On my other blog I'm having a fun time live-ranting about Bridgerton while I watch (summary: I really enjoy Bridgerton the show, I really do not enjoy Bridgerton the books, and there are a lot of moments when the source material makes the show do dumb things). But it's brought to mind something I have noticed both about romance novels and about children's/young adult literature. I call this phenomenon "what actually is a character trait?"
In Bridgerton, the one that's getting to me is that in the books, prior to becoming a main character for book for and/or season 3, Colin's main trait is that he likes to eat. In the world of the m/f 90s romance novel, this is only an acceptable trait in a man, or a thin woman, and it's quite jarring in Colin especially because in the books, Penelope has to lose weight before he finds her attractive.
Also, in my opinion, it's not really a character trait. Not an interesting one at any rate. It's very flat. If Colin liked to eat because he was sublimating some other feeling, like being looked over in his big family (a feeling he does canonically have), that would be something. But that's not the story that's there.
Another big one I recently read in an M/M romance novel is clumsiness. And...I don't know, that doesn't strike me as a real character trait either. How many people view being clumsy as a real, big part of their character? I've only known people to mention it when we're sharing meal and they spill something, or from elderly people who are struggling with a loss of motor control.
Again, this could become a compelling trait when given more depth. Like, this character is clumsy when people are watching because it makes them nervous to be observed, or around a family that treats them poorly, and overcoming the nerves or the family situation solves the clumsiness. This isn't super deep and I have seen it done before! It's not hard to make this kind of trait compelling!
In my opinion, these not-really-character-traits make sense in books for very young readers who are just learning what it means to have character traits, but at the latest by adolescence, books become a lot more interesting when characters are given more depth by grounding superficial traits in something that tells you more about the person.
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