Guest Post from Boomer Lit Author Beth Carpenter

What Makes a Character Attractive?

As we write, we create characters and they become real to us. Our readers must become invested in those characters in order to care about the outcome of the story. But what is it that makes a character attractive?

What makes anyone attractive? Physical attributes are our first clue. According to numerous studies*, we all look for symmetry in a mate, and we perceive beautiful people as better in a number of ways. Still, attraction involves much more than a beautifully proportioned face.

My first experience with this was in high school. I was an average girl who, with some extra effort on hair, clothes and makeup, could look pretty. I tended to be shy and bookish, and while I had some boyfriends, boys weren’t lining up to date me. Then on a waterskiing outing with my family, we joined up with another group, and afterward one of my new acquaintances asked me out, much to my surprise. It certainly wasn’t for my looks. In a modest one-piece swimsuit, wet hair, no makeup, and bruises on my shoulders from an ill-fitting life jacket, I was no beauty. Yet something had attracted him to me.

Eventually, after other similar incidents, I concluded that I was most attractive when I was having fun. When I forgot to be self-conscious and just enjoyed the activity, people responded. They wanted to share in the fun. Other studies* have shown that we are attracted to those similar to us. When rating hypothetical strangers, people are attracted to those who have similar attitudes.

Almost everyone says that a sense of humor is important in attraction, and yet we’ve all experienced our friend’s “hilarious” new boyfriend who just isn’t funny. Once again, similarity plays a role here. We like people who “get” us, whose sense of humor matches ours.

My conclusion is that our characters are most attractive when readers can identify with them. This doesn’t mean the characters must be just like the readers. In fact, living vicariously through a character that is bolder, smarter, better looking, or more athletic is one of the joys of reading, but readers need to feel a connection with the character. A similar sense of humor, a common attitude toward family or pets, or a weakness for junk food can link a reader to that character.

I think that’s why we respond so much better to a flawed hero. It’s hard to identify with a superman, but with some scars and weaknesses, he becomes more like us. He becomes a real person, not just a plastic superhero toy. It’s possible to take the flaws too far, however, and to turn off a reader who can no longer identify with this monster.

One of the advantages of Boomer lit is that the characters have had time to actually become characters. They’ve lived life, made mistakes, and learned lessons. Perhaps over time, they’ve become comfortable with themselves, confident in their abilities, aware of their weaknesses. This doesn’t mean they’re done growing. As they face new challenges they will continue to struggle, and old scars can complicate these transitions. That’s what makes the story.

The attractiveness of similarity may explain why one person will love a book while another will hate it. My son loves movies with humor that I consider mean and snarky. Some people identify with ‘nice” characters that do their best in a bad situation. Others like dramatic characters that take charge and take over. Perhaps these readers can find these characteristics in their own personalities, hidden away under their everyday personas.

We can’t create a character that is attractive to everyone, but we can keep in mind that our characters need to be genuine, to have traits and foibles that readers can identify with. We can make them real.

Notes
*Perrett, David I.; Burt, D. Michael; Penton-Voak, Ian S.; Lee, Kieran J.; Rowland, Duncan A.; Edwards, Rachel (1999) Symmetry and Human Facial Attractiveness, Perception Laboratory, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, Scotland,
United Kingdom
Bryne, D & Nelson, D (1965) Attraction as a linier function of proportion of positive reinforcements, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

About the Author
When Beth Carpenter was a little girl, she read everything she could get her hands on, and entertained herself on the school bus by making up stories in her head. She’s still at it, but now her reading material appears magically on a tablet, and the stories on her head get published. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska and Prescott, Arizona with her husband and an aggressively affectionate fifty-pound lap dog. She loves to hear from her readers. You can contact her at BethCarpenter2012@gmail.com, or see her blog www.BethCarpenterBooks.blogspot.com.

Guest Post from Boomer Lit Author Lisa Deckert (Beth Carpenter)

When I Grow Up

When I was a little girl, long before the existence of the World Wide Web, I loved to read. I read books, and magazines, and cereal boxes. I would hide behind my bed to read so my mother wouldn’t disturb me to make me do chores, but she must have forgiven me, because every month, when the Scholastic Reader form was passed out at class, my indulgent mother would allow me to order more books than the rest of the class combined. She also took me to the library every Saturday.

I grew up on a farm, about five miles from town, and so every day after school meant a forty-five minute ride on the school bus. I would have loved to spend that time buried in a book, but unfortunately, reading on the bus made me carsick. My solution was to close my eyes and make up a story in my head. I’d create the characters, imagine the scene, and compose the dialogue. Horses tended to figure heavily in my stories, usually beautiful white Arabians with flowing manes and tails. Then I’d arrive home and go about my business, forgetting about the story until the next bus ride.

Now, many, many years and thousands of books later, I’m doing it again, but this time I’m writing the stories down. A few years ago, I decided to see if I could translate the pleasure I received from losing myself in a story into creating one from scratch. I discovered, like most would-be writers undoubtedly have, that it’s harder than it looks. So, I followed my usual procedure when I try something new; I checked a pile of books out from the library and started reading about how to write.

My first story that I felt was good enough to share was a young adult mystery, sort of a modern Nancy Drew story. I wrote and polished, rewrote and polished some more, and then I checked out another stack of books on how to sell a book. That turned out to be even harder than writing one.

In the meantime, I wrote a nonfiction book. They are supposed to be easier to sell than fiction, but it didn’t work for me. I admit that by that time I was sick and tired of packaging up manuscripts along with self-addressed, stamped envelopes and paying to ship them into a black hole somewhere, so maybe I didn’t work at it as hard as I might have. Then I discovered Kindle.

I bought a Kindle because I was in love with the idea of carrying around a library in the space of single volume. You have to understand that my house was in danger of exploding if I brought in one more book, and I had a habit of packing a dozen paperbacks in my suitcase every time I took a trip, shedding them as I went. The idea of being stuck on a plane without a book is terrifying for me. Then one day, as I was shopping for new books for my Kindle, I noticed an link that said “Publish with Amazon.”

That ushered me into an alternate reality. Instead of spending my time and money trying to catch the eye of an agent or a publisher, I could concentrate on writing. I didn’t have to impress the gatekeepers, only the readers. So far, I’ve published three YA mysteries, a nonfiction book on financial planning, several shorts, and four boomer lit romances. I haven’t had huge financial success, but I’ve received nice feedback on the stories, met some great people online and overall, enjoyed the process.

I’ve also read dozens of stories published by ‘indies” like me, and I’ve been favorably impressed with the talent they display. Not all were great, but the percentage is much higher than I would have thought it would be. Electronic publishing serves as an amazing matchmaker for the readers and writers of the world to find one another, but it’s still all about the story, just as it was for that little girl on the bus so many years ago.

About the Author

I live in a split entry house in Anchorage, Alaska. From the front door, a short flight of stairs leads up to the main floor and another leads down to a hallway lined with overstuffed bookshelves. One Halloween, I opened the door to two trick-or-treaters, about nine years old. As I offered them candy, one of the boys asked in an awed voice, "Are you rich?" Laughing I asked him why he thought so, and he said, "All of those books!" Afterward, I looked at the paperback mysteries, the old encyclopedia we'd acquired one volume a week at a grocery store, the assorted hardbacks from bargain tables and secondhand stores, and I realized that he's right, I am rich. 

Connect with Lisa (Beth) on Goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...