by Tessa Dick

Created on: April 24, 2009

Fictional characters must grow and change as the plot unfolds, in order to keep readers interested and involved. Sometimes a character learns a lesson or gains some insight, and sometimes a character descends into the darkness. Either way, the character is growing and changing. In the best works, readers can change and grow with the characters or learn something from their folly. Static characters, those who fail to learn, grow and change, cannot hold the reader's interest for long. They are like those paper dolls that you cut out and dress in paper clothing. After a few minutes, you lose interest in them. The great writers from antiquity to modern times have achieved character growth in many ways, and you can learn from reading their works.

For example, in Oedipus Rex, Sophocles plunges the hero into madness when he realizes that he has murdered his father and married his mother. Shakespeare often resolves his plays with marriage, forcing the parents to realize that their children have chosen good matches, even though they disapproved at first. In King Lear, Shakespeare leads the king into madness but rescues him when he realizes that his daughter Cordelia loves him properly, while her sisters only wanted his money. in The Misanthrope, Moliere teaches an elderly man that a flatterer will cheat him, so he should listen to honest critics. Hemingway often had his main characters learn about the futility of falling in love with a woman who sleeps around, as well as the horror of war and the decline of western civilization in the aftermath of the first World War. In his short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place", a young waiter learns something about loneliness from an old man who doesn't want to go home at closing time.

In each of the above examples, the authors present the lessons of change and growth in different ways. Some hit you over the head with it, while others, notably Hemingway, place subtle clues that allow you to draw your own conclusions. In my own novel, The Man Without a Past, my first-person narrator starts out feeling superior to her customers at a little storefront where she gives psychic readings. My rough draft showed her increasing disgust with an old flame and the woman that he dumped her for, but it didn't work. My first-person narrator was not changing and growing. She came alive for me, and for my readers, when I had her examine her own life, ethics and morality. When she found herself lacking in ethics, she decided to make some changes.

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