Sage-Tips

Why do we admire fictional characters?

Dill-Shackleford says that characters are often avatars for us, and we let ourselves feel feelings through them even if we can’t relate to everything they’re going through. “[With] someone who you’ve followed over a career or long periods of your life, you do feel like you know them,” Dr. Dill-Shackleford says.

How fiction can change your perspective on real life?

The experience of gaining access to the interiority of the characters’ minds can broaden our perspective and more accepting of diversity. Sometimes, people get so engrossed with the characters that their own personalities get affected. The extent may vary, but fiction creeps into the daily existence for many of us.

Why do I care more about fictional characters?

Fiction allows us a rare insight into the minds and hearts of its characters, its people. An insight that we often wish for in real life. They create characters that people will like, no matter how flawed they may be. They make us care.

How is fiction related to reality?

FICTION, no matter how surreal or otherworldly, is a response to reality. An author creates characters based on people he knows or has met or has heard about, and often one character is a combination of several people. Fiction-making — determining the who and the what of a story in progress — is a mysterious business.

How does a character respond to another character’s actions?

When a character responds to the actions or words or intentions of another character, the reader notices. She focuses on that response and on what causes it and thinks something’s going on here.

What does it mean when a character doesn’t respond?

While the lack of a response might actually reveal a facet of a character’s personality, that personality should also be revealed by what he does respond to. Characters respond to events and other characters through what they say or don’t say, what they do and don’t do, what they think, and what they feel.

What can a character’s reactions reveal about his personality?

A character’s reactions can reveal facets of his personality that cannot be revealed by action or dialogue initiated by that character. The actions and words of others that draw a response from a character tell what bothers that character.

How do characters reveal themselves in fiction?

Characters reveal themselves through action as well as dialogue. So a character can fling his phone across the room when he doesn’t like what he’s just heard. Or he can put his fist through a wall. He can kiss the forehead of his sleeping son, tears held back, at the news the infant doesn’t have leukemia.