Creating Round Characters v. Flat Characters

[SimonDoom]

I'm nearing the end of a volume of essays by E.M. Foerster, Aspects of the Novel, in which he discusses, among other things, the importance of characters in a story. He distinguishes between round and flat characters. Flat characters are 2-dimensional. They do not surprise us. Every time they appear in the story they act in the same, expected way. Round characters are three-dimensional. They do things that occasionally surprise us. They have depth and multiple aspects. They do something or introduce something new as they go through the story.

For me, personally, creating a round character in an erotic short story is a challenge. It's something I want to do, but I often feel I fall short of the mark. I tend to be focused on the concept and the plot and the writing style and the sex. Attending to full character development sometimes gets short shrift.

Do you try to write "round" characters? Is it something you are conscious of when you write? Are there any particular things you do to give your characters roundness?

 

[HeyAll]

I try to write characters as stereotypes or caractures. And I try to keep them consistent with dialogue. Like a strict character will be strict.

But my main thing with the main character is that the person has to want something. If I'm writing a story and it's not working, it's because I've strayed away from that point. There are exceptions though.

 

[yowser]

An interesting question, and something I also struggle with in my writing.

Stories have room for 2-D characters when they serve as shortcuts or abbreviated plot-advancers (Shakespeare had his own stock characters, almost place-holder types) but the best main characters attain their complexity by:

1. Being flawed. Making mistakes, although this can be overdone, and become unreal when a character acts 180 degrees opposite their motivations and emotional qualities.

2. Some degree of self-awareness, capacity to reflect, display agency. Characters who are perceptive, exhibiting or describing what they see and hear and ruminate about, will help ground an emotional realism.

3. Agency needs to be consistent within their emotional blueprint. It is always more interesting to have characters who do things, even in exaggeration, who create drama, tension, conflict that serve to move the story ahead, towards its crisis or climax. Navel gazing, unless unusually well portrayed, tends not to make a satisfying read.

Even the most imaginative plot won't work without a thinking, feeling protagonist.

 

[Omenainen]

My roundest character was Karen in my last year’s Amorous Goods story, she’s almost as wide as she is tall

Seriously, though, I’m all about characters. Plot is something that happens if it happens, kind of like a happy extra.

 

[NotWise]

Do you try to write "round" characters? Is it something you are conscious of when you write? Are there any particular things you do to give your characters roundness?

I do try to write "round" characters, and I'm very conscious of it when I write.

If sex is the only thing going on in a story, then it's going to be hard to give dimension to your characters. But maybe in that story they don't need to be more than 2-dimensional.

I like characters to have multiple facets and motivations that aren't real simplistic. That makes them interesting to write (important to me), and hopefully it makes them interesting to read. The story needs to be more complicated to add those dimensions. Some readers don't want that. Some do.

"Sex Under Studio Lights" was a recent example in another thread, so I'll use it here, too. Joyce is widowed near the beginning of the story, but she doesn't just become a lonely homemaker mom, which might be all it would take to justify a story, but not my story.

Instead, Joyce is a successful realtor with photography as a hobby, and she has an active social life -- particularly with Deb, who influences her thinking. She changes through the story. She tires of her real estate interests, and builds a new career as a photographer.

Joyce has a complicated relationship with her son, treating him sometimes as a social equal, as a bodyguard, as a model, and as a lover. As you might expect, the son also changes through the story.

Deb is equally complex. There are conflicts in her life. She balances her art and sexual adventures with being a responsible teacher and a conservative force in a community organization. Her relationship with Joyce's son changes through the story from Aunt, to friend, to lover.

 

[KeithD]

I'm plot centric, so I think I'm not spending a lot of time worrying about what the characters are and aren't. They are there helping to drive or fulfill the plot. Being plot centric means I have to give meaning to what/why they are doing what they are, though, which I think gives them some depth.

 

[rescatooor]

I don't think Forster's definition of a flat character is really as one would expect. Now, I have only read A Passage to India and have more to read. To him a flat character is simply consistent: their actions make sense. His stories include many of those, usually in form of secondary or tertiary characters.

It's an art form to make these flat characters in a sense "break character" into that round dimension. How to make it believable? In erotica there are plenty of instances of characters suddenly becoming extremely sex positive when earlier they have been rigid. Some are done well, some less so. I know I have attempted something like this once or twice.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'm nearing the end of a volume of essays by E.M. Foerster, Aspects of the Novel, in which he discusses, among other things, the importance of characters in a story. He distinguishes between round and flat characters. Flat characters are 2-dimensional. They do not surprise us. Every time they appear in the story they act in the same, expected way. Round characters are three-dimensional. They do things that occasionally surprise us. They have depth and multiple aspects. They do something or introduce something new as they go through the story.

For me, personally, creating a round character in an erotic short story is a challenge. It's something I want to do, but I often feel I fall short of the mark. I tend to be focused on the concept and the plot and the writing style and the sex. Attending to full character development sometimes gets short shrift.

Do you try to write "round" characters? Is it something you are conscious of when you write? Are there any particular things you do to give your characters roundness?

I think my writing is more character driven than that of a lot of writers here. I always strive to make my characters are rounded and realistic as possible.

Also, I almost always have some sort of subtext in my stories. The Adventures of ranger Ramona is about a young first ranger who gets involved in a tangled web of ereoti relationships, but it is also about what it's like to be a young woman trying to make it in a male dominated profession. The Gold Dollar Girls is about the sexual adventures of a group of strippers, and it's about their relationships with each other and its about societies attitudes toward sex workers.

So, if your main characters are flat, is the problem with the characters, or is it a symptom of a larger flaw with the whole project? Perhaps what is interesting about them can't break through because of the constraints of the plot or theme.

With more minor characters, there are a lot of easy ways to round them out, and it can be a lot of fun. The important thing is to think about what they bring to the story. Let's say, for example, that they are the protagonist's boss. The first building block of their characterization would be to decide how they represent the way the protagonist feels about the job. Do they hate it? Then the boss is probably a jerk. If they love it, find it fulfilling, the boss would have more positive attributes.

From there.you color them in. Maybe have the jerk boss show some endearing quality. He's a jerk to his employees, but he take in stray dogs or something. Maybe the nice boss shows flashes or irrational anger now and then. Whatever, you're the writer, figure it out.

I also like to add little bits of business, often humorous (I hope) that give heft to the characters.

Example, from Ranger Ramona. The rangers are gathered at the local saloon. Piney is the rough hewn older ranger who mentors Ramona, Cassie is his wife.

Piney fished a handful of change from his pocket. “Think I’ll put a few quarters in the jukebox,” he said.

“Play something besides George Jones,” Cassie admonished him as he rose from his seat.

Just as Piney was returning to the table and George Jones was singing the opening lines of A Good Year For The Roses...

So we learn that Piney, despite his tough no nonsense exterior, is a fan of the weepiest strains of sentimental country music, and probably a much softer guy inside than we would expect. We also learn that he is the kind of guy who either doesn't care what other people, even his wife, tell him to do, or that he just enjoys needling her a little bit, or, more probably, both, since obviously, this isn't the first time the issue has come up. I think that's a pretty good amount of characterization in four sentences.

 

[KeithD]

I don't know if it's flat vs. round characters, but characters serve different purposes in stories and thus require differing treatment. In a cafe scene you may have to bring in the character of a server to propel the plot (get a drink delivered) but that character may not need to (shouldn't) be filled out to extent the two at the cafe table are (or conversely, if the server is the significant character, she/he might need to get filling out that the two being served don't need). You don't have to (and should not) provide a life's story to every character in a story needed to keep the plot moving.

 

[JuanaSalsa]

My main interest when I write, is the main characters. I think of a fun idea, and then I love imagining what sort of people would do that. Why? What happened to bring them to that point?

The characters come alive in my head and start taking their own actions. If they don't want to do what I started out wanting them to do, by the time I get to that part of the story, I don't make them do it. I let them do their own thing and start over with new characters if I still really like that plot idea. For these Lit stories, at least. For a full novel, it'd be better to plan so you don't have to rewrite 50k words, lol.

A person is only surprising in real life because we're not inside their head. I mean, we rarely surprise ourselves with what we choose to do, because we know exactly who we are. So, if a character has done something surprising, it is because there is a disconnect between their outer projection of themselves and their inner self. I'm not interested in characters that are inconsistent (surprising) with no sign of any reason why. That feels cheap. If you know why a character is how they are, then they can do things differently in different situations, just like real people. I like that kind of character.

Anyway, if I have to choose between the characters and the plot, I pick the characters. If I don't care about the character, then I don't care what happens to them or what they do. Just because a story is short doesn't mean the characters are underdeveloped. Some of the most titillating short erotica that I've enjoyed on Lit, are essentially character studies, that happen during sex.

So much of who a person is comes out in how they have sex. Do they like to serve, are they narcissistic, do they need to be in control, or controlled? Are they confident or self-conscious, passionate or reserved? There is so much opportunity to delve into a character and their relationships in sex scenes.

 

[KeithD]

Some of the most titillating short erotica that I've enjoyed on Lit, are essentially character studies, that happen during sex.

I think what's making it a story is in what happens because of sex rather than what happened during sex. That makes plot important.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't know if it's flat vs. round characters, but characters serve different purposes in stories and thus require differing treatment. In a cafe scene you may have to bring in the character of a server to propel the plot (get a drink delivered) but that character may not need to (shouldn't) be filled out to extent the two at the cafe table are (or conversely, if the server is the significant character, she/he might need to get filling out that the two being served don't need). You don't have to (and should not) provide a life's story to every character in a story needed to keep the plot moving.

Foerster makes this point in his essay. There's no need to make every character round. Some characters serve discrete functions in the story, and that's all they must do. Flat characters can be entertaining precisely because they stick so closely to the few traits the author gives them.

 

[KeithD]

Foerster makes this point in his essay. There's no need to make every character round. Some characters serve discrete functions in the story, and that's all they must do. Flat characters can be entertaining precisely because they stick so closely to the few traits the author gives them.

Sounds right to me.

Concentrating on character alone covers just one aspect of a story. It doesn't make a story. Story = dilemma/conflict/change/resolution. Those are primarily plot elements. A character story can be a good vignette. It alone doesn't rise to story. But, then, I think those saying they concentrate on character are providing plot as well or there's nothing for their characters to do, no place for them to go, no real reason to consider them at all.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Sounds right to me.

Concentrating on character alone covers just one aspect of a story. It doesn't make a story. Story = dilemma/conflict/change/resolution. Those are primarily plot elements. A character story can be a good vignette. It alone doesn't rise to story. But, then, I think those saying they concentrate on character are providing plot as well or there's nothing for their characters to do, no place for them to go, no real reason to consider them at all.

When I say my writing is character driven, what that means to me is that I try to create complex characters whose traits or personalities give rise to the conflicts or dilemmas that form the story.

 

[KeithD]

When I say my writing is character driven, what that means to me is that I try to create complex characters whose traits or personalities give rise to the conflicts or dilemmas that form the story.

Sounds right. Whenever this comes up, all I see is "character-driven" and when I mention plot, I get the sound of silence. I think folks aren't thinking about what makes up a story.

 

[MetaBob]

The characters come alive in my head and start taking their own actions. If they don't want to do what I started out wanting them to do, by the time I get to that part of the story, I don't make them do it. I let them do their own thing and start over with new characters if I still really like that plot idea.

Well said.

I don't write characters, I sketch them. Then, once they're comfortable doing so, I let them tell their own story, coloring my sketches in their own way. Not all of them, of course, just the main characters and some of their secondary characters, who sometimes turn out to be as interesting as the main ones. What do these people want? How would they go about getting it? What are they thinking as they go about it? I let them tell me, ideally through their actions rather than their thoughts, though sometimes I have to ask.

I have an idea of where I want the story to go, I just don't always know how to get there. I give my characters room to tell me. Sometimes they tell me their quirks. I love that.

I wrangle them back on course if I have to, but usually my characters tell a more interesting story than I envisioned. I use as much of what they give me as I can.

Example (from The Dog Whisperer):

"How do you feel?"
"Like a train wreck. It's hard to imagine getting out of bed."
"I bet. We certainly worked you over, didn't we?"
"You were a credit to your gender," I said.
She gave me a quizzical look.
"It's a Warren Zevon lyric. Linda Ronstadt also did a version."
"Don't know him, I guess."
"You will if you let me stick around."
"Signs point to yes," she whispered, smiling. "Magic 8-ball lyric." Then she kissed me with soft lips.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm nearing the end of a volume of essays by E.M. Foerster, Aspects of the Novel, in which he discusses, among other things, the importance of characters in a story. He distinguishes between round and flat characters. Flat characters are 2-dimensional. They do not surprise us. Every time they appear in the story they act in the same, expected way. Round characters are three-dimensional. They do things that occasionally surprise us. They have depth and multiple aspects. They do something or introduce something new as they go through the story.

For me, personally, creating a round character in an erotic short story is a challenge. It's something I want to do, but I often feel I fall short of the mark. I tend to be focused on the concept and the plot and the writing style and the sex. Attending to full character development sometimes gets short shrift.

Do you try to write "round" characters? Is it something you are conscious of when you write? Are there any particular things you do to give your characters roundness?

I think this distinction works pretty well for my writing, although occasionally a flat character acquires some extra dimension or even inflates to become one of the main characters. For my stories here I'd typically have about 2-4 rounded characters and a supporting cast.

Some of the things I consider in rounding out characters:

Basic CV stuff: birth dates, work and family history, where they've lived. A lot of this will never make it onto the page but having it in my head helps get a feel for them and builds consistency. Family relationships often help flesh out a character.

What are their main drives? What are they wrestling with? What does it take to get them angry?

How do they talk, and how does that relate to their background/personality? I've written quite a few migrant/non-Anglo characters in my stories here, and that influences their speech, but in different ways for each of them. Some of them try to hide their origins, some aim for respectability, some deliberately mangle their English as part of a "your language isn't as important as you think it is" flex. Some switch their modes of speech depending on the context, others struggle with that and speak in the same formal tone almost everywhere. Sometimes their speech reflects worldview - for instance, one character believes everything is planned by God, so she won't refer to "luck".

 

[ElectricBlue]

Do you try to write "round" characters? Is it something you are conscious of when you write? Are there any particular things you do to give your characters roundness?

Always. Whether I succeed is another story, but even my bit characters, my walk-on roles, I try to paint in such a way, even if it's only the lightest brush strokes, that the character could, if given the opportunity, get a story of their own. Several have, and some get loaned out to other stories, maybe with a name change, because for me, that character will be more three dimensional from their first sentence, because I've written them already.

My tendency to have tightly focussed scenes, with only two or three in the room at any one time, helps.

I'm lazy though, when it comes to my male characters, because they're all variations on a single theme - but then it's the women that interest me more, so they get the wider range.

Things I do? Try to give each one some noticeable little feature that stands out - like Kittie's name badge:

"Kittie," she offered. "My name's Kittie." She glanced down at herself, and ran her finger along the top of a name badge, nicely angled on her left breast. Or perhaps it was the curve of her breast that was nice, and the badge went along for the ride.

 

[LAHomedog]

Yes. I attempt to make every character three-dimensional, or round as in the terms of this thread. Even the ones that are just drop-ins.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Yes. I attempt to make every character three-dimensional, or round as in the terms of this thread. Even the ones that are just drop-ins.

I do as well. Why not give your world a little more texture?

For example, all I needed in this scene was for the character to take a call while waiting in line to buy a coffee.

Midway through her shift she pulled into the Village Store in Searsmont to get a cup of coffee. She went to the counter to pay for it and waited while an elderly man in a Celtics jacket and a Navy veteran cap debated which scratch off tickets might be the luckiest.

Better than just saying "She waited in line behind another customer." Put in some effort, for crying out loud.

 

[SimonDoom]

Sounds right. Whenever this comes up, all I see is "character-driven" and when I mention plot, I get the sound of silence. I think folks aren't thinking about what makes up a story.

I'm a plot-first writer. That's in part why I raised the thread -- because with my stories character comes second, and it's a challenge to draw the characters in a way that I feel they match the plot. I want them to be equal to the plot, not just serve it. It's a challenge to do both plot and character well, I think, even though in a really great story they often complement each other.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'm a plot-first writer. That's in part why I raised the thread -- because with my stories character comes second, and it's a challenge to draw the characters in a way that I feel they match the plot. I want them to be equal to the plot, not just serve it. It's a challenge to do both plot and character well, I think, even though in a really great story they often complement each other.

When I create my major characters, I try to know as much as I can about them, even if most of that knowledge never makes it into the story. As I go through my day, I will hear a song on the radio and form an opinion on whether or not they'd like it. Would they go to the restaurant where I had lunch? Who did they vote for? Do they think the Three Stooges are funny? 90% of it is idle speculation, little more than daydreaming, but some of it comes through, either directly or just in giving me a better understanding of who they are.

 

[KeithD]

And I don't. That would encourage me to try to fit everything I'd established about the character into the story when much of it wouldn't serve the story in any way but distraction and wordiness. And then if I did it with all the secondary characters as well . . .

I guess that would be part of my emphasizing plot over characters.

That's one of the reasons fiction is so great. There are so many ways to approach it.

 

[NotWise]

When I create my major characters, I try to know as much as I can about them, even if most of that knowledge never makes it into the story. As I go through my day, I will hear a song on the radio and form an opinion on whether or not they'd like it. Would they go to the restaurant where I had lunch? Who did they vote for? Do they think the Three Stooges are funny? 90% of it is idle speculation, little more than daydreaming, but some of it comes through, either directly or just in giving me a better understanding of who they are.

Specifics aside, I do that too. I know way more about my characters than I ever write. Those ideas shape how they talk and how they relate to each other in ways that the readers never know.

 

[TxRad]

The better question might be, how do you make a round character instead of a flat one?

And no, more baking soda is not the correct answer but it is in a way.

Emotions and getting inside their head.