Is Caring the True Test?

Is it a mark of a good story that your readers care about your main character, that they are deeply concerned about what happens to him?

Certainly it’s not the only test, but usually that kind of liking—call it empathy to make it sound more serious—is what sustains a reader through a story. I know that finding a character whose skin I can inhabit with pleasure is important to me.

Recently, though, I read an essay by Greg Mortimer in Off the Shelf. His title was “Why Likeable Characters are Besi...