Prompt 7 -- Unique Characters

Foster spends an entire chapter, and close to an entire book, reminding readers that no story is truly unique. This rule also applies to characters. Because there are so many characters in the “One Story”, both in pieces of writing and in real life, it’s impossible to say that anyone is truly unique. They-- and we-- are a product of their/our experiences, necessity, and in our case alone, genetics. However, those experiences and that necessity are what connect people and characters, and it’s important. If a character were truly unique, no one would be able to connect with it, and their purpose wouldn’t have been served (unless their purpose really was to be unrelatable in every way).

That doesn’t mean characters can’t be remarkable, though. In fact, most characters are remarkable. They’re all written with a purpose, a goal, dreams or hopes or intentions. They’re written like people, though Foster is also quick to remind us that they are definitely not people. That, in itself, is fascinating to anyone with a penchant for people-watching or any sort of interpersonal relations. That’s why people get so attached to their favorite characters and why we care about them at all.

Literally anything can make a character remarkable in some way, and what does varies from reader to reader. Even that unrelatably unique character I mentioned would be remarkable, simply because they were so darned unrelatable. Something that people seem to forget, both about characters and about themselves, is that remarkable isn’t synonymous with unique. Truly unique things, like personality quirks or rare talents, can make a character remarkable, sure, but they aren’t required by any means.

Even the smallest thing can make a character noteworthy. Something that makes Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye noteworthy, for example, is his dissatisfaction with the “phonies” around him. The woman from “The Yellow Wallpaper” is remarkable because of her obsession with the wallpaper around her and her reaction to it, her husband because of his odd and off-putting disregard for his wife. The boys from Lord of the Flies are remarkable in that they show the reader one side of human nature, or at least the nature of rich white boys when left without supervision.

That leaves the question, why are these remarkable characters worth talking about? Putting the obvious answer (remarkable means “able to be remarked upon”) aside, they offer us an interesting opportunity: talking about ourselves without sounding quite so conceited. They help the reader discover their true feelings toward a subject, like Holden and the multifacetedness of people. They start conversations about things like mental illness and how it should be handled, like the “The Yellow Wallpaper” woman. They force us to discuss how similar to animals humans really are, and our very nature as creatures, like Lord of the Flies. In essence, they do whatever you want them to. The possibilities are endless, and the choice is yours. That’s the beauty of reading.