How to Avoid Flat Character
in Your Writing
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
Nothing dooms a novel faster than creating a flat character. Writing a compelling story with interesting characters is key to creating a successful novel. If you write a one-dimensional, flat character, it can be hard for readers to connect with the narrative or become invested in the plot. Creating dynamic, complex characters is essential for giving your novel depth and making it more appealing to your audience, which will connect to the story and care about the work via character. Let’s explore how you can ensure you avoid flat character in your novel writing.
Develop Protagonist Flaws to Avoid Flat Character
It’s important to remember that no person is perfect. Everyone has flaws, so when you’re creating a character, make sure they have flaws, too. Obviously, these flaws shouldn’t be so profound that your protagonist tips over into antagonist territory. Flaws and misconceptions that plague your protagonist will help bring them to life and make them relatable to readers. They’ll feel less like a flat character when they have weaknesses or obstacles that they need to overcome. After all, compelling characters have both external conflict (plot) and internal conflict (their own character development arc). Fleshing out their flaws will help give your character complexity and add humanity to the narrative of your story. Showing how they overcome their shortcomings will also provide a triumphant redemption arc for readers to witness (which might satisfy and inspire them in their own lives).
Make Sure Each Character Has Their Own Unique Voice
Your characters should have distinct voices that set them apart from each other. If they end up being indistinguishable, you run the risk of flat character and uninspiring prose. Differentiating character voices, especially if you are using multiple points of view, will make it easier for readers to recognize whose perspective they are inhabiting in any given moment. A flat character sounds like any other flat character, while three-dimensional, unique, complex characters sound distinct from one another.
To achieve dynamic voice for each character, focus on using specific language for every character as well as distinct phrases, gestures, facial expressions, mannerisms etc. It's also important not just focus on dialogue but physicality too. People move differently when feeling emotions such as anger or joy and this should be reflected in the way you write your characters so they come alive on the page.
Delve Into Backstory to Avoid Flat Character
Every person has a unique backstory that shapes who they become later in life. This should also be true for each of your characters who appear in your book too! By exploring their pasts you can gain a deeper understanding of why certain things trigger certain reactions in them, or why they respond differently than others would in certain circumstances.
Include details about their family dynamics, relationships with friends or significant others—anything that helps build an understanding of who this person is and what motivates them throughout the story. Doing this will help shape complex personalities that feel real and believable for readers as opposed to flat caricatures who lack any sort of emotional depth or true resonance. After all, the recipe for fiction writing success is making readers care.
Eliminating flat character from your writing adds life to your story, which is essential if you want readers to stay engaged. So many different forms of entertainment are vying for your audience’s time and attention that engagement is a hot commodity.
Start by giving each character their own distinctive voice, develop their personality further by adding flaws that humanize them, before finally exploring their backstories so we can understand why they act the way they do. All of these elements combined avoid the dreaded flat character trap, and create a complex individual who readers would love to journey with.
Click here to purchase Writing Irresistible Kidlit, my book on fiction craft for MG and YA novels, out from Writer's Digest Books. This will show you my writing craft philosophy and give you lots of valuable advice, including tips for the novel revision process and self-editing. There are over 35 example novels cited and discussed throughout. It’s a valuable resource for any writer’s toolkit.
Click here to purchase Successful Query Letters, my book on query letters, including over forty examples with comprehensive notes on each one. There’s a ton of submission advice, best practices, and insider information in these pages, and you’ll really enjoy seeing what other writers are doing in the slush.