Flat & rounded character

Just a general question about character development ...

Is it possible to write a compelling character that is Static or Flat? What is a good way to flesh out a character's personality without having to give them an elaborate backstory? Can you give examples of characters you find interesting despite not going through any significant development?

Conversely, has there been any examples of a character you find boring or uncompelling despite the fact that he/she has a very detailed past story?

And if a character has spent almost the entirety of their appearances remaining the same, what can be a good way to introduce Character Development, if that is even necessary??

Follow-up discussions will be much appreciated.

edited 23rd May '18 10:17:27 PM by Adept

Mentor characters are of the static type generally, often the only real development they get is getting killed at the start of the second act. Iroh is an example of a well-written static character that comes to mind first. Snape could also qualify - for all his Hidden Depths, his character doesn't really change over the course of the series, only our perception of him does.

As for well-written flat characters, look no further than the most recent incarnation of the Doomguy. One-note? Definitely: all he cares is about killing the demons, but the game expresses this characterization of him in very interesting ways. He also could only work within the context of his own game, so the tone and the genre of the story is a big factor for the success of a Flat Character. Jim Sterling made a nice analysis on him.

Flat characters can be interesting, but you have to keep in mind that flat characters serve a different narrative purpose than rounded characters. Rantasmo from Needs More Gay actually talks about how flat characters and round characters are both needed for a compelling story in one of his videos (it's around the 3:40 mark):

Basically, he states that while round characters are the ones that drive and resolve conflicts, while flat characters support round characters by providing information on the setting, acting as plot devices, giving readers a glimpse into what sort of people populate the world, etc.

Hidden depth is a good way to develop the character later on.

Static characters should be given eccentricities.

Flat or stereotypical characters can be used as minor antagonists, or minor side characters that don't qualify as filler characters, but still cannot be considered a main, whom only appears some 2-3 times. But beware, you might still want to give them human level intelligence. A flat character is one thing, a dumb character is an entirely different monster.

Please bare in mind that everything you write contributes to character history of any character involved in the story. Main characters should never be static or flat. Even if they begin as a flat character, as long as there's significant conflict in the story, then they must learn, adapt, and grow to bare with said conflict. Otherwise, realistically they will fail and suffer the consequences.

(Note: I edited some stuff out because I miss read.)

edited 24th May '18 3:19:08 PM by Hermes

By failure, do you mean they fail as a character, or they fail in their goals? Because the latter might not be a bad thing, within certain context.

As a specific example, the character I have in mind is from an RP I'm involved in. The character is a part of a fantasy race that's frankly not well-defined by the creator/admin, and I don't know enough about the race (their culture, their habits, their social hierarchy) to give them a well-defined backstory. The character's basic personality is selfish, proud and elitist.

They are primarily motivated to achieve more and more prestige, and while they might be willing to change their methods to better gain power for themselves, they stubbornly refuse to see other people as more than either enemies or stepping stones to further their goals. I honestly don't like this character very much (though mostly because I'm really not comfortable with writing non-humans, especially since I'm not the one who built the universe or designed the races), but the character have remained static for almost two years despite having going through several cases where they've gotten in trouble many times for being either too careless or too cautious in pursuing their goals.

I'm wondering if there's any good way to start giving this character some development, or if I should just leave them as-is until they eventually get themselves killed for good.

Are you asking from the perspective of verisimilitude or storytelling? Characters who remain prideful even after repeatedly facing the consequences of their behavior are the sort that often generate the most irritation from audiences and eventually have to get shifted out of focus or killed off to avoid losing people.

If they're from a race whose hat is that its members never, ever stop being prideful jerks, such that having them change their ways would seem impossible, then I'd call shame on whoever invented that race, since it severely restricts the kinds of stories you can tell with it.

edited 25th May '18 7:00:31 AM by Fighteer

I mean't both. They will fail in their goals because they'll use the same(or similar) approach in dealing with matters. They'll fail as a character because people who are incapable of growing oftenly get labeled as dumb or stupid by the readers.

Of course, you probably mean't 'growth in terms of personality', whereas the above paragraph gets a bit into 'growth in terms of knowledge/wisdom'. However, as you've stated before, the character's very 'proud', 'the character refuses to see other's as nothing more than stepping stones/enemies', and has 'stayed this way for many years'. To put it into simpler terms, your character is more or less an egomaniac. He/she is more likely to blame others for their own failure. Growth in general is just presumably a bit hard for them.

In the case of your particular character the only way to change him/her is to make them realize that they are the issue, not other people. But self awareness is a hard thing to achieve, having been sorta egotistic a while back I can safely vouch for this.

I would recommend going the hard way and have him/her go through something traumatizing; an event that'll somehow make him realize he's the problem. Perhaps someone he/she cares for dies or suffers due to reasons that he knows he could've stopped, or otherwise.

Of course falling in love is another possible solution. I'm not a particular fan of romance, but I hear it can do wonders to change people. Simply have your character fall in love with someone who hates him/her due to the personality they have. Perhaps he won't change as quickly, but change isn't supposed to be easy to begin with. (Method two can be tedious due to the time it takes, so if you really get bored I suggest you to time skip a week or month or year or so if you have to. Just write the juicy stuff)

lots of fantasy stories seem to have planet of hats going on, and I wouldn't fault them all too much on it. Perhaps being stuck up is simply their version of being normal. Blue and orange morality and whatnot. Sense of what is common and what is not - in other words - common sense, may greatly differ from community to community. For instance, we humans have a common practice among ourselves to not make eye contact with strangers. When we're riding public transit or in the elevators we choose not to look into the eyes of the person across from us because of... common sense. According to ourselves it makes things awkward for the atmosphere.

Otherwise, it may be a physical or psychological need of some sort. Ex. vampires drink blood otherwise their body crumbles away, demons crave destruction otherwise they turn insane, and etc...

Religion and culture may also play a part. Ex. Dwarves mine/craft because they live in the mountains.

But yes, I understand what your generally getting at. Some hats are a bit... strange. If being stuck up has proven to be detrimental for the society as a whole, then logically they would adapt, or else realistically speaking, they would crumble away to the test of time.

However, there are certain cases that do make sense... to some extent. Now, what I'm about to say gets a little out of the threads original context, but I would like to bring it up anyways because of its relevance to fantasy race stereotyping, which in turn is relevant to static/flat characters.

I've once read a badly written book. Bad in the sense that the grammar and narrative was crap. However, I would like to bring the book's particular world building up due to its relatively interesting usage and explanation behind the world of hats trope.

You see, in this world we have stuff like humans, dwarves, elves, and other fantasy races. Typical fantasy stuff. Humans are sly and short lived. Dwarves are miners/crafters and short. Elves are stuck up and long lived. Even more typical fantasy stuff. And the elves are stuck up because of the typical I'm so-long-lived-I'm-older-than-your-grandparents-thus-I'm-wiser-than-you excuse. Same old, same old I guess.

But this is where things get interesting. Some time ago, before the actual story starts, there was a ginormous war between the races which pretty much redivided the power between said races. Unfortunately, the elves were preceded by the humans(shaping up to be a shitty version of Lord of the Rings isn't it?). And because of this major world event, the elves learned that they need to be craftier, sneakier, and slyer. Now, this story doesn't actually subvert the planet of hat trope(they're still relatively stuck up), but the elves - whom remember everything one thousand years ago as something that's just happened yesterday - do in fact grow as a whole.

When a new war initiates the elves no longer mind resorting to dirty tricks in order to tip the scales in their favor. The war would've been a one sided if it wasn't for the fact that the protagonist(an eight hundred or so years old lich) is just as sly if not slyer than the elves.

Now, what I'm trying to say here is that, if a society has a logical reason for being stuck up then its okay for you(as the writer) to have them be stuck up. In this particular story, the elves were stuck up because even a single member of their species could've been possibly more wise than the populace of entire towns or cities combined, but if any species as a whole for any reason fail or suffer defeat, then it would be even more logical for them to adapt to their new situation. Perhaps they will remain stuck up, but perhaps less so.

(Note that this does not apply to your character. I'm talking about an entire community suffering the consequences of failure, not an individual.)

I guess one of the problems with my case is that, in an RP, there's a gameplay element that doesn't always follow a normal narrative pattern. In fact, any introduction of new races seem to have no real purpose beyond expanding the available character skillsets, and their cultural norms is only mentioned in brief passing, if at all.

In other words, how far the character could go in terms of their achievements depend on the player's active participation/investment for that particular account. So even if the character have a personality flaw that would normally hold them back from advancing, in the game, the players could still develop the characters' skill by choosing to partake the right Quests and picking the right choices during events.

With regards to my character, they're actually a villain, so if their personality is unlikable, I suppose I can chalk it up to Hate Sink. That said, I sort of have a justification for their arrogance because, in my mind, they come from a noble household, not unlike The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, who has bought into the idea of their family's supremacy. However, that fact is not actually mentioned that often because 1) I don't know if the race even have nobility in their social structures, and 2) they're currently living in the human world, where their surname holds absolutely no significance.

Another thing that I worry about giving this particular character a Character Development is because I've had plenty of characters with similar traits, and this one's distinguishing characteristic is their pride. I don't know of making them more well-rounded would make them end up with the same exact personality as others.

edited 2nd Jun '18 6:59:17 AM by Adept

I think there's a difference between "static" and "flat" characters that's pretty important. A "static" character is one that does not go through a character arc in the narrative, or does not grow or change for better or for worse throughout the story. It's totally possible for a static character to be interesting and have a likable and realistic personality; they just won't change or develop over the course of the narrative.

A "flat" character on the other hand, is usually meant in a pejorative sense towards a character who has no real personality at all. A stereotypical jock character, or a villain that is pure evil, or a hero who never questions or has doubts are all examples of flat characters.