How characters change in tales (and easy methods to write plausible modifications)
You've probably heard this before: your character must change throughout your story. Characters need to transform.
I see a lot of confusion about this concept. Writers can usually pin the change down (weak to strong, bad to good, cynical to optimistic), but it often comes from some strange place that doesn't quite match what we know about the protagonist. Or it is too big a change (or too big a "fairy tale ending") to be believable.
Writers think great characters need drastic changes, but that's not always the case.
Let's take a look at how writers should deal with character changes and how creating a character arc can result in a more interesting cast and plot.
Nobody likes change
In real life, people change in small ways, but they are resistant to that change.
Change happens slowly, in a kind of cocoon metamorphosis, like a caterpillar for a butterfly. It doesn't happen overnight, it rarely happens without falling into the previous behavior, and there's better a good reason for it to happen from the start.
What makes changes in stories so fascinating to people is that despite despicable changes, people want to believe that we are capable of changing, preferably for the better.
So your characters have to change for the story to be worth reading. But you don't have to like it.
Sometimes characters don't even change for the better and end tragically.
Remember: your character changes because of the things that happen around them. Not because they want to.
Your character has to change due to circumstances that they cannot control. To survive and / or thrive, they must change to combat these circumstances. You have to make decisions and therefore act in the course of a story.
Stasis = death.
Events trigger a change
The character change is triggered by an event. A large.
It doesn't have to be "big" like a death or a massive explosion (but it definitely can be!). It could be something smaller, like hearing your friend's parents divorce or your oldest child graduating from preschool.
Note that your character does not select this event. It is an outside force that is acting on them.
Then, in the second act, more events occur that propel your character forward in a struggle for transformation.
The triggering event is proportional to the change in your character. Something small shouldn't send your character completely overboard. When doing something big, they shouldn't shrug their shoulders and go back to normal.
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People don't like change. Your character won't choose to change because they want to. Make sure your story includes an event that will trigger a transformation. This requires that they change whether they like it or not.
Causal or accidental changes
Shawn Coyne, editor and author of The Story Grid, talks about how causal or random factors of change exist in an inciting incident. One exciting incident should happen in every scene and kick start the story in a global way.
Main characters begin in a story that is missing something.
- Hiccup is considered a joke in the Viking community (How to Train Your Dragon) and because of this, he tries to do something he doesn't want to do.
- Rose hates being told how to act or who to be on the Titanic. She also lacks an intimate relationship, but is engaged to a man she despises out of obligation.
- Jason Bourne has no memory of who he is or why someone tried to kill him (and why people are still trying to kill him).
In all of these examples we see the main character lacking something – they need something – and because of this, they have to change as the story progresses to fulfill what they lack.
However, if nothing happens to the protagonist, they have no reason to change. You need something to force them to act.
This is where causal and random incidents of incitement come into play – along with a series of escalating interventions and conflicts.
A causal incitement is when a person disrupts the main character's status quo, like Effie pulling Prim's name in the harvest.
A random incitement to incitement is when, as you guessed it, something happened that forces a character into action. Like a tornado.
In either case, the protagonist will change over the course of a story because events and actions force him to make decisions.
They become dynamic characters because even if they don't do anything, the characters will have consequences in some way.
And while the amount a character changes from the beginning of the story to the end of the story changes during the plot, something has to change when the protagonist gets what they want or what they lack.
Change should be believable
Do I really think Scrooge woke up with a personality completely opposite to the personality he had when he went to bed? Not quite. I tend to believe that old Scrooge went back to his stingy ways right after the shock of the ghosts. Maybe not that stingy, but still.
That's why striving for a more subtle change within the confines of your character's personality often makes more sense.
If a shy man is forced to defend his friends and family, it doesn't mean he will play a superhero all over town. That said, he now knows that he is able to keep up with the walking.
A grumpy teenager might change their minds and treat people with a little more respect, but that doesn't mean she'll suddenly become a good saint. It most likely means that she just stops snapping at her parents.
Harry Potter isn't ready to take on Voldemort for good at the end of The Sorcerer's Stone, but he learned a lot about himself and the wizarding world by the end of the story, evolving from the quiet boy locked in the closet beneath the stairs.
Of course, maybe the opposite is true.
Maybe your shy husband will become the new Batman. Maybe your grumpy teen is going to build houses in Haiti. It is possible. But remember, the more massively your character changes, the more important and life-changing the triggering event must be for you.
You should know your character better than anyone. So make sure the change is made in a way that is realistic for you and proportional to the size of the trigger.
Character traits: do they change too?
When considering character development for your main character or multiple characters, you may be wondering if character traits need to change from the beginning of the story to the end as well.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
I think it's important to remember that 1) not all characters are dynamic characters, and 2) how a character changes doesn't mean they change their personality as well (although this is common).
Consider Hans Solo in Star Wars: A New Hope. Hans becomes less selfish at the end of the movie and returns to help Luke take out the Death Star, but his general personality hasn't changed. In fact, some of his fan-favorite character traits remain constant, such as his snappy personality and sense of recklessness.
However, some of Hans's negative character traits are smoothed out a bit, such as his greed and cynical outlook on life. He doesn't believe in power during the story (near the midpoint) but his perspective starts to develop at the end.
He's still selfish and selfish at times, but hey, there are other movies to follow.
What about static characters?
You can still have a story with a static character, although it is more common for those characters to support characters.
Think about how your main character changes from the beginning of the story to the end of the story. They don't do this alone – they need static characters, often mentors, who can help them learn important lessons that will help them change.
Look at King George IV in the king's speech. Lionel Logue has a great secret that is revealed late in history. But his confidence in the way he teaches language, his severity, and his loyalty to the King work as inspirational constants that lead Bertie to overcome his pride and (if not perfectly) overcome his speech impediment.
It's wonderful when characters put together in a story lead to changes in one another, but this doesn't always have to be two-sided, even if the life of a static character changes because another character pulls them into an adventure.
Do characters change in short stories?
You can. Just because you're writing a short story doesn't mean a character doesn't need anything, so change is definitely a possibility.
While something has to change for a story to be great, something doesn't always have to be a character (in a short story or even a comic).
As I said at the beginning, characters don't want to change, and they won't change easily or quickly. Scrooge takes a whole book. Harry Potter takes a whole series. In a short story, you (and your characters) don't have that much time.
That means you probably won't see a massive character transformation in just a few thousand words. The characters in a short story will not necessarily change their entire way of thinking about the world, make a living, or establish a completely different set of actions from their normal habits.
The change can be subtle, maybe a slightly different way of responding to the world. Or maybe it's hardly a change in character, just a new awareness of something they didn't know before.
Take Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" for example. To describe the plot a little too simply, a man and a woman are talking. But don't let me pamper you – read it here and then come back to this article.
At the beginning of the conversation, the man acts with confidence and reassurance as he tries to tell the woman that "a simple operation" is fine and will make her life better. The woman is hesitant and resilient.
In the end, the man is still confident and reassured, and the woman is still hesitant. Neither of them has become a different person throughout history. (Although there is evidence that after the story ends, the woman might make a change and take new action.)
What has changed? At the beginning of the story, the two characters don't know what the other really thinks about the woman's pregnancy. In the end, an unspoken truth was spoken: He wants to have an abortion and she wants to keep the baby.
Although the characters themselves haven't changed (yet), something is different. A hidden truth is now clear, and its former unity (or appearance of unity) now has a chasm.
Remember this key: even if the characters in a short story don't change, something in the story has to change.
Realistic is better than drastic
You know your character needs to change, but your readers will not empathize with that change if you step outside the limits. This also applies to fictional characters in novels and non-fiction books in memoirs.
This is also why readers learn and grow from stories – they teach us how to vicariously overcome our own conflicts through character development. And different characters, like people in real life, change in different ways.
Especially when writing, keep your change realistic and in line with your protagonist's personality. Be sure to read this article for details on how to move your character through each step of change in your story.
What is the protagonist changing in the story you are currently working on? Let me know in the comments!
WORK OUT
Today we're going to mess it up a bit and have fun with the idea of change. The title for today's practice is "Metamorphosis". Take a few minutes to think about the title, then write for fifteen minutes.
Don't forget to share your work in the comments and give feedback to your co-authors!
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