I started reading Twilight again Saturday night. It’s just as addictive as the first time.

When I first read it, one of the things that really pulled me in was how easy it was to relate to Bella. She is sarcastic, new to Forks and the town’s high school, hates cold, rain and snow, sucks at sports, blushes easily and is shy. Despite the world Bella lives in (filled with vampires, shapeshifters, werewolves and danger), everything about her was as real to me as myself, because I saw a lot of myself in her character.

Stephenie Meyer is very good at creating believable characters. In her adult debut, The Host, the characters are just as vivid as they are in the Twilight Saga. Melanie and Wanderer, the novel’s main characters, were real to me despite the post-alien-invasion world the story was set in. Melanie was a normal human woman fighting for her life and the lives of her kid brother Jamie and true love Jared. Wanderer, the alien who had taken Melanie’s body, took on these emotions in a very believable way — so believable that the story itself showed me how wide our range of emotions are and how little sense they can make sometimes.

Characters are very important to me. If a novel or movie is plot-driven, I don’t usually like it. If it’s character-driven, however, I get sucked in and can’t put the book down. I try my hardest to create interesting characters with layers and layers of personality — characters with depth. I try to make my characters easy to relate to for the reader.

What are some things that appeal to you about characters in comics, movies, books and songs?