Feb 20, 2009

Good Vs. Bad

The daughter and I have been watching Gilmore Girls in our spare time, season by season. Somewhere around Season 3, teen-aged Rory Gilmore breaks up with her boyfriend Dean and starts dating Jess instead. As this was happening, I commented to my daughter:

“Dean’s problem is he’s just too nice, that’s why he lost the girl.”

She agreed. Which begs the question, why are good girls attracted by bad boys?

So I posted a question on AW and created a poll to find out which was more popular, the good boys or the bad.

The general consensus was, that while the bad boys are all right for a fling, you want a good boy for anything long term. It was also agreed that the best bad boys are those with the heart of gold - the bad boy who does good things in spite of himself because his love interest brings out the best in him.

This is actually very reassuring for me. While I enjoy reading about the bad boys I seem to be unable to create them in my own writing. My heros are clearly on the side of good. I started the poll thinking the bad boys would win hands down and hoping to gain some insight on creating a bad boy character. Now it seems that I don’t need to.

I guess when all is said and done it doesn’t matter whether your character is a good boy or a bad boy at heart, I think the real secret is a strong character.

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