- "Character development may refer to: Characterization, how characters are represented and given detail in a narrative."
The process of creating and portraying believable and interesting characters that drive the story and evoke emotions in readers or audiences.
Character traits: This refers to the qualities, habits, and behaviors that define a fictional character's personality.
Motivation: The reasons why characters behave in certain ways or pursue particular goals. Understanding a character's motivation is essential for creating a believable, relatable character.
Backstory: The events and experiences that shape a character's past and inform their present behavior.
Inner conflict: The internal struggles that a character faces, such as their fears, doubts, and insecurities. This can create tension and add complexity to a character.
Relationships: The interactions that a character has with other characters in the story, including friends, enemies, and love interests.
Dialogue: The conversations that characters have with one another, which reveal their personalities, motivations, and relationships.
Physical appearance: The way a character looks, including their body type, facial features, and clothing choices.
Culture and background: The cultural and societal influences that shape a character's values, beliefs, and behaviors.
Setting: The environment and circumstances that a character finds themselves in, which can impact their development and behavior.
Character arcs: The transformation of a character over the course of the story, including their growth, development, and changes in motivation and behavior.
Conflict: The obstacles and challenges that a character faces, both internal and external, which drive the plot forward and create tension.
Archetypes: Stereotypical character types that are commonly found in literature, such as the hero, the villain, and the mentor.
Foils: Characters who are used to highlight the qualities and characteristics of another character, often by providing a contrast.
Symbolism: The use of objects or concepts to represent larger ideas or themes in the story, which can add depth and meaning to a character's development.
Point of view: The perspective from which the story is told, which can influence the way readers perceive and relate to characters.
Arc-Based Development: The character begins as one person and undergoes a change, becoming someone different. There can be positive and negative angles to this type of character development depending on the story.
Backstory Development: Information about the character's past and what shaped them into the person they are at the start of the story. Backstory development can offer rich context, but overemphasis on it can slow down plots.
Foil Character Development: A character that serves as a contrast to the protagonist, and often illuminates or highlights a particular aspect of the character's personality.
Gradual Development: Changes to the character occur slowly, almost imperceptibly, subtly painting them into someone new over the course of the story.
Hero's Journey Development: Borrowed from Joseph Campbell's theory of fictional archetypes, the main character experiences a profound, multi-stage transformation/experience that forever changes the individual.
Psychological Development: The character is changed in deep, fundamental ways as a result of a psychological trauma or, alternatively, some form of therapy, which reveals their inner workings to themselves and shows them the way to a new life.
Relationship Development: A character's evolution hinged on their changing interpersonal relationships.
Self-Discovery Development: A character finds themselves through exploration, often spurred by some conflict or problem.
Snapped Development: A character's arc can be driven by a single, drastic life event that causes the character to suddenly and permanently jolt in a new direction.
Shared Experience Development: Characters transform through shared experiences, partners in a journey, and culminating confrontation or realisation.
- "Character arc, the change in characterization of a dynamic character over the course of a narrative."
- "Character creation, especially for games."
- "Experience point (character advancement), increase in scores and other changes of a game character; for example, in role-playing video games."
- "Moral character, a term used in many educational systems to indicate a strategy for the maturation of individual students."
- "Characterization, how characters are represented and given detail in a narrative."
- "Character arc, the change in characterization of a dynamic character over the course of a narrative."
- "Character creation, especially for games."
- "Increase in scores and other changes of a game character."
- "Experience point (character advancement), increase in scores and other changes of a game character; for example, in role-playing video games."
- "Moral character, a term used in many educational systems to indicate a strategy for the maturation of individual students."
- "Characterization, how characters are represented and given detail in a narrative."
- "Character arc, the change in characterization of a dynamic character over the course of a narrative."
- "Character creation, especially for games."
- "Experience point (character advancement), increase in scores and other changes of a game character; for example, in role-playing video games."
- "Moral character, a term used in many educational systems to indicate a strategy for the maturation of individual students."
- "Characterization, how characters are represented and given detail in a narrative."
- "Character arc, the change in characterization of a dynamic character over the course of a narrative."
- "Character creation, especially for games."
- "Experience point (character advancement), increase in scores and other changes of a game character; for example, in role-playing video games."