As I often do, I am reading books about writing as I work on my next book. Since I have multiple points of view and several primary characters, I've been giving more thought than usual to who these characters are. Their voices need to be distinctive. But I'm also thinking about what the fiction authors discussing characters have to say about how "likeable" a character needs to be for readers to care about that character and have "someone to root for".
Personally, I have read books when I found there was no one I cared about or liked. And, then, there is a book like Gone With the Wind. I mention this book because -- as I have mentioned -- it is crucial to my 1939 novel because in my historical thriller, all roads lead to the Atlanta premier of the movie based on the book. I have been watching the movie in bits and pieces. I remember the movie well. But the book is still setting on my desk, waiting to be read again. Why? Because even though I raced through the novel when I read it as a teenager, I found Scarlett a difficult character to root for. She is beautiful and brave, but I thought Rhett might have done better. Send Scarlett and Ashley off into the sunset and have Rhett find comfort with Melanie.
I have given this some thought because I can understand why Mitchell created Scarlett (of course, I am analyzing the novel as it would have been read by her core audience in 1939. The racial politics is another matter entirely). Scarlett is a dynamic character. She makes things happen. Even disliking her, one wants to know what happens to her. Even when she is being audacious, she is engaging. Melanie, on the other hand, is kind and unselfish, but she would have had to undergo the kind of transformation that Bette Davis does in Now, Voyager (1942) to hold the attention of many readers and movie goers.
In the fourth novel in my Lizzie Stuart series, I have a character who does her best to take over the book. From the moment, she walks in -- even before that when she is being discussed by the other characters -- she is intriguing. I was as anxious as anyone who read the book to have her appear. I can't wait to have her turn up again in Book 7. But I share Lizzie's concern that compared to this woman -- her lost long mother -- she, herself, is rather dull. She has the feeling that even to John Quinn, the man who loves her and who she is about to marry, she must be less interesting than her mother. Not that she is jealous. She knows Quinn too well for that. But she recognizes that Becca is a woman who is neither good nor kind but renders other women invisible.
I like kind characters just as I like real people who are kind. I am always in awe of people who seem to automatically do things to make other people's lives easier. That is not something that I do without thought because I am often in my own head and not paying attention to what is going on around me. To be kind, I have to make the deliberate decision to pay attention and look for the opportunity to do something nice. I would like to be a Melanie. My protagonist, Lizzie Stuart, is a Melanie. So I have to be careful that readers know her well enough so that even when Becca is in the book, they still root for Lizzie.
Well, and good in my series. But in my 1939 novel, one of my female character is channeling Scarlett. I have been trying to keep her in line. I am dismayed because I want to avoid creating a female character that might be perceived as a stereotype. But she is having her way.
The thing is she is a lot more fun to write when she's bad than when she is good. But I want readers to like her and care about her. The end of the book as I have imagined it, depends for its impact on caring about this character.
I have a feeling it isn't going to end quite the way I expected.
