Mark your primary character’s internal thoughts, emotions, dialogue, and descriptions. If you don’t see why readers say your characters are flat, print your manuscript. As the creator, you read things into the story and character that may not be on the page. Unfortunately, that may be part of the problem. You likely know them as well as yourself. Re-examining your character is harder than it sounds. To fix a flat character, you must re-examine how that character appears on the page. So the first step in diagnosing flat characters is to see what IS on the page. In order to write a “simple” story, authors must be certain their characters come across the page as just as complicated, even if not all those bits show up on the page. We often make a whole range of mistakes in relationships, jobs, and every other aspect of our lives. Our relationships with others are just as complicated as we are.

In real life, we humans are a complicated bag of emotions, contradictions, and quirky bits. A round character is a character who has multiple-dimensions to their personality.

Writers often call realistic characters round characters. They want to read about realistic characters, people like themselves or people they know. Typically, when a reader says your characters are flat, they mean the characters don’t feel real. If you guess flat characters are the opposite of round characters, you’re right. Diagnosis: Flat vs Round Characters What Does Flat Mean? You can take your flat characters to genuine in 8 (sort of) easy steps.

Flat characters are usually uninteresting and unmemorable. Does your character have little to no internal life? As your character moves through the story, does she overcome nearly every obstacle? Does she have a crystal-clear need? Is she unchanged at the end of the story? If even a few of your answers are yes, you probably have a flat character. Have you been told you have “flat characters” in your story? Reel in your emotions and re-examine your characters.

What is a flat character example