101 TIWIK #29: Character Development

There are books in which characters don’t change, and that is ok. When we enjoy TV sitcoms it is precisely because we know that Homer Simpson will be the same person he is in episode 1 and episode 500. The same with a mystery series; readers expect that the detective will have the same outlook on life in every single book. Character change would actually cheat these readers out of their expectations.

Likewise, some fiction, especially literary, shows that like in real life, some people simply don’t change. The writer might put their character through a wringer and show them ending up on the other side just as cheerful or just as cranky as before. However, in stories where the characters don’t change, the reader will change, because they gain an insight into human nature.

I’m going to focus on stories where characters change, because that is what I write and know.

On a side note, changing characters is also known as character development, but if you Google character development, you will get a whole lot of information on how to create a character. For the purpose of this article, I mean character change or character arc when I say development.

The main problem I’ve always had with character development is that when I get to the end of the book, the character has changed, but I haven’t quite written toward the change in order to make the change believable. The result is an abruptness that pushes the reader out of the story.

There’s a clear solution to this, and it involves taking four steps throughout the arc of the character. If you know how the character is to change by the end of the book, you can draft with these steps in mind. If you’ve discovered the changes in your characters in the process of writing the book, you’ll probably want to go back and revise with these steps in mind.

Prepare the reader for the change

From the very beginning, you can plant tiny seeds in the reader’s mind by showing the reader that the character has qualities that can lead to the change, or that he has had these qualities in the past. Perhaps your character starts as an overly aggressive warrior, but has a hidden fondness for pets. It will be easier for the reader to accept that this warrior will become a gentle peacenik later on if they see him petting a kitten early in the book. Or perhaps your character is a bitter washout who hates the system, but was once a happy, productive member of society. If you can reveal to readers that things were once different, it will be easier for them to accept when the character becomes a successful political activist.

Put the character in the pressure cooker

People don’t naturally want to change. In order to get people to change, you have to put something at stake if they don’t change. Something, or a string of somethings, has to pressure the character into changing. In literary fiction, these pressures are often internal; in genre fiction, they are more likely to be external. Ask yourself, what will happen to the character (or the character’s loved ones) if they don’t change? If the answer is nothing, then the change isn’t valid. And that’s an error I’ve made a lot in earlier attempts: inserting invalid character changes in order to move the plot along. It can be really tempting, but it cheats the reader. If you need a character to change, figure out what pressures you’ll have to put on him to make the change happen naturally.

Moment of truth

This is the moment in your book where the impetus to change becomes an action on the part of the character. If you’ve prepared the reader sufficiently to believe the change is possible, they will not doubt the action. In fact, they will welcome it and be swept away by it. This is not the time for the character or narrator to reflect on the change; not a time to tell the reader what is happening. The action driven by the change must stand on the preparation you’ve laid down beforehand and nothing else. This is when the terrified young boy picks up a sword, when the aggressive barbarian lays down his weapons.

“But I really have changed” 

One action is important, but it’s not enough. It’s easy to get swept away in a moment of glory and then go right back to the old habits. You have to convince readers that the change will actually last, that the character has truly changed and not simply risen to the occasion. So in addition to the grand “moment of truth” action, you’ll want to add a few smaller actions at the end, simple gestures that show that the character really has changed. Perhaps you could show the barbarian planting crops or reveal that the terrified boy is taking a kung-fu class. Just something to show that the change is pervading the character’s life.

I’m a firm believer, unless you are writing a genre serial that works best without character development, or a literary art piece aimed to change the reader, that your lead character and all the secondary characters should experience some form of change. In a series, character change can be a great propeller of plot. The character arc of one book can leave you with a cast of the same characters with far different roles and outlooks in the next book. This kind of switching around can keep the series engaging while allowing the characters to grow and allowing the readers to enjoy reading about the characters they know and love.

The only characters that you probably shouldn’t change are stock characters. Stock characters are like extras; the guard on the wall or the messenger or the enemy soldier. Why not allow their character to change? Because, like the wall, or the letter, or the sword, they are part of the setting. They serve a purpose, and once they’ve served their purpose they are sent off-screen. Doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting little bits of color thrown into the mix. Sometimes bit characters are a fun, integral part of a book or movie. Remember the two comic relief pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean? They didn’t change, but they were entirely believable (within the context of the story world) characters with an important, though tiny, role.

My main reason for not allowing stock characters to change is that the set up for character change is so involved, there isn’t really room to change every single character. Some secondary characters might not need to change, either. But it is still important to consider secondary characters capable of change, especially if they are under the same pressures as your lead character. If a character doesn’t change when a reader thinks they will, simply because their changing doesn’t fit into your plot, that could be as bad as an artificial change.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the other kind of character development, creating a character in: 101 TIWIK #30: Characters are Made of Questions.

This post is part of a series of 101 Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Wrote My First Book. Start reading the series at the beginning. 

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