Caring About Characters.

First -- Happy Birthday, Jason. Hard to believe you've hit the Big Four Oh. 

Next, I'm a guest blogger at Just Romantic Suspense today, and there's a giveaway. Pop on over and leave a comment. 

Once a week, Hubster and I watch a Netflix movie. Since we've never been big moviegoers, we have a lot of "new to us" movies to pick from. And we just put whatever strikes our fancy in the queue, because trying to find something we know we'll both like would make choosing a movie a challenge. Our only "rule" is that we each promise to give the movie 15 minutes. So, if I pick a romantic comedy, or he picks a slapstick, we're not obligated to sit through the other person's movie. Often, rather than leave the room, we'll have laptops out and divide our attention between the movie and solitaire.

Recently, we've watched a series of train movies. We saw the remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, which we liked, so I ordered Unstoppable. When I tweeted the latter as our Netflix Nite selection, someone suggested Runaway Train a 1985 movie, so that went into the queue.

Unstoppable was pretty much the same story as Runaway Train. Both had the same basic conflict. A train was out of control and if it wasn't stopped, bad stuff would happen. The people responsible were of two sorts—those who had reasonable solutions, and those who were more concerned with saving face for the company.

Unstoppable was a compelling movie. Hubster left his laptop on the coffee table. Runaway Train should have been a compelling movie, but solitaire got more attention than the screen. Why? Runaway Train got decent reviews when it came out, but I wouldn't have given one, and it had nothing to do with the performances of the actors.



I can't speak for Hubster, but for me it was a simple matter of characters. The movie opened in a prison, and we watched two convicts escape. We saw the warden, a real bully. The prisoners were genuine bad guys—no redeeming qualities that we could see. They were in prison because they belonged there. These guys weren't cardboard, but for me, there was no reason to want them to succeed.

So, here are two totally unlikeable characters on an out of control train. If it crashes, they'll die. So what? Yes, the train needed to be stopped before it harmed innocents who lived along the route, but we never saw them, never had any reason to care about any of them as individuals. Unlikeable characters with redeeming character traits will give a viewer, or reader, a reason to care. Without those qualities, there's nothing to pull the reader in. In a movie, if nothing else, you've got the action on the screen to give you something to focus on.

The only character who evoked any sympathy was a young woman who worked for the railroad on the train. I suppose there was supposed to be some character growth for the convicts growth as they had to work with her, because she understood how things on the train worked. However, it was too little, too late for me.

As action-adventure, perhaps the film had some redeeming qualities. But, as readers of my blog know, I'm all about characters, and while I don't want them perfect, they have to have something that makes me care about them. When you're writing, make sure the characters are as important as the action and the plot. Because if nobody likes the characters, it won't matter what predicaments you put them in.

Tomorrow, my guest is author Randy Rawls, who's going to tell us why he keeps writing, even though he's never made the best-seller list.

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