Novelist Porter Shreve on Magnetic Characters

“Opening a book should be like opening a door,” said novelist Porter Shreve, who spoke about the importance of magnetic characters as a guest of the M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program’s recent Afternoon Craft Conversation. “They are called magnetic for a reason,” said Shreve. “They are meant to pull the reader in.”

Moreover, writers don’t just create these magnetic characters, they find them, added Shreve, the author of four novels, New York Times Notable Book The Obituary Writer, Chicago Tribune Books of the Year Drives Like a Dream and When the White House Was Ours, and his latest, The End of the Book, a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. Once magnetic characters materialize, they must work in tandem with the plot to take the reader through the door and into that other world, Shreve explained.

He also shared notable examples of magnetic characters from literature—secondary, big characters like Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby or Olive Kitteridge from Olive Kitteridge, and antagonist magnetic characters such as Larry Cook from A Thousand Acres. M.F.A. students had the opportunity to ask questions, including this: how can a story survive without a magnetic character? To which Shreve replied, “[We] need magnetic characters in fiction like the Earth needs the Sun.”

Shreve, who writes a column on e-books for the San Francisco Chronicle, has co-edited six anthologies and published fiction, nonfiction, op-eds and book reviews in many magazines and newspapers. He has been interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition and the Diane Rehm Show, among other programs, and has taught at a number of universities, including the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon, Purdue, and the University of San Francisco.