I read a lot. And I watch more TV and movies than I should, I'm fairly certain. But as I consider the books, movies and TV shows I like, they seem to have something in common. They have characters that change and grow throughout the course of the story.
Consider, for example, the series of William Monk detective novels by Anne Perry. Her protagonist, Monk, wakes up in a hospital in book one and has no idea who he is or what happened to him. As the series has progressed, he has learned about himself - both things he likes and things he doesn't - and he has used that knowledge to improve himself.
Look at Lewis Gillies, the protagonist of Stephen Lawhead's Song of Albion series. Through the course of the trilogy, Lewis goes from being a follower to being a leader.
Even characters like Elizabeth Bennett, of Pride and Prejudice fame, and Thursday Next, from the series by the same name, change as the story goes on.
It's harder to see the changes in TV characters because you only spend an hour or so a week with them. But when I think about Sherlock Holmes, as portrayed by Jonny Lee Miller in Elementary, I can see the changes in his character over the course of the first two seasons.
Perhaps the reason I like seeing characters grow and change over time is that the changes make them seem more human, more real, if you will. For someone who likes to imagine herself into the stories she's reading or watching, it helps to have that hook. (FYI, I've been "reading myself into books" for a very long time, long before I started reading Jasper Fforde.)
Now, if you will excuse me for a moment, I've got to figure out how I can get myself into Dickens.
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