In one of our past comments, we wondered what makes a story entertaining. The characters are definitely a key component. Mandy Newell looks at what makes a character a good one. Quoting Lawrence Block, she identifies that a great character is three things: plausible, sympathetic and original (“Character,” www.comicmix.com, March 12, 2012).  Newell then looks more closely at the idea of characters being sympathetic. But we want to spend some time on the idea of plausibility—and we much prefer the term “credibility.”

On this idea, we cite Jozef Siroka’s analysis of the film Warrior, where he says that “Like Spike Lee, O’Connor never uses the social themes as a facile way to punctuation emotion or to make populist claims. Instead his message is structured around credible, nuanced and likeable characters facing the day-to-day problems most of us can relate to [translation]” (« Warrior: noble retour à l’état primitif »,  www.lapresse.com , January 31, 2012).

But some might reply that battling monsters, robots and bloodthirsty killers is nothing like most people’s day-to-day problems. And that’s exactly why we prefer the term “credible” to “plausible.” Credibility requires the reader to accept the conventions of the universe being explored. The Lord of the Rings is not plausible, but the consistency of Tolkien’s world makes it credible, and the reader can connect with the characters through their emotions.