I am, as it has been pointed out, a wannabee writer. There is a large gap between theory and practice; just because one can analyze literature doesn't mean that one can write a good story. I've been at it for about three years now. Yes, that's quite a long time to still only be a wannabee. However, I do feel that I am advancing in my craft. I see leaps and bounds about every six months. The stories that I wrote six months ago are depressing in comparison to the ones I write now, and my best story is the one I haven't written yet.

That said, I'm definitely still learning. I thought I'd subject/invite my readers to long theoretical debates on various aspects of the craft of writing. There is a caveat to this. I don't care if you think it's small-minded of me.
1. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but, that said, I will delete with malice aforethought any rants and hate-filled missives regarding various ways that me or my loved ones should die or kill themselves.

It seems like plot-driven stories were the thing about fifty years ago. You know the stuff: the blood and bone of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. The heyday of science fiction and hey-isn't-that-a-neat-idea. What I'm hearing from people and reading in most submission guidelines is that characters are the heart of stories now. I think it's true, too. I like nifty ideas as much as the next guy, but give me a great character to connect with and I'm sold.

Orson Scott Card said something interesting on a panel once regarding characters: less solid description allows the reader to connect better with the character. His idea was that if you say your character is a red-headed, fair-skinned waif with green eyes who likes to wear vibrant blue dresses, then you're going to lose all of those readers who aren't red-headed, fair-skinned waifs and those who don't find them interesting/attractive. It's a reasonable point. Others enjoy lush descriptions of the characters, physical and psychological, although preferably not in a big infodump because there was a mirror there.

So, what do you prefer? How do you like your characters? What characters stick in your mind and why?

Some of my favorites here:
"Eleanor Winslow was a nine-year-old girl from America with straight brown bangs and brown eyes. She was interested in dentistry or being a paper engineer when she grew up." -- Nicholson Baker, The Everlasting Story of Nory

"I'd been living in the house about a week when I noticed that the mailbox belonging to Apt. 2 had a name-lost fitted with a curious card. Printed, rather Cartier-formal, it read: Miss Holiday Golightly; and, underneath, in the corner, Traveling.
One night, it was long past twelve, I woke up at the sound of Mr. Yunioshi calling down the stairs. Since he lived on the top floor, his voice fell through the whole house, exasperated and stern. "Miss Golightly! I must protest!"

The voice that came back, welling up from the bottom of the stairs, was silly-young and self-amused. "Oh, darling, I am sorry. I lost the god-damn key." -- Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

"This desk is neat.
There is a pile of books on it, and a ruler.
There is also, at the moment, a clock made out of cardboard.
Miss Susan picked it up.
The other teachers in the school were known as Stephanie and Joan and so on, but to her class she was very strictly Miss Susan. "Strict," in fact, was a word that seemed to cover everything about Miss Susan and, in the classroom, she insisted on the Miss in the same way that a king insists upon Your Majesty, and for pretty much the same reason." -- Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

"'It is not easy to express the inexpressible,' he answered with a laugh. 'Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes -- it approaches cold-bloodedness. I could imaging his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.'" -- A. C. Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"