The Problem with Character Development
The driving force behind any great story is great characters.
For a long time I didn’t believe this, I honestly felt that character development was overrated. I believed (and to a certain extent still do) that the most important part of storytelling is the story itself. You can have all the world building and character development you want, but at some point, something needs to happen.
As an example to both support and contradict myself, one of my favorite shows is Battlestar Galactica (2004), and as much as I enjoy it, there’s not one character I like. Some start out okay, but by the end I pretty much hate everyone. However, this did not deter my love of the show. I was such a big fan of the story, the setting and the action, that even though I knew I was going to hate every single character, it didn’t stop me from watching it all the way through multiple times. Eventually I realized that my hatred of the characters was actually a good thing.
A character with no character is a bad character. A character you hate is a great character.
Take Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which is without question far better than the original 2017 film by an extraordinarily wide margin. Now there are many reasons for this, but I’m going to focus on the most notable improvement, the characters.
We got a much more in-depth look at Cyborg’s origin, capabilities and personal relationships. We got to see Barry Allen struggle with his powers constantly getting in the way of him leading a normal life, and instead of achieving nothing by the end of the film, he ultimately saves everyone. And then there’s Steppenwolf, whose original motivation amounted to nothing more than self-entitlement, he even says the line, “This world is my right” during the film’s climax.
Motivation affects perception.
In the Snyder Cut, we understand Steppenwolf’s motivation, which allows us to perceive him as a more credible threat, making him an overall better villain. This statement obviously glosses over the finer details of the Snyder Cut, but you get what I mean. We have a hard time caring about what a character is doing if we don’t know why they’re doing it.
Now this dive into TV and film has nothing to do with what I’m going to talk about, but I felt it was necessary in order to establish just how important character development is, and that when it’s done right, it can make a world of a difference… but you probably already knew that.
Likable vs. Relatable
As mentioned in my review of The Betrothed, it is more important to make your characters likable, rather than relatable. Likable characters are unique and fleshed out people with their own little quirks and personality traits that could easily be seen in the real world. However, authors too often try to make their characters relatable to as wide an audience as possible.
The mistake here is that this leads to characters becoming many shades of gray and emotional blank slates in order to allow the reader to project their own personality onto the character. This effectually tricks the reader into thinking the main character is just like them. False, that’s not character development, that’s lazy writing.
Show & Tell
My biggest problem with character development in books is that it’s more TELL than SHOW. Authors will often tell us who, what, or how a character is through exposition or narration, rather than through the character’s own dialogue or actions. We never see anything to prove that the character is who we’re told they are, but we never see anything to disprove it either. Thus, the character development comes down to the reader having no choice but to believe what they’re told.
Don’t just tell me that a character is an alcoholic, show me them wasting all their time and money at bar.
Don’t just tell me that a character has a strained relationship with their child, show me them trying to connect and failing because their job is always getting in the way.
Don’t just tell me that a character is witty or sarcastic, show me how they interact with others and have them crack some one-liners every now and then.
Don’t just tell me that a character is a war hero, show me their heroism by having them go on a mission.
Don’t just tell me, show me; prove it to me.
This is a topic that I touched on in my review of Ignite the Stars and it’s sequel Eclipse the Skies, where we’re constantly being told that the main character is a badass, but yet they never do anything badass.
No matter how much of a reputation your characters may have in their world, remember that the reader is just now meeting them for the first time.
It’s the idea of ditching the narrator trying to sell the characters, and letting the characters speak for themselves. If given the opportunity to decide for ourselves whether or not we like a character, not only would we like them even more, but that opportunity would also open up the book to multiple interpretations, as each reader would perceive the book and its characters in their own unique way. Different personalities will often perceive the same personality in contrast. It’s the difference between arrogance and confidence, careless and reckless, quiet and reserved. But many books nowadays don’t give us that opportunity, we’re simply told what a character is like, and that’s it.
Funny how we’re always told that actions speak louder than words, yet writers fail to treat their own creations with that same sentiment.
In light of all of this, I still stand by the fact that saying a story is “character driven” doesn’t actually mean anything. People only say it when they want to sound like they know what they’re talking about. For the record, EVERY story is character driven. If the characters weren’t there, the story wouldn’t happen.
If your intent is that the characters are more intriguing than the story itself, then say that. Saying, “read it for the characters, not the story” is much more explanatory than simply saying it’s “character driven.” It has no meaning, and no place in storytelling.
