“You can never know enough about your characters.” —W. Somerset Maugham
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In his work Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster introduced the concept of round and flat characters (i.e., three-dimensional and two-dimensional.)
Round Characters
Basically, round characters are defined by their complexity. They are likely to have complicated personalities and wrestle with life’s issues.
According to masterclass.com,
“A round character is deep and layered character in a story. Round characters are interesting to audiences because they feel like real people; audiences often feel invested in these characters’ goals, successes, failures, strengths, and weaknesses.”
Characters cited as examples of roundness are Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and Huck Finn in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Forster says most Russian novels are filled with round characters. He believed all the principal characters in War and Peace and all of Dostoevsky’s characters are round. Russian authors are apparently fond of complexity.
When we discuss characterization on TKZ, we often talk about adding complexity to our characters, whether they’re major or minor. We want multi-dimensional characters that engage the reader. But according to Forster, the use of flat characters can be very effective as well.
Flat Characters
For example, here’s an excerpt about flat characters from Aspects of the Novel:
“In their purest form, they are constructed round a single idea or quality: when there is more than one factor in them, we get the beginning of the curve towards the round.”
Forster goes on to explain that flat characters are easily recognized and easily remembered by whatever one quality defines them.
Flat characters are often humorous, and readers have a certain comfort in knowing the flat character won’t change over the course of the story. Their singular quality will remain intact. The bumbling sidekick is one such character. He breaks the tension in the story, and you know he’ll trip and fall into a mud puddle or spill coffee in someone’s lap whenever he appears.
Flat characters can often be summed up in one sentence. For example, in his audio course “Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques,” James Hynes defined Huckleberry Finn’s father, Pap Finn, as flat. Pap could easily be described as “a mean drunk.”
Although we think of flatness mostly in terms of minor characters, major characters can also be flat. Forster cites the author Charles Dickens as a case in point.
“The case of Dickens is significant. Dickens’ people are nearly all flat…. Part of the genius of Dickens is that he does use types and caricatures, people whom we recognize the instant they re-enter, and yet achieves effects that are not mechanical and a vision of humanity that is not shallow.”
In his lecture, James Hynes also mentioned Sherlock Holmes as an example of a main character who is flat. Holmes rarely changes in Doyle’s novels. He’s always the perfect human automaton who solves crimes by his amazing powers of deduction. Yet Holmes was such a wildly popular main character that when Sir Arthur killed him off, the public outcry was so loud, he had to find a way to bring Holmes back for future books.
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But whether your characters are round or flat,
“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”—Ray Bradbury
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So TKZers: What fictional characters would you describe as round or flat? How about characters in your novels?
Private pilot Cassie Deakin struggles with her distrust of Deputy Frank White when she has to team up with him to solve a murder mystery.
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