Top Ten Tuesday: Character Traits I Love

 

This weeks topic is: Character Traits I Love. This one is more challenging than merely coming up with books on a topic. I had to really stop and think about what I like in a character.

Favorite Character Traits

1. Confident women–confident, not overbearing!
2. Manly men. Men who think wax goes on cars.
3. Men who don’t want to talk about the relationship or feelings, but who let the woman know how he feels in real ways.
4. Women who want more than just a man but not women who want to break a man.
5. Characters with strong inner lives. I like to see them think, reflect, ponder.
6. Characters with an interesting backstory.
7. Characters that are not describes as gorgeous, don’t have changeable eye color or a perfect this or that. Normal looking is good.
8. Characters who are true to their story’s time and place.
9. Characters with flaws, but not repulsive flaws.
10. Friend groups that are believeable, not ones that look like stock photos on HR brochures.

Bonus: Characters with believable jobs. We can’t all be billionaires, book shop owners, cupcake bakers, or small seaside town detectives. Nor, thankfully, can we all be serial killers, hedgefund managers, celebrities or royalty.

I predict 2 and 3 will be wildly unpopular.

A few turn-offs to balance these.

1. Manly men who trample women are a NO.
2. Men who expect women to serve them and shut-up are a NO.
3. Women who give up everything for a man are a NO.
4. Women who think of nothing but a man are a NO.
5. Flaws that make the story ridiculously hard to follow are a NO.
6. Unreliable narrators that make the story ridicuously hard to follow are a NO.
7. Finding out someone is a shape-shifting lizard or similar is a NO.
8. People with stupid nicknames are a NO.
9. People who lick each other’s eyeballs are a NO.
10. People who can’t do anything together but have porn-film-ish sex are a NO.

 

 

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