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I think it's three things. First, the accessible writing style, with its informal language that matches how regular people think and talk, is helpful but not sufficient. Second, the character's a...
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#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5160 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
I think it's three things. First, the accessible writing style, with its informal language that matches how regular people think and talk, is helpful but not sufficient. Second, the character's acceptance of the situation, which he appears to have accepted from the beginning, is unusual; we expect convicts to be hardened, angry people, and this is not that at all. Third, and probably related to the previous, is that we don't expect a criminal (he never protests his innocence here) to be a sympathetic character, yet this one seems to be.