The Importance of Staying in Character

I’ve just read Anne Rice’s “The Wolves of Midwinter”.  This is Rice’s take on werewolves, the second book in this series ( I haven’t read the first),  and I don’t think it’s one of her best efforts.  She specializes in creating atmosphere, eerie, mysterious, and sensual, but sometimes produces a fast-moving plot too.  Not in this case, where the meandering story left me plenty of time to pay attention to what may seem to be a minor point, but was surprisingly annoying.  The “hero”was a strapping young man even before he was turned into a werewolf, which made him even stronger and, as Rice makes clear, a ravenous eater ( he literally eats like a wolf).  How come this powerful young Adonis takes his coffee with two packets of artificial sweetener?  What kind of a werewolf is this?

The strong impression this trivial bit of out-of-character behavior made reminded me how much vigilance is required to maintain a consistent character, and how important it is.