Character Development: what does that really mean?
If plot is the skeleton of a story, characters are its beating heart and the life force that makes the audience lean in, turn pages, and invest emotionally in every twist. Think about your favorite movie or novel: chances are, the moments you remember most aren’t explosions or Sword of Destiny battles. They’re character moments just like Harry stepping into Diagon Alley, Elizabeth Bennet refusing to be underestimated, or Katniss volunteering as tribute.
Why? Because characters drive the story. They shape the plot and give conflict meaning. They give us a reason to care.
If you want to write fiction that resonates, you don’t just need characters but developed characters who feel real enough that readers forget they’re fictional. Characters with desires, contradictions, histories, fears, and flaws. Characters who change or at least try to.
In today’s blog we’ll walk you step by step, through how to build stronger characters from the inside out.
So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
What is Character Development?
Character development refers to the process of creating a dynamic, believable, and complex persona for a story. It’s essentially the transformation a character undergoes throughout a narrative, moving from an initial state to a final state due to the events of the plot, their decisions, and their relationships with other characters.
A character’s development can manifest in several ways:
- Internal Growth: This involves changes in their core beliefs, moral compass, personality, or understanding of the world.
- External Changes: This relates to changes in their status, skills, or visible behaviors.
Effective character development is crucial for audience engagement because it encourages readers or viewers to become emotionally invested in the story and the person undergoing the journey. Without growth, a character risks feeling static or uninteresting, which can undermine the entire narrative.
The Foundation of Character Development
Before your character does anything and before they leap across rooftops or confess their undying love, you need to understand the forces that drive them.
Every compelling character is built on three core components: a goal, motivation, and conflict.
Let’s break them down:
1. Goal
This is what the character wants. It’s their conscious desire and the thing they articulate. Such as:
- “I want to win the tournament.”
- “I want to find my missing sister.”
- “I want to survive high school without doing anything humiliating.”
Goals create narrative propulsion. Without them, characters just exist. And existing is not super riveting on the page.
2. Motivation
This is why they want the goal. Motivation gives the goal emotional weight. Winning the tournament is a valid goal, yes, but it’s not very interesting in the grand scheme of things. That’s until we learn the character needs the prize money to keep their family home. Suddenly, the stakes are real, personal, and relatable to an audience.
3. Conflict
This is everything standing in your character’s way. Conflict makes stories compelling. Without it, your character waltzes into a room, solves their problem, and goes home. Roll credits. Boring.
Conflict comes in many flavors:
- External conflict: other people, society, natural disasters, killer robots, parking meter enforcement.
- Internal conflict: fear, guilt, insecurity, self-deception, i.e. the juicy stuff!
A strong story emerges when these three forces interact. A character wants something, has a reason to want it, and faces obstacles at every turn.
The Character Arc
Good characters don’t stay static, they evolve and crack open, break and rebuild. Or, in some cases, they stubbornly refuse to change. And that refusal becomes the story.
A character arc tracks how a character changes (or fails to change) in response to the events and pressures of the plot. There are three major types:
1. Positive Arc
The character grows. They overcome a flaw, fear, or limiting belief and become stronger. Think Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
2. Negative Arc
The character deteriorates and succumbs to their flaw or desire. Think Walter White in Breaking Bad.
3. Flat Arc
The characters stay the same, but the world around them changes because of who they are. Think Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road.
No matter the type, arcs keep characters dynamic. They make readers feel like they’re witnessing a true emotional journey, not just following a checklist of events. The key question for your story is simple: What does this character learn, or refuse to learn, by the end?
Deepening the Conflict
If external conflict is the spark, internal conflict is the wildfire. It’s what elevates a character from “fine, I guess” to “holy crap, I love them.”
Internal conflict is the tension between what a character wants and what they need.
Their want is the external, conscious goal, and their need is the internal emotional truth that will allow them to evolve.
For example, a character might want to win the admiration of their demanding father (goal), but what they need is to stop seeking external validation and define their own self-worth.
When wants and needs collide, story magic happens. Characters become complicated and flawed in the best ways. Internal conflict is also where your character arc takes root. It’s the emotional engine driving change.
Character Archetypes as Building Blocks
Archetypes are not cliches but starting points and templates that help you orient your character within the story’s landscape.
Classic archetypes include:
- The Hero
- The Mentor
- The Trickster
- The Caregiver
- The Rebel
- The Outlaw
- The Innocent
- The Explorer
Archetypes help you quickly understand your character’s function before adding nuance. Think of them as the flour in the cake. They’re necessary, but not the whole dessert.
Once you establish an archetype, you need to personalize it. Give your Mentor a gambling problem. Try giving your Hero a fear of confrontation. Give your Trickster a debilitating need to be liked. While archetypes give these characters structure, your imagination gives them soul.
For more on character archetypes:
- 15 Essential Character Archetypes (And How to Use Them)
- The Cast of the Cursed: Guide to Horror Character Archetypes
How to Start Developing a Character
Okay, so now we’ve covered the basics, here’s what you’ve been waiting for. A step-by-step guide to bringing the character to life.
- Define the Need
To create a layered character, identify two things:
The Goal (Want)
This is what the character believes will solve their problem. Frodo wants to destroy the ring, Elle Woods wants to win back Warner, and Sherlock wants to solve the case.
The Internal Flaw (Need)
This is the lie they believe about themselves. Frodo needs to understand the power of resilience and friendship, Elle needs to realize her worth isn’t tied to a man, and Sherlock needs to acknowledge his own humanity.
The need is often emotional, painful, and deeply personal. It’s the core of the arc. - Establish Contradictions
The best characters aren’t tidy. Instead, they’re messy, contradictory, and inconsistent just like real people.
A helpful exercise is to list three positive traits and three negative traits. For example:
Positive Traits
– Loyal
– Creative
– Brave
Negative Traits
– Stubborn
– Impulsive
– Avoidant
Mixing positive and negative traits creates complexity in your characters. A brave but impulsive character is fun, a loyal but avoidant character is tragic, and a stubborn but creative character drives plot.
Contradictions make your characters feel alive. They also naturally create conflict. Again, the good kind. - Trace the Arc
Now, map the emotional states your character will experience at three key moments in the story.
Ask yourself at the start:
– Who are they at the beginning?
– What flaw defines or limits them?
– What belief is holding them back?
In the middle:
– How do events challenge their worldview?
– What truth are they resisting?
– Where do they fail or backslide?
And at the end:
– What do they realize?
– How have they changed (or refused to)?
– How does this change resolve the story’s main conflict?
Here’s a quick example:
At the start, your character feels unworthy of love and avoids intimacy. In the middle, she meets someone who challenges their defenses, but self-sabotages. By the end, she realizes love requires vulnerability and chooses connection over fear. - Complete the Profile
Now it’s time to build the full character profile; a living document you’ll refer to as you write.
A solid character profile includes:
Biological Details
Just like:
– Name
– Age
– Appearance
– Background
– Family
– Education
– Occupation
– Social class
– Hobbies
– Religion
– Talents
These details help you keep your characters consistent but don’t mistake them for the heart of development. Knowing their favorite sandwich does not equal depth.
Psychological Details
These include:
– Core fear
– Deepest desire
– Primary flaw
– Moral code
– Strengths and weaknesses
– Emotional wound (backstory trauma or defining moment)
– Coping mechanisms
– Relationship patterns
– Personality type
This is where the character becomes real and where you discover not only who they are, but why. Use your profile template as a reference, but don’t feel bound to. Let the character grow in unexpected directions as you write.
If you want more top tips on how to create strong characters, check out Jay Carver’s awesome video below:
Celtx’s Character Development Hub
If you’re excited to keep leveling up your character-writing craft, this post is only the beginning. Think of it as your central station: your character development hub where you can jump to more specialized topics whenever you’re ready.
Here are some areas you can explore next. Simply click on the link to be well on your way:
Round Characters: Learn how to craft fully realized, emotionally complex characters who feel like real people complete with contradictions, flaws, desires, and the capacity for growth.
Flat Characters: Not every character needs to be layered. Explore when and why flat characters work, how to use them effectively, and how to make them memorable without giving them a full arc.
Internal Conflict: A closer look at the invisible battles your characters fight—the fears, wounds, and beliefs that shape their decisions and fuel their arcs.
Character Profiles: Dive into the step-by-step process of documenting your character’s biography, psychology, and emotional journey using structured templates.
Celtx Beat Sheets: See how our beat sheet tools can help you map character arcs, track emotional shifts, and ensure your story structure supports the character’s transformation.
FAQs about Character Development
Great question. These terms often get conflated.
Character development is the full process of building a believable, multi-dimensional character. It includes personality, backstory, motivations, contradictions, fears, flaws…everything.
Character arc is specifically about how the character changes (or doesn’t) as the story unfolds.
Think of development as the ingredients. The arc is the cake you bake with them.
Most scripts have one to three main characters. More than three leads can work, but it requires skill and a lot of narrative juggling. Too many leads risk diluting focus and emotional impact.
A good rule of thumb: If the story can’t function without them, they’re a main character. If the story would still work, but with a different flavor, they’re a supporting character.
If we had to choose only three:
– Goal – the driving force of the plot.
– Motivation – the emotional engine behind the goal.
– Internal Conflict/Flaw – what the character must face to grow.
Those three ingredients give you depth, direction, and drama.
Not necessarily. Flat characters, often side characters, serve a functional purpose. Their stability supports the arcs of others.
However, “flat” does not mean “boring.” A flat character can be delightful, dynamic, and memorable. Think of iconic comedic sidekicks or mysterious mentors who never reveal much. They don’t change, but they still shine.
For main characters, though? A flat arc is fine, but no development at all is usually a problem.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, characters are the emotional core of any script or story. They’re the reason audiences laugh, cry, and stay up way too late reading “just one more chapter.” When you build characters with clear goals, compelling motivations, meaningful conflicts, and rich internal lives, the story practically writes itself.
Strong characters live not just on the page, but in the hearts of your readers.
And the more you understand them, the more they’ll carry your story to unforgettable places. Happy writing and may your characters surprise you in the best possible ways!
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Up Next:
What is a Character Arc? Types, Examples + How to Write One
Great characters grow. Learn the key types of character arcs and how to shape transformation that drives your story — from opening scene to final frame.
