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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, the thing that makes authors really famous and people really love books, series and movies.
want an example?
let's see carol from twd. she was a submissive woman whose husband used to physically and mentally abuse. she was broken because of that, she didn't know how to fight, she just stayed behind her trash ass husband. well, it was in the start. carol has such a great character development that it makes us breathless, no joking. she became badass, she became strong and she is one of the biggest fighters and the bravest in the group. but it didn't take one or two episodes, it took several seasons of her progressing overcoming (spoiler alert) the death of her daughter, the abuse of her husband.
so, with this little introduction, let's start talking about what you came here for. the character development in, generally, harry potter fics.
in the book series, for example, we have narcissa's, molly's, dudley's. but let me tell you something, none of this was big fucking deal, it happened so fast, and to be real, narcissa and molly's are reasonable, they wanted to protected her children, but the rest of the characters were 'good stay good' and 'bad stay bad' types, and i'm not complaining. but let's face the facts, ron is the same, hermione is the same, harry is the same, everyone is the same!
however, there's one character that was kind of breathily mentioned and deserved more recognition, regulus!
but we are gonna talk bout it later on.
now, for real this time, i'm gonna talk about how to do and how not to do a great character development.
(WHAT NOT TO DO!)
we have a chiché that is commonly used in 90% of all harry potter fics.
and this is the tremendously cheesy
'i turned a good person cause i fell in love' type of character development.
how many fics have you read that the character was a slytherin, death eater, muggle born hater and then suddenly falls in love with a good guy and "for him/her, i would change my beliefs and become a better person blah blah"
i'm not saying it's bad, cause when it's well written it's tolerable, but, for merlin, don't do it.
i am tired of reading stories where it's the main idea of the plot.
like no guys, character development shouldn't be the main idea of your story.
it should be something people would recognize but you don't have to keep saying it 24/7.
that gives me snape vibes (don't @ me but snape is the worst character in the series)
and the worst part, people will not change because they feel they're being bad.
they don't change cause they regret it.
they always change because of some boyfriend/girlfriend
this tire my ass off.
i'm not saying in any way that love can't change people, it can. but it's cliché, boring and most of the times unrealistic.
the other thing you must not dois making zero character development.
you need character development, you need people overcoming disabilities, it is what makes a story worth being read.
you don't need to make a character turn good or bad, you just need to make them change in some way.
we are people, we change a lot.
last thing, but not least,
I know i said it 100 times but
don't make the character development the main idea of the plot.
now you're wondering how does it work?
well,
stories that can be summarized in:
"r/n is a bad/good person but then she meets c/n and they fall in love, changing her beliefs turning her into a better/worse person"
are poor.
there's no story without a good plot.
the character development comes after, not that it's not important, but it doesn't come first.
(WHAT TO DO)
now let's talk about good things!
there are loads of underrated character development ideas, and i'm gonna tell some of them!
- the person has always been bad, and the background she's living makes them keep it for themselves and suddenly they start to show their true self
- the kylo ren effect! the character starts the story being bad and changes to good, but turns back to being bad.
- the character have certain personality and people underestimate them but she does something really badass and everybody stop underestimating them.
- the character who is always in the background (in your story) turns to be the strongest and most important.
- the antagonist is seem as the worst person in the world for every other character, but they are really good as some got to know them.
- the soft character wakes up to the things that are happening and turns to be salty and sarcastic.
- the person who seems to have the best life between the group starts losing every person they love but it makes her stronger
this are just some examples, they're kinda trash, but you can pm me and i can help you with your character.
