may have disliked it more cos of the sterotype that if you are not married by 30 in church circles there is something wrong with your and being still single). I tried to like the book but I just couldn’t like her. Then the end of the year it was in so many peoples top tens but for me due to the character and subject it was in my bottom 5. It also shows what I like another may not and what another doesn’t like I may love.
On villains I don’t mind not liking in a murder mystery or a suspense. especially when they get caught and dealt with. I don’t want graphic violence on the page but I don’t mind disliking them. In a romance with just a little mystery I don’t want a nasty villain and if there is a bully I want them to confronted and not get away with it.
I was watching a show where a young girl moved to a new area and was being bullied her parents offered to go talk to the principle and she said no. She wrote letters to all the ones causing her problems letters explaining what its like being a new kid having moved from a distance and not knowing anyone and how being picked on felt like and handed the letters to the ones causing issues. It actually helped and the bullying stopped. Seeing a solution in a book gives hope to others.