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Does a protagonist have to be relatable?
Not every character has to be relatable. While you can benefit from having relatable heroes, villains, or even side characters, there’s no mandatory pre-requisite that says a good book must have such characters—or even that compelling characters have to be relatable.
Why do I empathize with fictional characters more than real people?
“The experiences with fictional characters resonate with us because of the fact that we’ve had deep experiences with people throughout our lives.” Empathy can then lead to sympathy, or our ability to understand that another person is experiencing pain, which often makes us wish to alleviate that pain for them.
Why is it important for characters to be relatable?
Simply put, themes are human. Relatable. And by choosing to consciously build your characters’ stories around themes your ideal readers have likely experienced for themselves, you increase the chances that those same readers will come to empathize with your characters and invest in their journeys.
Why are relatable books important?
Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.” Highly relatable books allow kids to identify with the characters. It’s validating for kids to meet a character in a story who has hair that resembles theirs or wears glasses just like they do.
What makes someone relatable?
When we say that someone is relatable, we mean that it’s easy to understand and feel connected to them. S/he’s like me, in some fundamental way. I can bond, empathize, identify.
What makes a likable protagonist?
b) Some studies suggest that the most important quality in protagonists is a powerful sense of compassion, the kind of caring that make them willing to put themselves at risk for others. In the heroic journey, a person can’t become a hero until he learns to care about others.
Why do we obsess over what’s relatable?
Our egos fuel an ecosystem that can become acrid with familiarity. Instead of seeing “relatable” as something that connects us, we may one day imagine it as a double negative: Relatability measures how strange something isn’t, the lack of mystery itself.
What is the problem with classic literature?
The problem with classic literature is that it takes place in a time so far removed from us that we just can’t bring ourselves to care. We get it, okay? People were dying of the pox a hundred years ago and everything’s a metaphor for the Dust Bowl.
What is the difference between empathetic and relatable?
Empathizing suggests a stepping outside of our own experiences in an attempt to understand those different from our own, about crossing differences toward understanding, or at least interest in the unfamiliar. Relatable, on the other hand, suggests sameness and identification.
What does it mean to be an empathetic reader?
Empathizing requires an active stance toward a story. It involves curiosity, perhaps even estrangement, and as Mead says, an act of imagining.
What makes fictional characters worth reading?
What really makes fictional characters worth reading isn’t likability, exactly, but complexity, richness and the intangible charisma that keeps readers invested in their story. At any rate, likable people rarely make for an exciting narrative.