A likable Character

Have you ever read a novel or a text and you just couldn't figure out why you didn't like the character?

They did everything correctly, always tried to do the right thing and they just keep on saving animals and helpless people. And still you don't like them. They are being so overly nice and their unbelievable deeds just keep coming up. And even though you theoretically would think that they are really admirable you are really more annoyed with them.

And then there are characters who do some of the same things and them I like... or someone who doesn't save an animal in the whole text.

There have also been a lot of characters who occasionally are real jerks but I still like them... in their own way and I want to keep reading about them.

Why don't we always like a nice character? And what makes a character likable?

I started wondering this thinking about characters I hadn't liked and had liked previously after I listed facts that would be interesting to know about a character when creating them (in my previous post).

So I decided googling the question and immediately stumbled upon a YouTube video with and from award winning screenwriter Jacob Krueger about the topic.

And I must say, that really answered some of the question I had and got me thinking even more about likable characters. I am most definetly going to think about the likability of characters a lot in the future while reading.

Besides, the video was really nicely done and Jacob Krueger explained everything in such a clear and understandable way.  I really have to check his other videos out too at some point.

Anyway, I continued my "research" with a couple of other videos too and made a sort of summary out of their topics. So if you are interested in how to make a character likable or ways to make a chracter likeable, read this post. 

Kim A. Dreamreich