Characterization is one of the most important components of the storytelling process and developing complex, memorable, and interesting characters is an important facet of the writing process. There are many ways to describe characters as well, but you may have heard about the idea of a round character and a flat character. Stories often make room for both types, but the main characters are almost always going to be round characters. Today’s post will cover the difference between round characters and flat characters and why the difference matters in writing.
What Are Round Characters?
Round characters are also often called dynamic characters. These types of characters are often complex, deep, multi-dimensional, and written in interesting ways. They are what you’d describe a regular person as being and display emotions, have full-fledged personalities, and will often have an arc in the story that leads to their development being clear. Round characters are as realistic to a person as possible. Their complexity allows them to be great choices for main characters in a story.
Round characters are vital for any story, and every good story has to have a round character at its core. The round character’s development and journey symbolizes and conveys the central theme/themes of the story. Additionally, the presence of round characters keeps the story interesting and engaging.
In my series, The Fallen Age Saga, my main characters are all round characters with complex arcs and changes as well as proper character development. They all have to go through challenges that force them to change as well as test their personalities.
How to Write Round Characters
The advice for writing a round character is about the same as the advice for writing any memorable, well-developed character. You want to start by giving your character a detailed backstory, with their history, their upbringing, any significant events in their childhood, etc… This sort of detailed information is important in creating a well-rounded, interesting character.
In addition to a backstory, you want to work on things like strengths, weaknesses, internal conflicts, flaws, external conflicts, relationships and more. You want to show the personality of the character and how they react to situations that they are faced with. Furthermore, you want to work on giving the character an arc, with growth and change involved. The character should have positive and negative aspects to their personality and should have defined traits that help show what sort of person they are.
Depth and complexity is a big deal in crafting a well-developed, round character, so focus on creating a personality and a story around the character.
What Are Flat Characters?
By definition, a flat character or a static character is one that does not have any complexity. They are quite two-dimensional in personality and are typically defined by one trait or characteristic. Their presence in the story often does not feature any significant changes, and they usually serve something for the plot but do not have a major arc that changes them.
Flat characters are relatively simple and are quite consistent in personality from the beginning of the story to the end of the story. In addition to this, flat characters have clear and defined personalities that will not be subject to change throughout the story. Finally, their actions are quite predictable based on their personalities that are established and there isn’t much room for surprise.
Flat characters tend to provide supporting roles or background roles in a story. They often exist for the sake of highlighting other characters’ traits, providing comic relief, advancing the plot without needing much development, or serving as a quick role in the overall story.
One example of a flat character from my series is Charlie, Blide’s boss in Malware. He serves only as a method for advancing a point in the plot and doesn’t have a role beyond that.
How to Write Flat Characters
With a flat character, the idea is to keep things simple. You don’t really want to care to focus on giving the character too much of a role or a complex personality. They are going to have a specific function in the story and they can be a plot device, but the plot device aspect is basically their only role.
In addition to this, a flat character should be kept consistent, with a straightforward personality and focused traits that work for their role in the story. You also don’t want to have the flat character exist frequently over the course of the story. You want to limit their time on the pages and focus more on your developed characters, with the flat character serving their role and purpose.
Additionally, try not to distract from the main story by giving the flat character too much of a personality and too much development.
Balancing Round and Flat Characters
A big part of crafting a story with plenty of characters is to ensure that you have a proper level of balance between the round and flat characters. You want to have defined roles in the story for each character, and you want to show which characters are actually important to the story and require depth.
You want to use the flat characters to essentially emphasize the round characters’ roles in the story, and they can help convey certain aspects that the round characters are dealing with.
Although you want to include flat characters, you also want to make sure that the flat characters are not dominating the story nor overtaking it from the round characters. You also want to ensure that the plot still remains centered around the round characters while still including flat characters to support the story.
However, you want to ensure that your flat characters are not reduced to stereotypes or caricatures that are not believable or at least slightly realistic. They need to be believable even if they have limited roles.
When it comes to your round characters, you also don’t want to overdo their personality. You want to ensure that they are dynamic while still retaining parts about them that make them unique. For instance, Blide Stevens has a lot of events that change him, but he’s still a calculating psychopath that works for his own benefit and sticks to what he is loyal to.
The difference between round characters and flat characters is important to understand, as they serve distinct roles in stories. Round characters are the main lifeblood of the story, while flat characters are there to support the round characters and their stories. You want to ensure that your characters are balanced, interesting, and engaging, even if they are just flat characters. You also want to make sure that you’re focusing your story around your round characters.
Before you head on out, check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter to get updates on my book releases, WIPs, posts and more.