Either way, over the course of a story the protagonist will change because events and actions force them to make decisions. They become dynamic characters because even doing nothing means that the characters will suffer consequences in some way.
Your character is forced to change by circumstances they can’t control. To survive and/or thrive, they must change to combat those circumstances. They must make decisions, and therefore, they must act over the course of a story. Stasis = death. Character change is triggered by an event.
When a character responds to the actions or words or intentions of another character, the reader notices. She focuses on that response and on what causes it and thinks something’s going on here. Writers direct readers into key revelations by showing character response.
How Characters React. Like dialogue, a character’s actions in response to the words or actions of others can be deliberate or involuntary. And the choice of a deliberate action over an involuntary one, or vice versa, will direct the story in a particular direction.
He first appears in a kind of disguise, dressed in traditional Chinese dress, speaking pidgin English, and deferentially carrying out his duties as a servant.
He says that he speaks in pidgin because it is expected of him, and that people wouldn't understand a Chinese person speaking to them in perfect English.
Lee. Adam Trask's dutiful cook and housekeeper, an educated man whose parents emigrated to America from China. Lee often affects a Chinese pidgin accent to play into Americans' expectations of him. A philosophical man, he frequently gives voice to the novel's themes, including the crucial idea of timshel.
The Oxford English Dictionary definition of Pidgin is: A language containing lexical and other features from two or more languages, characteristically with simplified grammar and a smaller vocabulary than the languages from which it is derived, used for communication between people not having a common language; a ...
In fact, some of his character traits that are fan favorites remain constant, like his snarky personality and sense of recklessness. However, some of Hans’s negative character traits are smoothed out a bit, like his greediness and cynical outlook on life .
Lionel Logue has a big secret that’s exposed late into the story. But his confidence in how he teaches speech, his rigor, and his loyalty to the king act as inspiring constants that push Bertie to overcoming his pride and overcoming (though not perfectly) his speech impediment.
Hiccup is considered a joke in the Viking community (How to Train Your Dragon ), and because of this he is trying to do something he doesn’t want to do. Rose hates being told how to act or who to be in Titanic. She also lacks an intimate relationship, but is engaged to a man she despises out of obligation.
Remember this key: even if the characters in a short story don’t change, something in the story must change.
The characters in a short story won’t necessarily change their entire way of thinking about the world, or upend their livelihood, or establish a completely different set of actions from their normal habits. The change can be subtle, maybe a slightly different way of responding to the world.
It’s possible . But remember, the more massive the change in your character, the more important and life-altering the triggering event must be to them. You should know your character better than anyone, so make sure their change happens in a way that’s realistic for them and proportional to the size of the trigger.
Sarah Gribble is the author of dozens of short stories that explore uncomfortable situations, basic fears, and the general awe and fascination of the unknown. She just released Surviving Death, her first novel, and is currently working on her next book.
A character’s reactions can reveal facets of his personality that cannot be revealed by action or dialogue initiated by that character. The actions and words of others that draw a response from a character tell what bothers that character.
Characters respond to events and other characters through what they say or don’t say, what they do and don’t do, what they think, and what they feel. Dialogue. A character may respond with dialogue, lashing out with angry or passionate words. Or, his words might be torn reluctantly from a character.
You could be using an event or dialogue to reveal the motivations of a secondary character or to establish tone, but be sure they do something , these events and the words of dialogue you write. They shouldn’t be purposeless. They should affect characters and compel them to react. Thoughts.
But if the reader doesn’t know what’s held back, if the reader sees no emotion, then that translates to a lack of reaction. Character action and reaction propel the forward motion of a story. Response and reaction and the response to that reaction are what take readers from opening page to resolution.
When a character can’t help but respond, especially against his will, the reader knows that he’s seeing the true character. He knows at least a part of what moves that character, what drives him. What the character is apart from the trappings that he presents to the people of his world.
Action. Characters reveal themselves through action as well as dialogue. So a character can fling his phone across the room when he doesn’t like what he’s just heard. Or he can put his fist through a wall. He can kiss the forehead of his sleeping son, tears held back, at the news the infant doesn’t have leukemia.
If a character goes after the man who’s gone after his dog, readers know that the dog means something special to that character or that he is possessive/selfish, unwilling to let others touch or hurt what belongs to him.