A friend of mine once told me that she didn't care much for reading fantasy novels, because she didn't feel connected to the characters. She said that she can't feel connected to people who live in such a different world than her own.
This friend brought up a good point. Nobody likes reading things they can't relate to. So this is an important issue: how do we make the characters in stories of fantasy,more believable, when their worlds, and their conflicts, are obviously so different from the reader's?
The solution, i think, is quite obvious: don't make the characters and their conflicts so different from every-day people and problems. No matter how far removed a character's world might be, the character himself can be very similar to people in our world .
All people go through similar conflicts, no matter where they're from. Most teens go through the same problems of peer pressure, trying to figure right from wrong, and, most importantly, discovering who they are and where exactly they fit into the world. There's no reason why fictional characters shouldn't go through these same conflicts. Even if their storylines are very different from most people's, their thoughts, feelings, and problems should stay pretty much the same.
Keeping characters in fantasy similar to real-life people is crucial to keeping the characters believable. Readers must feel a connection with the characters they're reading about. If they don't they'll simply stop reading, and that's not very encouraging to the author, now is it?
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Connecting to Fictional Characters
Posted by griffinrider at 11:10 PM
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4 comments:
I think it's difficult to understand what kind of creautures are existing in a fantasy. Although it may be simple to realte to their conflicts
But usually, when an author writes fantasy, i feel it doesnt have such a great plot. Take the book "Maximum Ride", written by James Paterson, for instance. It's hard to relate to a book like that with characters whom you've never heard of.
I completely agree w/ u, griffinrider. in fact, i find what you are saying completely true. It is difficult to rlate , be interested, and completely engrossed in someone w/ such a differesnt lifestlye with your own. Although at some times one may be enticed to read of such things for educational or beneficial purposes, the majority of people don't. that supports the notion that it is pivitol that one makes characters extremely realistic, as griffinder previously stated.
hey, donuteater- NEVER say anything bad about Maximum Ride, ok? Maximum Ride rocks. That's first of all.
Second of all, i take it that you don't like fantasy novels. that's completely understandable. not everybody likes every type of book. i, for instance, absolutely despise books that are meant to give instructions on how to become a successful pretzel-twister. it simply doesn't interest me.
i think that the main problem people have with fantasy is that it's very different from what they're used to. what these people have to understand is that just because something is different, that doesn't mean it's bad in any way, shape, or form. in fact, different is sometimes very good! when you're bored of the same old world that you're stuck in, you sometimes want to pick up a book and journey to a completely different world. that's one of the main points of reading a good book- to escape your world, if only for a little while.
hey, IRF- thanks for your words of wisdom. do i spy a few vocab. words in there?
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