Finer points of character development

[Muphrid]

Spurred on by an Indiana Jones marathon on TV this afternoon, I was wiki-walking about and discovered that the lead actress in Temple of Doom married Steven Spielberg, that she starred in a movie (loosely) about the space program just months after the Challenger disaster, and that said movie (predictably) performed poorly.

But what caught my eye was this quote from a reviewer, emphasis mine:

It's tough to accept this movie's premise. A bunch of kids are given a tour of the Space Shuttle as NASA is testing its engines. An accident happens, and they, along with their guide, are launched into space. Once up there, can they be talked back down? Add an annoying, seemingly sentient robot into the mix. Add the standard "two dimensional character development" arc, where each member of the cast overcomes his or her single character trait/flaw by the end of the story. Add gobs of sap, gushiness, and boredom. Mix well, and you've got a first-class mess.

On the one hand, I think I understand what is meant here.  It is a simple formula to introduce each character with a specific flaw and to wrap that flaw up in a nice, tidy bow by the end of the story.  It's predictable.  It's so predictable it's trite.

And yet, is there more to character development?  Should a character have multiple flaws?  Should they be incompletely "fixed"?  Should they integrate into a coherent theme or idea of the story?  Or is it merely that a character needs to be more than just his flaws, that he cannot be characterized by that flaw and only that flaw?

[Anastasia]

And yet, is there more to character development?  Should a character have multiple flaws?  Should they be incompletely "fixed"?  Should they integrate into a coherent theme or idea of the story?  Or is it merely that a character needs to be more than just his flaws, that he cannot be characterized by that flaw and only that flaw?

As a disclaimer, I'm full-up on cold medicine. So if I go off on any odd tangents, bear with me.

My take is that focusing around a single flaw and overcoming it is inherently two dimensional. People are more than a single flaw and the struggle to surpass it. Human beings are nuanced, complicated and contrary creatures that are the sum of many different parts. Focusing on a single flaw reduces them to a dry story element without any signs of realism. Who cares about heavy-handed story elements? We want people and characters with more depth.

I'd say that if you want to include overcoming a flaw into a character, it needs to be one part of a greater whole. Use deft touches and don't let it turn the character into another boring, bad movie symbol.

[sarsaparilla]

Without knowing anything about the movie in question, I suspect that there are some specific factors contributing to that statement.

If the narrative uses a lot of effort to establish that a character has flaw X, and towards the end of the plot it becomes apparent that this flaw is a critical obstacle to the desired outcome, then it is very easy to botch the delivery of that turning point. If the flip happens too easily, it will negate the initial effort. If the decision becomes the turning point of the movie, it can make the end result unconvincing -- as if the only reason the character acted against his or her established type would be narrative imperative.

If the desired outcome hangs on every character acting against their established type then that isn't character development, it's some sort of eigenplot on rails.

I believe that there is also an inherent dissonance caused by having 'character development' in a work that is plot driven instead of character driven. Essentially, those two approaches set different expectations as to what developments are plausible on the way to the resolution; using the device of character development, especially if not well substantiated as the necessary framework is not present, to solve a plot driven plot can feel like cheating, a Deus ex Machina.

Thus, my uninformed guess is that the quote refers to poorly done, unconvincing character development that is out of place.

[Grahf]

And yet, is there more to character development?  Should a character have multiple flaws?  Should they be incompletely "fixed"?  Should they integrate into a coherent theme or idea of the story?  Or is it merely that a character needs to be more than just his flaws, that he cannot be characterized by that flaw and only that flaw?

As yet another person who hasn't seen the movie in question I'm only speculating here. However, I think another major part of the reason is that when a weakness or flaw is telegraphed and blatantly pointed out, that it just turns the entire arc of that conflict into something devoid of drama or substance - unless of course they set up the flaw and then do something like have the character fail to overcome it, but that's another thing entirely - it essentially just turns it into connect-the-dots.

I'm paraphrasing here, but there's that old story advice that if you mention the shotgun above the fireplace in the first chapter that it better damn well have gone off by the time the book is over. This, to me, kind of falls into that same thing, and any semi-savvy audience is going to recognize that immediately with two potential outcomes: either it 'goes off', and is trite, or it's not mentioned again and the audience is confused as to why something like the crippling fear of puppies was brought up in the first place.

[Muphrid]

My take is that focusing around a single flaw and overcoming it is inherently two dimensional. People are more than a single flaw and the struggle to surpass it. Human beings are nuanced, complicated and contrary creatures that are the sum of many different parts. Focusing on a single flaw reduces them to a dry story element without any signs of realism. Who cares about heavy-handed story elements? We want people and characters with more depth.

I'd say that if you want to include overcoming a flaw into a character, it needs to be one part of a greater whole. Use deft touches and don't let it turn the character into another boring, bad movie symbol.

So you would say that it's essential to add in some other details about a character to paint a picture of who they are, and it's good for some of those elements to clash or seem contradictory because people are not defined by single issues, and not everything they do is necessarily related to their primary flaw, whatever that may be?

Without knowing anything about the movie in question, I suspect that there are some specific factors contributing to that statement.

I know very little about this movie, either; it was more the phrase "two-dimensional character development" that caught my eye.  It seems the reviewer coined it himself, and while I felt he was right--that it's not enough just to throw in a flaw and have it overcome through the course of the story--I did wonder what else is necessary to make such an approach palatable.

If the narrative uses a lot of effort to establish that a character has flaw X, and towards the end of the plot it becomes apparent that this flaw is a critical obstacle to the desired outcome, then it is very easy to botch the delivery of that turning point. If the flip happens too easily, it will negate the initial effort. If the decision becomes the turning point of the movie, it can make the end result unconvincing -- as if the only reason the character acted against his or her established type would be narrative imperative.

If the desired outcome hangs on every character acting against their established type then that isn't character development, it's some sort of eigenplot on rails.

I believe that there is also an inherent dissonance caused by having 'character development' in a work that is plot driven instead of character driven. Essentially, those two approaches set different expectations as to what developments are plausible on the way to the resolution; using the device of character development, especially if not well substantiated as the necessary framework is not present, to solve a plot driven plot can feel like cheating, a Deus ex Machina.

Thus, my uninformed guess is that the quote refers to poorly done, unconvincing character development that is out of place.

I think one issue in play is that, when a plot-related obstacle ends up relying on a character overcoming a flaw to be resolved, it can seem convenient or contrived.  The plot is clearly designed to hinge on this point, yet if some other character without that particular flaw were involved, then no development would be required.  The plot is enforcing development, instead of allowing it to flourish organically.

Does that mean that a plot-driven story can't give avenues for character development?  Hm.  Without wading too much into that discussion, I suppose I can accept that in a strict sense, you're probably right.  If a plot-driven story would be about, say, a group of soldiers trying to hold a position against the enemy, with all the back and forth about losses and gains of tactical objectives, a character-driven story would be about those soldiers volunteering for the assignment, knowing that it's likely a suicide mission and that they will leave friends and loved ones behind.  The former can't probe very well at characters' natures, but the latter can.

At least, I think that's how it would all break down in a nice, neatly-packaged example such as that one.  In practice, I think some stories try to do both, switching between the two approaches depending on the situation.  I know the challenge of marrying a good plot with strong character development is something I aspire to (and, admittedly, sometimes flounder with) for some stories.  But perhaps that's a topic in itself.


"Eigenplot."  I see that is a thing.  To my physicist mind, it conjures up images of blocks on springs all oscillating at their characteristic frequencies, yet conveniently, these disparate systems all contribute to some finely tuned machine that ought not to be so receptive to their work.  Best not to think about that too hard.  Classical mechanics was not one of my favorite courses.

As yet another person who hasn't seen the movie in question I'm only speculating here. However, I think another major part of the reason is that when a weakness or flaw is telegraphed and blatantly pointed out, that it just turns the entire arc of that conflict into something devoid of drama or substance - unless of course they set up the flaw and then do something like have the character fail to overcome it, but that's another thing entirely - it essentially just turns it into connect-the-dots.

I'm paraphrasing here, but there's that old story advice that if you mention the shotgun above the fireplace in the first chapter that it better damn well have gone off by the time the book is over. This, to me, kind of falls into that same thing, and any semi-savvy audience is going to recognize that immediately with two potential outcomes: either it 'goes off', and is trite, or it's not mentioned again and the audience is confused as to why something like the crippling fear of puppies was brought up in the first place.

Given how much money they made back on this movie, I think we'd be looking a while to find anyone who ever saw it.

Well, we could have a whole discussion about Chekov's guns.  I think mystery authors already know to include a lot of extraneous detail because a detective would have to make note of a lot of things that are irrelevant and because it helps throw the audience off.  In non-mystery stories, I think extraneous detail can still be used to set the mood or environment.  While almost every detail should have a purpose, merely painting a clearer picture of what's happening, or of who a character is, is an entirely valid purpose in my mind.

But you're right.  Audiences are well-trained to spot such loaded guns that are ready to fire, and it takes at least a modicum of skill to hide Chekov's gun in plain sight, or as you say, to make it misfire in a way that manipulates expectations.  A character's flaw is, perhaps, one of the easiest things to see getting involved in the plot.  It is definitely an overused approach.


Anyway, one thing I think of is if a character is, say, deathly afraid of spiders, but to save himself or others, he has to go through a spider-infested room or something.  This overcoming of one's fears would, I think, hardly be considered real development because (unless it's really fleshed out) it just conveniently poses an obstacle for the plot.  The fear serves more of a plot-related purpose.  And perhaps in general, when character flaws or opinions must be changed or overcome to advance the plot, that isn't really development.

Hm.  It sounds good, but I think I'd like to consider some examples from media before concluding that this is indeed the case.  Alas, nothing really springs to mind at this moment.

[KLSymph]

It is a simple formula to introduce each character with a specific flaw and to wrap that flaw up in a nice, tidy bow by the end of the story.  It's predictable.  It's so predictable it's trite.

I haven't seen the movie, but I wonder if predictability is the problem.  Formulas exist to be predictable; that is seriously why we have them at all, so that we can enter some input and get a reliable output.  You can successfully write a character development arc that consists of fixing a single character flaw, if you target the right audience and hit the right notes.

The bigger problem is that if you introduce a bunch of characters with specific flaws and wrap each of them up by the end of the story, it's hard for the audience to spread their empathy across all of the characters enough to feel deeply about that development.  A movie does not give you a lot of screen time, which often means you need to cut details.  It's hard to hit the right notes if you don't have enough details to spend on those notes, and if you cut a character's details, that will easily reduce the character to stereotype, and while the audience may care about the single-flaw character development of a character, they won't care about a single-flaw character development of a bunch of stereotypes.

[Jason_Miao]

I've seen that movie decades ago when I was a kid in school, when the teachers had no plans but had to keep us occupied somehow.  It's the one that's supposed to take place in NASA summer camp, right?  The movie exemplifies the sheer mediocrity that pops into mind when one thinks of the phrase "family movie."

The problem wasn't the character development.  The problem was plot progression, and that I didn't care about the characters or what was happening.  The part where they accidentally get launched into orbit should have been the big draw, but I think it happened in the last quarter or fifth of the movie.  I think to like the movie, you had to enjoy (1) child drama issues (2) OUUTTTEEERRR SPAAAAACCCCEEE!1one in anything.  Which is a pretty small niche.

And yet, is there more to character development?  Should a character have multiple flaws?  Should they be incompletely "fixed"?  Should they integrate into a coherent theme or idea of the story?  Or is it merely that a character needs to be more than just his flaws, that he cannot be characterized by that flaw and only that flaw?

I don't think of characters in terms of "flaws" per se.  Development is just a change of a character's internal viewpoint.  If it is appropriate to change a character's viewpoint, change it.  If it is unreasonable to do so, then don't.

In Sailor Moon, Usagi is: a magical girl whose faith in her ideals of love and justice permit her and her initially skeptical friends to prevail over evil/a zealot whose immense personal powers permit her to win despite the impracticality of her ideals and her inability to compromise. 

The same characteristic, belief, is a virtue or flaw, depending on what sort of fic you'd like to write.  If you'd like to write sentai, the former interpretation works.  If you'd like to write a dystopia or a bildungsroman, the second may be more suitable.  In the former, it is the skeptics who must change, since their lack of belief is the flaw.  In the later, it is Usagi who must change (or perhaps she won't, and she's just treated as a good-intentioned disaster).

[Muphrid]

I haven't seen the movie, but I wonder if predictability is the problem.  Formulas exist to be predictable; that is seriously why we have them at all, so that we can enter some input and get a reliable output.  You can successfully write a character development arc that consists of fixing a single character flaw, if you target the right audience and hit the right notes.

The bigger problem is that if you introduce a bunch of characters with specific flaws and wrap each of them up by the end of the story, it's hard for the audience to spread their empathy across all of the characters enough to feel deeply about that development.  A movie does not give you a lot of screen time, which often means you need to cut details.  It's hard to hit the right notes if you don't have enough details to spend on those notes, and if you cut a character's details, that will easily reduce the character to stereotype, and while the audience may care about the single-flaw character development of a character, they won't care about a single-flaw character development of a bunch of stereotypes.

I was thinking about this, too. It's definitely a lot more difficult in the limited screen time of a movie to develop characters effectively. Being economical with development--choosing to develop a few characters deeply vs. a lot of characters a little--is probably wise in most cases; it helps keep a narrative lean and focused.

I've seen that movie decades ago when I was a kid in school, when the teachers had no plans but had to keep us occupied somehow.  It's the one that's supposed to take place in NASA summer camp, right?  The movie exemplifies the sheer mediocrity that pops into mind when one thinks of the phrase "family movie."

The problem wasn't the character development.  The problem was plot progression, and that I didn't care about the characters or what was happening.  The part where they accidentally get launched into orbit should have been the big draw, but I think it happened in the last quarter or fifth of the movie.  I think to like the movie, you had to enjoy (1) child drama issues (2) OUUTTTEEERRR SPAAAAACCCCEEE!1one in anything.  Which is a pretty small niche.

And here I thought it would be nigh-on impossible to find someone who had seen this movie.  I forgot that awful movies involving science are ripe fodder for "educational" movie days.  Can't tell you how many times I saw Dante's Peak because of that principle.

I don't think of characters in terms of "flaws" per se.  Development is just a change of a character's internal viewpoint.  If it is appropriate to change a character's viewpoint, change it.  If it is unreasonable to do so, then don't.

In Sailor Moon, Usagi is: a magical girl whose faith in her ideals of love and justice permit her and her initially skeptical friends to prevail over evil/a zealot whose immense personal powers permit her to win despite the impracticality of her ideals and her inability to compromise.

The same characteristic, belief, is a virtue or flaw, depending on what sort of fic you'd like to write.  If you'd like to write sentai, the former interpretation works.  If you'd like to write a dystopia or a bildungsroman, the second may be more suitable.  In the former, it is the skeptics who must change, since their lack of belief is the flaw.  In the later, it is Usagi who must change (or perhaps she won't, and she's just treated as a good-intentioned disaster).

Right, I started thinking afterward that describing development solely in terms of flaws is a bit simplified, and while on the one hand anything that changes usually changes for the better (and hence, it usually can be seen as having been flawed), that's not always the case.  I think some tragedy could defy that progression, for instance.  So yeah, the language used to describe development ought to be more precise.

[Dracos]

Nyum Nyum.

Using the other property you mentioned.

Indiana Jones has a ton of flaws.  He's scared of snakes.  He's reckless.  He doesn't think of others in his actions.  He a flirt.  He doesn't care about having a reasonable chance of success and rarely brings enough friends along not to be hopelessly outnumbered.

How many of these get 'fixed' in any of the movies?  Some of it is that the character isn't developing, he's living an adventure and we're following how that person interacts with events, not with how the events transform him into a different person, but even in Indiana Jones and the last crusade, where there is clearly character development, the story isn't about resolving a Flaw.  It's about young disaffected archelogist who always wanted his father's approval and attention caring more at the end about his father's life than fulfilling the dream, and even that is a small part of what makes the plot watchable and enjoyable.

At no point is a flaw 'fixed', and the character (and story) are better for it.

Generally, people that are 20-30 years old aren't going to have massive personality changes overnight.  If you're having a scenario where you're having multiple people in the same area have stunningly specific personality issues (flaws) that they're all going to be getting over in sequence...  Well of course they're going to feel trite and flat.