Writing a Story for Dummies

Flat and Round Characters

        When developing a character, it is important to remember that not all characters should be fleshed out to the same degree. Focal characters should be the most fleshed out characters in your story. Background characters on the other hand shouldn’t be so complicated.

        There are two general categories which describe how complex a character is. The main characters in a story (the protagonist, the antagonist, etc.) are typically round characters. Round characters are the most complex characters in the story. They have the most complicated personalities. Because of this, they seem more like real people than less developed characters. This is done to make these characters more relatable and interesting. 

        Without being able to identify with a character, a reader is a lot less likely to become invested in what happens to a particular character. Characters which have the most evident traits and the most unique experiences are the easiest for people to relate to. This is because these traits and experience are more likely to be similar to those of the reader. They are also more likely to remind the reader of other people in their life or to bring to mind views which they feel strongly about.

        Background characters typically fall into the second category: flat characters. Their categorization is quite shallow and doesn’t provide the reader with much information about them. This makes them seem extremely uninteresting to the reader since flat characters don’t seem like people from the real world.

        Chances are that at least some of your teachers have told you that your stories should only have round characters. This might work for short stories which have very few characters involved. However, this doesn’t suit longer works with larger casts of characters. The reader should mainly be concerned with the main characters and the supporting characters; they shouldn’t have to be worried with the background characters.

        Here is a scenario to demonstrate this point. Imagine two main characters, Greg and Anna, are taking a taxi to the airport. Greg is incredibly stressed about the presentation he will have to make the day after he arrives in Canada. Anna is excited to be going on a trip to her husband, oblivious to his stress. She keeps trying to talk about how excited she is to learn how to ski with him even though Greg keeps hinting at her that he needs to focus on his work until his presentation is out of the way. 

        Assuming that scenario took place in the first chapter of a story, we would already be learning about our main characters. We would know a little about their personalities and about their relationship with each other. There might be other important characters that come in later on. Maybe Greg’s judgmental and demanding boss is the primary antagonist or perhaps Greg and Anna are going to meet up with some of their friends during their trip. 

        Introducing Greg and Anna before introducing other highly important ones gives the reader ample time to begin getting to know them. That will let the reader form opinions about these two characters and allow them to become invested in them. Since the focus is almost exclusively on how the characters are interacting with each other, it should be fairly easy for the reader to get a good look at the personalities of both characters. Their backgrounds and such will probably be explored in more depth later, but both Greg and Anna have at least been introduced to the reader in a way that shows that they are highly important characters in the story.

        Now imagine that the taxi driver is characterized in depth. He is an impatient man who is highly dissatisfied with his job. He barely talks to his passenger, but he often yells at other drivers. The taxi driver is an extremely minor character who only exists in the story to make it seem more realistic. Therefore, there is no need to describe him in great detail.

        It is difficult for readers to become invested in characters when they can’t tell who they are supposed to be focused on. For example, let’s say a reader became interested in the taxi driver in the example above. His attention would then be divided between three characters instead of two; therefore, he wouldn’t be able to absorb as much information about either of the two actual main characters. To keep it clear who the reader should focus on, background characters should be kept relatively flat while main characters are round.

        The two categories of flat and round are not the only degrees to which a character can be developed; they are merely illustrations of the two extremes for how fleshed out a character is. Some characters should fall closer to the middle. As a general rule, characters which are more important to the story tend to be more round than those who are not. 

        Protagonists and antagonists are usually the most round characters. Characters such as love interests and traveling companions are often less round than the protagonist while still being far from flat. Recurring minor characters are closer to the flat end of the spectrum although they are usually more complex than background characters that only appear once simply because they interact with the main characters more often.

        By making your most important character on the round side while keeping relatively unimportant characters more flat, it will be easier for the reader to focus on the main characters in the story. Not only will this make things simpler for the reader, but it will also help you handle your characters as a writer. Using these two categories as a guide, you should be able to keep the spotlight on the main characters while also making sure that less important characters don’t distract both you and the reader from the story you are trying to tell.