Why Some Readers Love Cardboard Characters

I love memorable characters, characters so brilliantly conceived and deftly rendered that they linger in my mind for years after I’ve first met them. But I’ve realized, lately, that not all readers are like me.

I can think of several bestselling suspense and mystery writers who provide their fans with an incredibly thin, colorless husband-and-wife team. And don’t get me started on Dan Brown’s characters. But do the fans of these writers complain? No. They gush about how “wonderful” their favorite writer’s characters are. I used to go, “Huh?” But now, I think I get it.

You see, there’s a flip side to creating memorable, deftly rendered characters. The more individualistic your story people are, the more artfully delineated their likes and dislikes, faults and virtues, habits and idiosyncrasies, the more likely it is that some of your readers will go, “I don’t like this character. In fact, I hate this character, and I don’t want to read about him.” Think of the visitor to this blog who loves Scarlett O’Hara—and the one who hates her. Scarlett is definitely a memorable character. Endearing to everyone? No.

A well-delineated character presents us with a personality we react to, for good or ill. But a cardboard character is essentially a blank slate, a movie screen onto which certain kinds of readers seem to project their own likes and dislikes. The author has put nothing there to get in their way. Thus, when a reader says she loves Bestseller X’s characters, what she’s really saying is that she loves the way she imagines those characters to be.

Thin, undeveloped characters drive me nuts. One of the main things I read for, is the joy of experiencing people like Huck Finn, and Francis Crawford, and Dave Robicheaux. But when I look at the bestseller lists, I sometimes fear we’re in the minority.