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Arguably one of the most important elements of any work of fiction are the characters. No matter how interesting a plot may be, or how beautiful or humorous the writing style, if the characters are flat or otherwise uninteresting, your story will be a flop. Readers need characters they can relate to and understand; who seem as lifelike and realistic as possible. In other words, if the characters are similar to real human beings, a work of fiction will be far more successful.

There are many ways of accomplishing this, and one of these is through the natural growth of the characters. Human beings are constantly changing as they age, experience new things, and go through various stages in their lives. It would be highly unrealistic for a character to stay stagnant throughout an entire work of fiction. Whether they move forward or backwards in their development, a reader should be able to clearly identify how a character was at the beginning of the book, and how they have been altered by the end of the story.

When I began taking creative writing classes, one of the first things I learned was how to make characters either go forward or backwards. One of the things that readers find most interesting is a fundamental change that takes place in a character that will alter their perception of who they are. For example, a woman might think "I am a mild, shy and quiet woman, who works at the office and enjoys a simple life." All of a sudden, her husband is murdered, and the police are doing nothing to solve the crime, though she's positive she knows who the murderer is. This woman might now find herself taking control of a chaotic, wild event, and she will argue viciously with people in great positions of authority. By the end of the novel, this character will no longer have the same opinion of herself that she did before. Readers will simply love this.

Contrarily, a character might not grow at all. An old man might say to himself "I'm confident that I've lived a good life, and I'm ready to die in peace and be reunited with God." However, when he is diagnosed with cancer, he suddenly decides that he's going to fight to live. He begins to think of all the things he's never done in his life that he wants to accomplish, all the people he doesn't want to leave behind, and he understands that he isn't ready yet. In a sense, he might fear death, and it's only through being diagnosed with cancer that he realizes it. Ultimately, this fear turns him into an irritable, fearful man,

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