I think I may be different in this regard. I require that the character not be repulsive (unless that's the point), but I was perfectly happy with Merry and Pippin in the Lord of the Rings, although I can't tell the difference between them, and they were mostly passive observers. OSC would say: yes, but there were interesting characters in the scene. (He'd also say -- because he did say -- LotR would have been better if these characters had been stronger.) I want to see the big events of the story, and it's fine by me if the characters are simple.

I really like Mat Cauthon in The Wheel of Time series. He is a playful, carefree, gambling sort of fellow. But he has his serious/ dangerous side as well. I think that he is the most colorful character in the entire series. I would like to see more of him, and with the last two books, we are, finally! Mat and Perrin are by far my favorites in Jordan's novels.

So, I guess I want a character with these traits:
1. Takes chances, and is willing to suffer the consequences.
3. Has a sense of humor, or playful nature.
4. Not always the most intelligent person in the bunch, but manages to have common sense.
5. Not the best looking guy, but can still sway the ladies in his direction.
6. Can fight his way out of a bad situation, but chooses to do so only if necessary.

The characters part in the story.

I hope that makes sense. Basically, I'm saying you can overdo this to the point that I won't care no matter what.

Now, let's say you have a more reasonable setup...switching off between two or three characters. The trouble here is that I want to be where the action is. If you leave Jane in the middle of an air attack, her house just bombed out, her son dying in her arms, I'm not going to care to go back to Jack even if he's on his way to save her. BUT I'll deal with it in that case.

Let's see...I just read a novel with the biggest info dump problems I've ever seen in published fiction. The plot barely kept me reading. At one point it switched to a new character and offered his life in a nutshell and I nearly skipped it. I would have if I hadn't been listening to it on tape.

It actually works best in something like a romance novel when the two characters are together and you're switching back and forth between point of views.

I've heard that people choose their friends having traits they wish they had themselves. That would be somewhat in line with TruHero's comment.

For me, I just have to buy into how the character is sold. I find that 99% of the time (maybe more), Stephen King writes characters that are believable and compelling. I think that is why I like his books, because I always want to turn the page and find out what the characters do, or what happens to them next.

Personally, I fail to see how chopping off or adding on 150 pages will help a story that isn't interesting. If it isn't nteresting, I'm not going to wait until page 300 before I get to the tacked on "interesting" 150 pages.

Although broad categories of "it isn't interesting" might exist, I think each story has an individual answer for what is and isn't working. I wonder if the same author would typically have the same problems though.

Believable characters, I especially like it when the author sucessfully gets into their heads so we can read why they do and think like they do.

The repulsive folks better have a decent motive, even better if they wrestle a bit with it, or I rapidly loose interest. Even the best plot ideas falter with cardboard characters.

Most of the time lately, I have been more intrigued by what the author doesn't tell us about some of the minor characters far more interesting than was it told about the stock MC.

In the early Jordan books, I thought Lan and Nynave (sp?) far more interesting than Rand. But I only read the first three some time ago. It says something that I can remember their names after all this time.

Emotion gives you attachment.

Purpose gives you a reason for caring.

Good dialog (this included thinking dialog) gets you inside their way of thinking.

Connection makes them important in some way.

My $0.02.

progression- the character has to grow somehow through a novel or series. This includes personal discovery.

depth/realism/conflict- nobody gets along with everybody. Each character must have morals and patterns they behave and nobody agrees completely with anyone (if they do their useless and should be eradicated).

Also, a good main character should be...well, one of the main characters. That's the real problem with Merry and Pippin, it isn't that they aren't "real", but that they're not real important. You don't get their POV's very much, they don't make any important decisions (except Pip deciding he really had to find out how deep that well was...), everything they do is pretty much an accident of their struggle to avoid being killed by their own inexperience.

But if you read closely, they are absolutely real, convincing as characters...just not important characters like the rest of the Fellowship. You don't have to remember which is which to make sense of the story (the way you have to distinguish between, say, Boromir and Faramir). They're just well drawn extras, when the plot gets rolling.

It is NOT a long, detailed background or usually stuff the author tells me about the character.

I think what breaks the ice and sucks me into a character is when I see something done by/happen to the character which in some way really defines that character. Something that resonates with me, the reader.

For me currently, I am writing a scene with a major character near the opening of the story. It is a place where defining attributes are set. I had X do this. Then I changed to X doing that. Both worked…okay. It showed something but both actions were kind of flat. Then I got inspired and erased the former stuff and had X do a new idea and there was a kind of click. It worked. Not only worked but set up a sort of resonance that really brought X to life.

That make any sense?

But if I read an unlikeable character with a problem I can't understand or sympathize with, I'm completely turned off.

I recently read a story for someone at Zoetrope in which the character had a problem I couldn't sympathize with at all. Not only that, I didn't like the character, NOR did the character solve her problem (nor even to attempt solving it) by the end of the story. In all, a complete failure to keep my interest or satisfy my human need for (WARNING: psychobabble ahead) 'closure.'

Likeable, which may mean
1. Takes chances, and is willing to suffer the consequences.
3. a sense of humor, or playful nature.
4. common sense.
5. can still sway the ladies in his direction.
6. Can fight his way out of a bad situation, but chooses to do so only if necessary.

The last thing I want to read about is some depressed derelict, no matter how true to life the character is.

quote:

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end of chapter and POV switch: use a cliffhanger

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I'll accept a cliff-hanger POV switch if something about the cliff-hanger clearly necessitates the switch. For instance, if the current POV is knocked unconcious (or simply isn't doing anything interesting other than hanging from a cliff) and we switch to a different character who is somehow involved in resolving the cliff-hanger's problem (for instance, the guy running to rig a rope so he can get down and save the character in peril, but will he make it in time?).

I like my characters to be multi-faceted with plenty of shades of gray. Take Mal or any of the other characters on Firefly, for example. Or the characters on Earth2. Basic characters who lean toward good or evil, but can find themselves faced with a dilema that force a choice to walk on the dark side. Or, a villain who shows a surprising level of compassion, or makes choices toward compassion that are logical in his mind and his world...

The problem is that such characters often fail to be convincing, because most authors aren't sufficiently aware of their own evil, nor are they so pure-hearted as to be able to create a really good character. But when they are convincing, characters with extraordinary moral character are the most interesting.

If you think about it, how many people are so good that they would be able to predict what a really good person would do in any given situation? I'm not saying who's so good that they always do the right thing, but how many people are so good that they can look at a situation and even know what the right decision would be? The same thing is true of evil. How many people are comfortable enough exploring their darker impulses to know the most wicked thing a person could do?

Characters of "pure" good and evil don't have to be simplistic anymore than good and evil are simple in our own world. They just tend to end up that way because of unimaginative writers.

Mal is a good example. Often, he does things that are very dark, but certainly the right thing to do rather than simply what is most convenient for himself. Like in the opening of the movie, where he shoves that guy off rather than dumping the cargo. Think for half a second what would have happened if they tried to turn their ride into a refugee mobile, and you get the point. Sure, it benefited them to make off with the loot, but Mal would have been right to shove that guy off and tell him to get into the vault regardless of whether they'd had room. At the same time, he often doesn't really know whether he's doing the right thing, so he ends up deciding what to do based on other criteria that he does understand.

There's a similar scene in Saving Private Ryan, a French guy tries to get the soldiers to take care of his children. The lieutenant says no, they can't take the kids, they have a mission and that's that. Some damnfool gets himself killed anyway by way of proving that the Lt. is absolutely right.

Just because your herd instinct or whatever tells you to help someone, that doesn't make it the right thing. Consider how often mothers let their maternal instinct "protect" their children from the law, or from hard work, or real criticism. Does the fact that it is motivated by their warmest feelings make doing it right?