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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
I'm fascinated by how so many talk about liking, caring about, or being interested in characters as if they are actual people, rather than successful or unsuccessful constructs of the author; used to propel the plot. I'll go as far as to notice whether the characters are "believable" in their plot arcs (and I may even "like" or "dislike" some of them), but I never see them as fully autonomous entities. I'm almost always generally apathetic to their fictional plights in the long run. But that's probably because I don't strive to hop into their heads (or their worlds) when I'm reading about them. For me, escapism includes the freedom to not have to be truly invested in these fictional contructs' drama/joy (like I need to be in real life). They're disposable: and the author either did them well or they didn't. *shrug*
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Originally Posted by icallaci
This. And if I can learn something, whether it be facts about a subject I'm interested in, or about what makes a person (even if fictional) tick, or about how problems get solved, I'm all in. I have zero emotional involvement in fictional characters.
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Originally Posted by icallaci
I enjoy fiction too, and sometimes learn more from it than from nonfiction because stories can illustrate things that simple recitation of facts cannot. So maybe that is the connection people are talking about? I tend to feel manipulated if I sense an author is trying too hard to establish an emotional connection. It's interesting to see the different viewpoints on this (and probably explains why fiction that gets rave reviews sometimes falls flat for me).
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One of my main genres in historical fiction set during WWII. I don't especially care about or remember the characters on the page from one book to the next, but the lives of those fictional characters illustrate what real people did, or what was done to them, and that helps give me more understanding of the times than a dry nonfiction account can. In that sense I do have an emotional connection.
When I read suspense/mystery, my emotional connection is to the plot--I want to see justice served and the wrongs righted, at least most of the time. I want a moral sensibility, even if morality doesn't triumph.