For any work of fiction to truly resonate with audiences, it needs to showcase realistic character development, complete with a believable character arc. These characters need to possess credible traits that evolve as they grow and face new challenges.
Stories revolve around people, even when the central figure is an animal, a plant, or another non-human entity. Masterful storytellers understand the power of effective character development because the humanity within a story is what connects with readers. Strong character traits and a satisfying character arc breathe life into a narrative, providing a window through which the reader can observe and empathize.
So, what exactly is character development? What are character traits, and what constitutes a good character arc? Let’s delve into these elements and more, exploring how to transform mere words into authentic, three-dimensional characters.
Character Development Definition: Unveiling the Core
What Is Character Development? In essence, it mirrors real life: it’s about demonstrating a character’s growth as they navigate challenges, much like individuals adapt and evolve in real-world scenarios.
Character development is the process of creating fictional characters with the same depth and complexity as real-life human beings.
During the story writing process, the author will establish different character traits to completely flesh out the people that populate their stories. Good character development usually incorporates the following elements:
- Backstory: Backstory involves events that occurred before the story’s main plot but have a direct impact on it. A common trope is a traumatic childhood.
- Flaws: Every character should have imperfections. Traits such as arrogance, laziness, or impulsiveness can prompt bad decisions, sustaining the story’s conflict.
- Goals: A character’s goals are central to their development. What do they want, need, or desire? What obstacles stand in their way? These questions often drive the plot and shape character arcs.
- Personality: Personality is the combination of thoughts, actions, and beliefs that define a human being. Each character in your story should have distinctive traits that contribute to a multifaceted personality.
- Philosophy/Worldview: A character’s worldview is a key aspect of their personality and development. This encompasses their religious, philosophical, and political beliefs, shaping their interactions with the world. One character might believe in the inherent goodness of humanity, while another believes people are selfish and irresponsible.
- Physical Character Traits: A character’s appearance matters. How does it influence how other characters perceive them? In reality, physical appearances impact how others treat us. This dynamic should be reflected in your fictional world.
- Morals/Values: What ethical principles guide your characters? What do they hold most dear? Remember that morals are not always “good”; prejudiced beliefs are also morals.
- Spiritual Beliefs: What religious or spiritual beliefs influence your characters? This can range from organized religion to personal beliefs about the universe and humanity’s purpose.
When these character traits are combined with the story’s overall conflict, a character arc develops.
Character development involves multiple elements such as flaws, goals, personality, and backstory.
Character Arc Definition: Tracing the Journey
Before exploring character development further, it’s crucial to grasp the concept of a character arc. A character arc is the path of a character’s inner journey and emotional growth, from the beginning to the end of the story. It’s their personal transformation and adaptation to the specific conflicts within the narrative.
A character arc is a character’s personal growth and adaptation to the story’s particular conflicts.
Consider various character arc examples, and you’ll notice that no two are identical. In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge undergoes a profound personality transformation, abandoning his miserly ways and embracing generosity. However, this arc is achieved only after he realizes the desolate nature of a life solely devoted to money.
Conversely, a character with negative traits can undergo a negative character arc. The tragedy of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet illustrates this. Hamlet begins as a promising, charming prince, but his indecisiveness, compounded by his father’s ghost, leads to impulsivity, self-isolation, the death of Polonius, and his reluctance to kill Claudius. Hamlet fails to embrace the growth needed to prevent the play’s many preventable deaths.
In short, a story’s character arc is the evolution of certain character traits alongside that character’s inner journey, which impacts whether or not they overcome the story’s conflict.
For a story to propel a character through a character arc, it must present challenges without clear solutions, thereby stimulating their moral development and offering insights into the human condition.
Now, let’s see character arc in action through the following character development examples.
5 Character Development Examples: From Literature’s Best
Let’s examine character development examples from notable literary works. Even if you’re unfamiliar with all the books mentioned, these examples will illuminate each character’s journey and the conflicts that shape their development.
1. Jane Eyre in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
How She Starts: Jane Eyre is a coming-of-age story that traces the life of its main character from childhood to adulthood. At the beginning of the story, Jane is portrayed as strong-willed and independent, but also impulsive and unloved.
Main Goals: Jane’s goals revolve around finding love, acceptance, and a place she can truly call home.
Main Conflicts: Jane Eyre features many different antagonists, including her adopted family, her headmasters, and her love interests.
Key Dilemma: Jane’s situation is never wonderful, but to overcome her poor situations, she must learn to be self-sufficient—a fantastic proposition, given this was published in Victorian England. This includes acquiring work and entering adulthood, but most important to Jane’s character development, she must learn to maintain her own self-worth and independence, even in the face of true, altruistic, two-as-one love.
How She Ends: Once Jane is truly self-sufficient, everything else falls into place, including her financial situation and her marriage to Rochester. With self-sufficiency comes the love and acceptance she desires, and the safe home she has always been without.
2. Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
How She Starts: Janie Crawford has much in common with Jane Eyre: she is strong-headed, independent, rebellious, and has a complex inner world that no one can see. Janie is of mixed race, and constantly encounters an inability to fit in with both white and black communities, but she is very defiant of any labels assigned to her and constantly chalks up the prejudice she encounters as a lack of perspective among others.
Main Goals: Janie’s primary desire is a marriage of equal partnership: a love that’s not unbalanced because of wealth or gender or position.
Main Conflicts: Most of Janie’s relationships are, in fact, unbalanced. First her marriage is arranged to a man who doesn’t love her, then she marries a man who excludes her from her community’s social life. Though Janie desires an equal marriage, she may have to accept that her independent spirit is incompatible in the long-term with another man, especially given the gender roles of 1920s America. This forms the core of her character development.
Key Dilemma: Janie is often treated as either a trophy wife or a domestic worker, but never as an equal, always feeling disconnected both from the people she loves and the communities around her. When she meets and falls in love with Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods, she moves to the Everglades with him, only to lose him in the aftermath of a deadly hurricane.
How She Ends: Janie returns to one of her previous homes, still the object of other people’s gossip and disapproval, but satisfied, if weary, having once known real love.
3. Ethan Allan Hawley in The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
How He Starts: Ethan Allan Hawley is a grocery store clerk in New Baytown, a fictional city on Long Island, NY. His family used to be a member of the local aristocratic class, before Ethan’s father lost all of the family’s money; despite this, Ethan values honesty and integrity above all else.
Main Goals: Ethan wants to live a life of virtue and integrity, garnering respect from others simply by being a kind and honest person. He has no problem with his position as a grocery clerk, and wants only to provide a good life to his family.
Main Conflicts: Ethan’s family, however, is not satisfied with their life: money always seems to be a problem. In addition to his family’s continued dissatisfaction, members of Ethan’s local community frequently mention his family’s lost wealth and what Ethan should do to reclaim it.
Key Dilemma: Ethan’s character arc centers around his commitment to virtue and his conflicting desire for wealth. If he wants to reclaim his family’s fortunes, he must sacrifice his integrity and honesty, which he does—he turns his boss into the INS, he acquires his best friend’s land by (essentially) killing him, and he almost robs a bank. Ethan’s inner dialectic between his virtues and his actions prompts him to consider suicide, as a result of sacrificing integrity for money.
How He Ends: The novel ends ambiguously. Ethan commits to killing himself, but then finds that his daughter replaced his weapon of choice with a family talisman, prompting him to reconsider his decision and choose life, if only for his family.
4. Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
How He Starts: Holden Caulfield is a depressed 17 year old who is about to fail out of private school. He frequently feels alienated from his classmates, family, and society at large, and while he refuses to plan for the future, he dreams of escaping somewhere that no one he knows will ever find him.
Main Goals: Holden is desperate for connection, feeling alienated from every person he talks to. While he puts on a show of being superior to the many “phony” individuals around him, he also hopes that one of those phonies might actually connect with him on a deeper level.
Main Conflicts: It seems that everyone in The Catcher in the Rye is a source of conflict for Holden. He is not on speaking terms with his parents, he frequently gets in fights with his peers, and his attempts at relationships are always spurned, which only leads to more fighting.
Key Dilemma: To put it simply, Holden is not a likable person. He is a collection of mostly negative character traits. He’s rash, annoying, and often comes off as both immature and pretentious. At the same time, he’s deeply aware of society’s superficiality, which he tries to push past by talking to people about deep, meaningful subjects. Holden’s character arc is defined by this conflict between self, others, and society; in order for him to connect with people, he must find a way to hold both his love and criticism for people side-by-side, and also learn how to talk to people properly.
How He Ends: The Catcher in the Rye is a story in which the main character rejects his character arc. In other words, Holden ends the same way he begins, because he has not committed to the growth he has to undergo in order to find meaningful connections. He has not accepted that he is part of the problem. Nonetheless, the novel ends on a somewhat optimistic note, and Holden forgoes running away from society and enrolls to finish school.
5. Macon “Milkman” Dead III in Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
How He Starts: From childhood, Milkman feels alienated and disinterested in his family, as well as most of society. He feels disconnected from his father, estranged from his aunt and sisters, and has a complicated relationship with his mother, who loves Milkman but uses him as an escape from her monotonous, loveless life. In adolescence, he strikes up a brief but fleeting sexual interest in one of his cousins.
Main Goals: Milkman is sent on a quest to find a bag of gold coins from his father’s young adulthood. Perhaps by finding this bag of coins, he can also find his father’s approval, something he secretly yearns for yet openly detests.
Main Conflicts: Milkman’s search for those gold coins raises many of the novel’s central conflicts. At one point, he breaks into his aunt’s house in search of the money; at another, he is hunted by Guitar, a former friend who believes that Milkman has found and stolen the gold. Milkman’s life is also threatened once a month by Hagar, the cousin he had a fleeting relationship with. But the most important conflict is Milkman’s relationship to himself and his family, both of which have been marred by his father’s wealth and negligence.
Key Dilemma: Milkman’s character development stems from his search for his father’s gold. While searching for clues as to where this gold might have ended up, he comes to learn more about his family history, learning to appreciate and even love the complex foundation his life rests upon.
How He Ends: Milkman eventually gives up on the gold to bury the remains of his grandfather whom Milkman discovered by accident, unburdening himself from the weight of his familial hatred. Guitar, still in pursuit of the gold, kills Milkman’s aunt and attacks Milkman, perhaps suggesting the enduring wickedness of greed. The novel ends ambiguously regarding Milkman’s life.
Character Development Examples: Summing Up
Each protagonist in the above character development examples endures their own set of conflicts. Those conflicts force the protagonist to grow and change in certain ways, adopting new outlooks on life or making difficult moral decisions. It is through loss, hope, sacrifice, change, and a commitment to one’s own beliefs that each character rises to their challenge.
It is through loss, hope, sacrifice, change, and a commitment to one’s own beliefs that each character rises to their challenge.
As you learn to write and develop characters, pay attention to the character arcs in the novels you read, and how certain challenges are paired directly against certain character traits. For example, Jane Eyre and Janie Crawford are both strong-willed and independent, which are undoubtedly positive character traits, yet these traits also expose them to their senses of alienation, and they must resolve the conflict between their selves, their desires, and society at large. This resolution forms the arc of the character’s journey, which also lays the foundation for a compelling plot.
Tips for Nuanced, 3-Dimensional Character Development
Every writer approaches character development differently. There is no single, foolproof formula, but all writers have tools at their disposal to enter their characters’ minds. The most important thing is to give each character depth, relatability, and flaws, and to provide specific details and backstories that bring those characters to life.
Remember to give each character depth, relatability, and flaws, and to provide specific details and backstories that bring those characters to life.
- Have your characters take personality tests. Though not scientifically rigorous, answering questions as your character would can spark new ideas for plots and conflicts.
- Consider regionality. Where someone is from influences the way they speak and think, so language should directly reflect character traits.
- Do some sketches. You don’t need to be a great artist, but sketching your characters can help you visualize them. How tall are they? What are their features like? How do they dress?
- Think about point of view. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person points of view each have their strengths and weaknesses, and each affects how your character is written. Spend some time considering POV, and build the story’s setting and sensory details based on your character’s observations. Remember, how your character observes the world reflects their personality, making this a key component of character development.
- Create interiority. Reveal your character’s thoughts, flashbacks, inner conflicts, and deep desires. Show what they know and don’t know about themselves. Like real people, characters should be messy, imperfect, and constantly evolving.
Another method is to ask yourself certain character development questions, like the ones we’ve listed below.
Character Development Questions: Probing the Depths
Good characters possess depth, experience growth, and have imperfections; in other words, they are real people. Asking yourself a set of defined character development questions is one way to develop these kinds of characters, who jump off the page with realistic and compelling personalities.
Use the below character development questions to plan, write, or edit your story. Read on for some interesting character development questions to ask yourself, and do this exercise person by person for anyone in your story that you’d like to know better.
10 Character Development Questions to Ask Each of Your Characters
Ask your character…
1. Who are you?
Think of the “who” of your character as the firm foundation with which you will bring your character to life. This “who” might take the form of one or two honest sentences that really tap the essence of the character. Starting with a strong “who” can help you add depth to your character throughout your story, as well as inform their primary character traits.
2. What are your strongest motivations?
What, fundamentally, drives your character? To be accepted by their peers? To create something new and beautiful? To protect their loved ones from a dangerous world? To find perspective on mortality? What are the core, underlying drives that shape this character and the actions he or she takes? This will form the core of the story’s conflict and provoke its character arcs.
3. What are your hopes and dreams for the future?
What world does your character hope to see? What would fulfillment look like for your character? What is your character doing to reach toward these hopes—or do they seem too far out of reach?
4. What are your biggest fears and/or regrets?
Your character certainly has a future he or she doesn’t want to end up in. What is it, and why? What are the darkest secrets and the biggest failures from your character’s past? What haunts him or her?
5. What are your greatest strengths?
What comes easily to this character? What makes this character strong, and why? Your answer can simply be a positive character traits list, but try to go more in depth, fleshing out what informs this character’s morals.
6. What are your greatest weaknesses?
Every good character has weaknesses. What puts your character out of place, out of their comfort zone, vulnerable? Why? Your answer can simply be a negative character traits list, but try to go more in depth, fleshing out what informs this character’s flaws and achille’s heel.
7. What are you like socially?
How does your character view other people? Are they very social and extroverted, or a little more on the quiet, shy, introverted side? Thinking about how your character acts in social situations can help you “beef” up your character and add depth.
8. What is your role in the story?
Consider your character’s role in the development of the story. Why does your character exist in your story? Is the character a protagonist, antagonist, or secondary character? How does your character change the story? And how is the character changed by the story—what is their character arc?
9. What is your connection to the overall storyline?
This is the important link between your character and your overall storyline. What specific impact will your character have on the overall progression of your story?
10. What sort of dynamic exists between you and the other characters?
Consider the relationships your character will have with other main or supporting characters. How do they interact? How do their personalities and motivations bounce off one another? How do they come away feeling upon interacting with each other?
Create Your Own Character Development Questions List
Creating your own questionnaire can be extremely useful in the writing process and enhance your understanding of your characters, prompting you to develop new, unique elements of their personalities. It’s a great tool for figuring out what makes your characters tick, and it can help align your storyline and plot with your character’s overall personality.
As you work to create your own questionnaire for characters, you can search for existing examples. The ten questions above are one example, and here are a few others:
Lastly, as you look for questions to ask your character, it may be useful to take a hint from the “self-help” section of your bookstore. The same sort of self-inquiry that is important in our own lives can be applied to the development of your characters.
Character Traits: The Building Blocks
Lastly, let’s examine character development from the lens of character traits, as this will help you define and refine your characters as you start and finish your stories. First, what are character traits?
What Are Character Traits?
Character traits are recurring features of a character’s personality that shape how that character responds to their world. Those traits will show themselves whenever someone reacts to their surroundings, engages in conversation, has private thoughts, takes action, or makes a decision.
Character traits definition: recurring features of a character’s personality that shape how that character responds to their world.
Many great novelists have studied human psychology so intently that every of their character’s actions is defined by one of their traits. Even the minutest actions, such as making dinner or brushing one’s teeth, can in some way reflect a set of character traits. Many of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s characters, for example, reflect an intimate understanding of human psychology, and his work greatly informed Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis which, though scientifically outdated, continue to impact modern literary analysis.
As you develop your characters, you can remember their personality by boiling them down into a character traits list. Because these traits are often detrimental in face of the story’s conflict, they’re an essential component of your story’s character arcs, and your characters will often have to push back against certain traits to undergo necessary character development.
Without further ado, let’s look at common character traits in literature.
Character Traits List
Take note that many positive character traits can also be negative character traits, and vice versa. For example, while a strong sense of independence is generally considered positive, it can also lead to a character’s sociopathy, hatred of society, and disinterest in family.
Many positive character traits can also be negative character traits, and vice versa.
Alternatively, while “disobedient” is generally seen as negative, disobedience can also bring about positive changes in society. Terms like “positive” and “negative” relate to society’s perception of those traits, but in actuality, most traits can be both positive or negative depending on that character’s circumstances.
Lastly, remember that a protagonist does have negative traits, and an antagonist does have positive traits.
Positive Character Traits List
In the below character traits chart, we’ve listed positive character traits and characters with those traits in literature.
| Character Traits | Definition | Examples in Literature |
|---|---|---|
| Ambitious | Having a strong desire to achieve something and an active will to achieve it. | Macbeth in Macbeth by William Shakespeare. |
| Benevolent | Kind, good-willed, and invested in the health and wellness of everyone. | Alexei “Alyosha” Fyodorovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| Courageous | Brave; willing to act valiantly in the face of fear. | Lucy Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis |
| Curious | Inquisitive; prone to asking many questions and investigating everything. | Hercule Poirot in many of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery novels. |
| Dependable | Able to be relied upon, especially in times of crisis, but also in day-to-day matters. | Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien |
| Dutiful | Characterized by a sense of obligation; committed to doing what needs to be done. | Desdemona in Othello by William Shakespeare |
| Forgiving | Being able to look past someone’s flaws or transgressions without resentment. | Bishop Bienvenu in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo |
| Generous | Willing to give to others. One can be generous with money, but also with their time, emotions, advice, attention, etc. | Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen |
| Honest | Truthful; telling the whole truth, without deceit, in every situation. | Ethan Allan Hawley in The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck |
| Intelligent | Knowledgeable and insightful, showing a strong sense of reasoning and problem-solving. | Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner |
| Independent | Able to think, act, and feel for oneself; uninfluenced by others’ opinions and beliefs. | Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. |
| Lively | Active, outgoing, and energetic, often infectiously so. | Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen |
| Open-minded | Willing to consider new ideas and other people’s experiences; receptive to change. | Huckleberry Finn in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain |
| Passionate | Feeling, showing, and acting upon strong feelings and beliefs. | Jane Eyre in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë |
| Patient | Showing an ability to wait without getting tired of waiting. | Oshima in Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami |
| Purposeful | Determined; acting with a sense of purpose; marked by an absence of aimlessness. | Meg Murry in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle |
| Respectful | Demonstrating regard for other people’s needs, feelings, and comfort. | Elizabeth “Beth” March in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott |
| Selfless | Altruistic; willing to act for other people’s benefit without expecting anything in return. | Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl |
| Sincere | Genuine; speaking and acting without trying to deceive, impress, or sway others. | Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. |
| Wise | Discerning and insightful; Exercising a deep understanding of the world, of others, and of oneself. | Old Major in Animal Farm by George Orwell |
Negative Character Traits List
In the below character traits chart, we’ve listed negative character traits and characters with those traits in literature.
| Character Traits | Definition | Examples in Literature |
|---|---|---|
| Aloof | Cold and distant in demeanor; unfriendly. | Ivan “Vanechka” Fyodorovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| Arrogant | Acting or believing in one’s own superiority to others. | Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger |
| Callous | Emotionless and unsympathetic towards others. | Patrick Bateman in American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis |
| Coarse | Crude and tasteless. | Gargantua and Pentagruel in The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel by François Rabelais |
| Cowardly | Not brave; gracelessly showing fear in the face of conflict. | Baron Danglars in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas |
| Deceitful | Dishonest, often with the intent to mislead or manipulate. | Iago in Othello by William Shakespeare |
| Devious | Cunning, sneaky, and manipulative; using unfair tactics or arguments to win. | Rebecca “Becky” Sharp in Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray |
| Erratic | Unpredictable; making decisions with no clear pattern or reasoning. | Toad in The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame |
| Foolish | Lacking common sense; making poor judgments and decisions. | Romeo in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare |
| Greedy | Demonstrating a selfish and excessive desire for wealth and material goods. | Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens |
| Hateful | Showing disdain for everyone and everything, often including one’s own self. | Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë |
| Ignorant | Uneducated or lacking comprehension, as demonstrated in one’s actions. | Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee |
| Insincere | The opposite of sincere; dishonest in words and actions; hypocritical. | Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen |
| Manipulative | Skillful in controlling others, often for selfish means. | Cathy Ames in East of Eden by John Steinbeck |
| Obsessive | Persistently occupied by something, to the point of acting with disregard for both others and oneself. | Humbert Humbert in Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov |
| Power-hungry | Obsessed with gaining power and wielding it over others. | Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey |
| Pretentious | Expressing an exaggerated amount of self-worth or intelligence, often to garner admiration and respect. | Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole |
| Reckless | Carelessly destructive; irresponsible. | Alaska Young in Looking for Alaska by John Green |
| Selfish | Having concern only for one’s own needs and wants, often to the detriment of others. | Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Vain | Obsessed with appearances, aesthetics, and superficialities. | Dorian Gray in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde |
Advice for Selecting Character Traits in Your Work
Which character traits should my protagonist, antagonist, and secondary characters have? Does it matter?
When writing the people that populate your stories, it’s important to have a balance of character traits so that no two people are the same. Additionally, it’s important that everyone has both positive and negative character traits since, like people in real life, no one is perfect.
Remember that stories are, above all else, about people. Even if those stories are set on different planets, in magical realms, or between alternate universes, it’s your cast of characters that matter most because people drive plot. Your characters are the ones making decisions, reacting to situations, and embarking on journeys; they define their own character arcs, so having a strong set of character traits is essential.
Here are three tips for selecting the best set of character traits in your story:
- For protagonists, give them positive traits to strive for and negative traits to overcome. The best conflicts occur when a protagonist has to overcome their own negative character traits to achieve something.
- For antagonists, think about traits that will make them perfect obstacles against the protagonist. A protagonist who is kind and respectful, but conflict-avoidant, might have a hard time overcoming an antagonist who is loud, coarse, and arrogant.
- For secondary and tertiary characters, consider their purpose in the story, and give them traits that help them uphold that purpose. For example, a secondary character that exists to support the protagonist should be helpful and generous; someone who misleads the protagonist might be well-intentioned but foolish.
Conflict and Character Development
Here are instructor Jack Smith’s thoughts on using conflict to deepen your character development.
Jack Smith Thoughts on Character Development
Jack Smith thoughts on using conflict to deepen character development.
Characters become interesting when they undergo conflict. A character without conflict is a dull character. Conflict gets the reader interested, as long as the conflict is important to the character in a way we can relate to—and in a way that motivates the character to take action.
This takes us to motivation. What prompts your character to do what they do?
What are the protagonist’s stakes? What is the protagonist’s goal?
You can always go back and rethink motivation later, but if your character just seems to be doing something for no apparent reason, it might be harder to fix. Get inside your protagonist. Be your protagonist. See what happens. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, you’ll do well to identify with the protagonist and become that protagonist.
Think story: What’s happening? Where is this character going? What is the main conflict the protagonist faces?
Let the conflict build. Think about foreshadowing, about hinting at something that will occur down the road—for instance, a marital break-up, a run-in with the law, a loss of job. Little things mentioned early on plant seeds of things that will bloom later.
The earlier you hook your reader with interesting conflict, the better for character development. Just set the stage for what is to follow. But don’t treat these pages like a “thesis statement” for the novel; your reader wants to experience the novel, not be told what it’s about. That’s like reading a plot summary instead of the story itself.
Think of conflict as worked out in plot threads. What are the main plot threads in your novel? Assuming you have one main plot thread, what are the subplots that will thread their way through your novel? Watch for these.
A few things to keep in mind:
Fiction thrives on conflict: Not every conflict can be resolved, but avoid dead spots in your fiction—particularly scenes that go nowhere, ones that lack friction.
How about this one?
“How are you?” “Doing pretty well. You?” “Doing pretty well.” “Good.” “Great.”
It’s hard to say. If this is the mindless chatter that most people engage in just to be polite, that might work if you’re satirizing small-town life. But otherwise, cut it.
Weed out extraneous conflicts and plot threads: Do they contribute in some way? Are they like streams flowing into a river? Do they contribute to or parallel the main plot in some way or ways? Consider this: Paul, a police detective, wants to solve a major wave of murders in his small city. He’s been running into some problems, including false leads. Paul has a background in music; he was planning to be a professional violinist, but that didn’t pan out. He’s still conflicted about that goal. My thought is that, unless you can find some connection between his wanting to be a violinist and his being a detective—perhaps something similar in the way he approaches conflicts that sometimes seem insurmountable—I wouldn’t get into his goal in music. Including his music aspirations might help create a complex character, but might seem irrelevant, especially to his character development. Do everything you can to create a unified novel. Perhaps music is his way of reducing stress from a very stressful job.
Let’s say your pantser side comes up with this musical background and that dream to be concert violinist. Follow it up. See where it goes.
Be sure that the main plot thread, as well as those plot threads that relate to the main thread, are sufficiently developed and credible: What does this take? Ask yourself if your protagonist’s character arc is satisfying to a reader. Is more needed? Is that arc believable? It’s been said that the ending needs to be “surprising” but “inevitable.”
Incidentally, be sure that you don’t end up with everything tied up in a neat bundle, but don’t just stop either. What questions does the protagonist’s arc answer? As you write through your novel, be aware, at least, of the direction of your overall plot. If you’re a plotter, you know what it is. If you’re a pantser, you’re discovering it as you go along.
Craft Compelling Character Arcs at Writers.com
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