Writing and Reading Qualitative Characters

This essay concerns the ways in which qualitative social science research characters are constructed, and in turn read, by others. The persuasiveness of narratives is based as much on the reader’s response to the character—similar to the ways in which readers respond to literary characters—in emotional ways as it is on the rational presentation of evidence. This essay acknowledges the author’s subjectivity in relation to this topic; reviews the notions of narrative perspective, fidelity, emplotment, and verisimilitude; explores the role of narrative in social science research reports; presents background on how readers respond to literary characters; and applies these understandings to make the case that reading the presentation of social science research characters shares much with the ways in which readers respond to the actions of literary characters. The essay concludes with an argument that the construction of social science research reports includes the selective construction of participants as actors in a drama that in turn has an emotional impact on readers and with a description of the implications of this phenomenon for writers and readers of qualitative social science research reports.