Introduction
One of the things writers of all levels can run into is the problem of flat characters. Characters can be flat because they haven’t been characterized in a way that makes them stand out, or they can end up flat because they’re cliche and boring. This is especially concerning if your main characters are the ones that end up flat. So, how do you bring a flat character to life? Let’s take a look at some of the common issues and ways to fix them so the character has a life of their own.
Voice
Last week, we talked about voice as a method of characterization. This is one place where a character can go flat. If they sound just like everyone else in the entire novel, they’re not going to stand out. Obviously, if the problem runs that deep, other characters will also be flat. But the problem might only extend to one or two characters that readers can’t distinguish between because of their similarity in voice. This is still a major problem if it’s occurring with main characters.
I won’t go into great length about voice since it’s already covered in my last article here. Review that to see how you can effectively use voice to provide characterization that is solid and unique to each character.
Direct Characterization
The next thing that could happen is having no direct characterization for a character. Direct characterization is when the author tells the reader something about the character.
This is one that I personally recommend avoiding for the most part, but sometimes there’s good reason to use it. If it’s something we would never learn otherwise but need to know, for example, the author might choose to tell us that fact about the character. Note that this particular type of characterization won’t work for deep-point-of-view because deep POV focuses on eliminating the author’s voice and diving into the character’s point-of-view exclusively.
Indirect Characterization
This one is far more important than direct characterization for bringing a flat character to life. Indirect characterization focuses on all the things we learn about a character through little quirks, repeated actions, or recurring phrases and words. In this method, the character reveals himself or herself a piece at a time through concrete actions and behaviors, not through the author’s say-so.
If a character is feeling flat, there’s a good possibility this is what’s missing. The little habits, oddities, and nuances of a person is what makes them unique, and that’s equally true of a character.
This technique also has the added benefit of allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions and fill the character in with the broad strokes of their imagination, which often results in a more vivid picture for the reader than telling them directly does.
Another important note about indirect characterization is that it can include physical descriptions. Perhaps a character has a particular scar or marking on their body that bears significance to them and continually reminds them of how or why they got it. That can result in indirect characterization because that scar or marking acts as a vehicle to deliver information to the reader regarding that character.
Emotional Depth and Motivation
Another possible problem with your characterization is that they lack emotional depth and motivation. This problem can be the result of a cliche character. It happens a lot with books that focus on character types that have been overused. Think books with main characters like the bad boy, good girl, nerd, or any of the paranormal tropes such as vampires, werewolves, or witches.
Now, it isn’t that those character types can’t be given depth. They can. But often, writers slip into the cliche because it’s easier, and they forget to make the character unique. Emotional depth and motivation can help with this.
Revealing a character’s mindset and giving them just the right mix of emotional qualities can take a cliche character type and make it into an actual three-dimensional character that readers can relate to. Their emotional depth and how they respond to emotional stimuli provides the motivation for their actions in many cases. Even when people are at their most rational, emotion will factor in.
So if your character is feeling flat, check to make sure that your reader can connect to your character on an emotional level and can understand what motivates your character. Often, describing a character through their emotional state can be much more image-evoking than a physical one.
Change
This last one is the biggest problem that can lead to a flat character. If your character doesn’t change throughout the novel and is relatively uncomplicated, they are the definition of flat. The simplest way to fix the problem is to make sure they have a character arc. Make sure that by the end of the story, the character has changed, either for better or worse, and has learned something, ideally. There really isn’t much else you can do to fix this, but if you do that, then your character should be headed in a much more three-dimensional direction.
Conclusion
Though there are many reasons why a character may end up feeling flat, I’ve done my best to cover the main reasons why it happens. Do you have other reasons you’ve found for why a character ends up flat or ways to fix flat characters? If so, feel free to share them in the comments below! If you have something you’d like to see on Thursday Technicalities that I haven’t covered yet, feel free to send me an email or leave it in the comments.