R is for Rubes – A to Z (WR)

For the A to Z challenge, I’ve been examining different types of characters from books, movies, and television.

Perhaps one of the most endearing aspects of reading about a character is seeing a little bit of yourself or someone you care about within them.  It’s not a Mary Sue for the reader, but in many ways the most beloved characters of all time share similarities with the author’s readership and it allows the reader to form a magical bond to the character (that’s a big part of becoming beloved after all).

Sometimes readers share negative attributes with characters, often you see this in cautionary tales, meant to scare readers into whatever behavior the author deems appropriate.

And sometimes, even we authors see parallels between our own lives and characters that we love (whether we’ve created them or not).  Just like readers, sometimes these parallels are positive and sometimes they are not.

Rubes are naïve characters (sometimes foolish), who are often taken advantage of by all sorts in books – villains, twists of fate/plot, and even sometimes our own dear hero(ine).

We are all meant to take a turn as the fool in our own life stories and it was a year ago today that I realized that I had been cast in this particular role, probably for quite some time.

But I want to tell you something – something that all of we former rubes have learned:  you won’t be a rube forever – and if you let it, your time as the fool will make you wiser and will help you find the strength you never knew you had.