This is a question that I've been burning to discuss for a long time. I'm taking time away from commissions to talk about it, because I don't think people give enough thought about this, and I think it's important to talk about.
I'm not going to waste any more time leading up to it, so here goes.
What makes good fiction are GOOD CHARACTERS.
Case in point: Catcher in the Rye. I hate this book. I hate this book with the fiery passion of 1,000 suns. And yet, according to 90 percent of the world at large, this book is considered a classic, and is forced down the throats of almost every high school student in the United States.
The crazy part is, despite having forced reading at school, I read so much anyway, it didn't matter- so being forced to read never bothered me. But I read this book, read it ahead of the class, even, and when I read the last word and set the book down, I tasted the horrid bite of bile at the back of my esophagus and, for the first time in my young, naive life I realized I had read an honest-to-god terrible book, a true stinker.
When I tried to talk about how terrible it was to my classmates, most of them looked at me in either disgust or confusion (I was in honors english because I was and still am a massive nerd), and a few of them even refused to talk to me for most of the day. When someone finally deigned to speak to me and explain why they liked it, they went on a long, rambling speech about the motifs, metaphors, and intent behind the book, how this character's life was ruined and how he went into a downward spiral after the death of his brother, and how his plight was something everyone could relate to.
And to that, I simply said, "Well, fine, but I don't care." He gave me that same look almost everyone else did that day, that strange mixture of puzzlement and mild disgust, and asked why I wouldn't care, if I even got the point behind the book, etc. etc. You know, the things everyone brings up when you say you don't like something.
You know what I replied with? I said, "I don't care because Holden Caulfield is fucking obnoxious."
This is the main problem with the book. Holden is so unlikeable, and so irredeemable, that when BJ Saladfingers tries to say "but he's so SAD and so PATHETIC," I simply don't care. By that point, I was sighing in relief every time he stopped complaining about something (very rare, but very appreciated when it did happen), and, despite being told by nearly everyone that that was the whole point, that he was supposed to be unlikeable and a parody of the cynical, disenchanted attitude of youth at the time, all I saw was the author rocking back and forth on a porch rocker gleeking into a spittoon and shaking his fist at the stupid kids on his lawn.
Now, I could go on all day about how terrible Catcher in the Rye is, and how it's a pretentious bore, and how literally nobody should give a single damn about Holden's problems, but I write everything with a purpose in mind. Unlike FU Buttfingerer.
Characters are the only part of the story that 100 percent need to be good. If you write a story with generic bland characters but make everything else neat, you'll probably still please some people, but you won't make a lasting impression. If you write a story with limited scope, mediocre world-building, and so-so plotting, but make every single character vibrant, relatable, and interesting, your book will be millions of times better than someone who spent years building a world full of interesting cultures and languages and history only to have the main characters be boring to travel with (with some exceptions, like the Boy in Pajamas style of writing, which I may get into in a later article) or otherwise insufferable.
i.e. It doesn't matter if you're traveling to Disneyland if Cousin Jimmy just puked into your shoes for the fiftieth time because getting carsick is part of his character arc.
Do you have any books you've read that do a good job depicting characters with realistic and interesting motivations? Do you think I'm a big fat dummy who needs to stop spamming steemit with his opinions and get back to work? Tell me what you think in the comments!
