What makes a good character?

>>8471484
They effectively facilitate the development of the story. It's vague, but beyond that it's personal preference by a reader.

>>8471484
If I can place said character in a hypothetical situation and have a reasonable idea of how they'd react.

>>8471521
THIS

>>8471521
So plausibility? An issue that can arise from this is when a character becomes too predictable.

>>8471568
I would make the argument that it's more about personality than plausibility.

there are plenty of characters that aren't exactly believable but still have a cohesive personality. the first that comes to mind is Tank Girl, though on another end of the spectrum one might find Sherlock Holmes, and on another Mad Max.

these are characters that have personality, even if they aren't quite realistic or plausible. sometimes they can be predictable, but knowing a character well enough to predict his reactions to a given situation isn't necessarily bad, it means the writer has done such a good job at fleshing out his character that the reader knows him as well as one might know a close friend.

and I think another important note to add is that not all characters need to be relatable. all three I mentioned above weren't, and I would argue that they're the better for it. it is their complete rejection of what we would call a normal life that makes them compelling characters.

the same can be said in reverse, however. if you have no grounding in reality and everyone in your story is just a wacky lol xD randumb character, it's going to get grating fast.

ultimately your ability to write good characters comes down to style. If you're like Tarantino, combining absurd elements with everyday normal life makes the characters all the more absurd, and yet all the more relatable at the same time. there are of course authors who go to each extreme as well, but I think this shit is long enough as is.

>>8471484
The fact that a situation becomes more interesting when they appear.

>>8471496
>>8472690
Best ones I think

>>8471521
I'd argue that having fleshed out motivations and ways of though doesn't necessarily make a character good, but it is a start.

It's intelligence. I don't glorify intelligence itself in general, but that's what I think.

Why is Iago so much more memorable than Othello, why does he seem more real than the play itself, than whoever wrote it, as if Iago were the one writing the story? Because he's so self-aware and intelligent he seems to absorb the whole story into himself; everyone else seems 2-dimensional compared to him.

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watch mad men if you havent--a lot of folks are turned off by the time period or their assumptions about what it is, but it has some of the most finely-crafted meticulous character work ive seen in any medium

aside from facilitating the plot (which is usually overrated), good characters work as vessels for readers to empathize with or against--theyre surrogates for experiences and moments that you'd like the reader to feel and meditate on

for example, some of the best scenes in mad men are just two characters hanging out in a situation--two coworkers at a diner or a field trip with a mother and her kid, and the way those dynamics are explored

TL;DR, shitty characters are faultless mouthpieces or unrelatable collections of traits, good characters make boring situations fascinating because we totally understand who and what they are, in their social/economic/cultural/etc contexts

>>8472796
i heard it was written for women, i still enjoyed Hannibal and it was also for women so i may check it out

>>8472749
I feel as though you are confusing intelligence with psychological and ethical complexity. Sure, being intelligent will enable the character to self-reflect at a higher level, but they don't have to necessarily be intelligent for it to happen. What do you think?

>>8471521
This is true, but far from sufficient.

A good character seems either like one who is interesting (to follow or to understand) or one who takes the story to interesting places. I don't think you can simplify it further. It's like asking what makes a good plot, or good style. Those are the most basic building blocks of fiction, attempting to create hard-set rules for them only leads to fake CW 101 adages such as "characters should be sympathetic/likable".
So essentially, it depends on what you're writing.

>>8471484
It's a tremendously irreducible thing, the idea of a good character. A good character in Tolstoy is miles apart from a good character in Shakespeare. And this is a good thing, demonstrating the range of possibilties within the English language for conjuring entities which resemble the human character, which is almost miraculous when you think about it..

I guess you really need to ask what a character consists of. Sorry if this doesn't make sense. I've had a lot to drink man, so I'm in a good mood, thought I'd share some of my thoughts.

But have a good night /lit/. I really love you guy; you're cooler and smarter than you realise.

And if that dude writing the book about Italian journalist bullshit is in this thread, keep on keeping on dude, I wanna read your book man.

>>8473643
You're probably right in that I used the wrong word, it's not so much intelligence as it is a capacity for the type of complexity you describe and self-awareness.

The real criteria, I think, is self-awareness, and also change(s) undergone through this self-awareness.

>>8473741
Interesting points. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.