The Fictional Heartthrob: Library Confessions 1

It's not unusual - most people who read develop a slight crush on a well-written character.  Happens all the time.  And not just with books, but with television and movies as well.

I have secret fictional crushes.  Lots of them.  Most recently, I have a thing for Walt Longmire from the TV series Longmire (go figure).  That particular character does double duty as a literary figure as well, though I have never read the books by Craig Johnson.  Now that I've seen Robert Taylor play him on TV, that face will always be ingrained in my memory, no matter what the written word says.

Robert Taylor as Walt Longmire

The story (and I'll assume the books follow the same general plot) centers around a county sheriff in Wyoming and his three deputies.  The town is small, but the county seems quite large - they do a lot of driving.  And on top of that, they seem to have more than their fair share of mysteries and murders happening in their parts, at least enough to do several seasons of quality television.

I have had crushes on Vincent D'onofrio from Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Jim Caveziel from Person of Interest, Josh Holloway from Lost (any woman who is not attracted to him is a big liar), and Sam Trammell from True Blood.  For some reason, these actors fit the characters they play to a T and do it well enough to stir something inside of the women that watch.

Books, however, are something else entirely.  In a book, no matter what the author tells you, a reader develops an image of the character that fits their personal perception.  If the character is attractive to them as written (with dialogue, actions, etc), then the imagined physical appearance will be attractive as well.

For instance, we'll use Harry Dresden from Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series.  I have always had a crush on Harry, not necessarily because of how I think of his physically, but of how his sarcastic sense of humor is conveyed by the author.  He's cheeky, hilariously funny, and a wizard (added bonus of awesomeness), but without Butcher's excellent writing, he would be nothing to me.

Harry Dresden - artist's rendition

To develop a book crush, we are dependent on the author.  I know that sounds strange, but it is very true.  Without the story capturing our attention and the writing sparking our imaginations, there would be no crush - nothing at all would happen.  The reader would have put the book down instead of avidly following the story from one book to the next, to the next, and so on.  I would not still be reading the Dresden Files if there wasn't a quality to it that I can't quite put a finger on.  And my secret crush on Harry would never have blossomed.  Of course, a crush on a fictional character is unrequited, but that's part of the appeal of the entire thing in the first place.

Do you have a book crush?  Do you have any sort of character crush?  Thank an author or a scriptwriter or the creator of that persona - without them, our vivid imaginary boyfriends wouldn't exist.