KellyC

I'm taking an online Fictional Writing class at school. This unit is focuses on Characterization and I'm supposed to differentiate between a flat and round character.

Here's my assignment.

And here is my response after reading this obituary.
http://www.legacy.com/HeraldNet/Deat...onId=103464352

Scene 1 is where Bill is supposed to be flat. Scene 2 is where Bill is supposed to be round.

I am doing this right? Any suggestions to make this better? And is this accurate as far as baseball goes? I don't know any thing about baseball...

Sorry about the grammar, I just finished writing.

__________________
Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

Hain

As I understand it, to be either flat or round is defined if the character changes/personally grows in the context of the story, not just the reader's perspective. If in scene 1 your character nearly hit something but continued to drive while listening to the game, no development. I don't know how to change it such that you have character development for scene 2.


Characters Defined by their Development:

"characters as described by the course of their development in a work of literature. Flat characters are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not change throughout the course of a work. By contrast, round characters are complex and undergo development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise the reader." - Britannica

Round Character:

"A round character is a major character in a work of fiction who encounters conflict and is changed by it. Round characters tend to be more fully developed and described than flat, or minor characters." [source]

Flat Character:

"Flat characters are minor characters in a work of fiction who do not tend to undergo substantial emotional change or growth. Flat characters are also referred to as "two-dimensional characters," and are the opposite of round characters." [source]

KellyC

It can be two independent scenes. And I'd rather have it like that. So if flat is referred as a minor character then I guess I'll go back and rewrite scene to make Bill part of something much bigger?

__________________
Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

Hain

Let me clarify:
The character need not be a minor character. Usually, stereotypical characters of stories are the flat minor characters. Pertaining your assignment, you can write a story where the main character is flat.

In order for Bill to be flat is show he has no depth and does not grow. Usually this would include that he makes [life altering] mistakes but does not learn from them. For instance, Bill nearly gets into accidents because the game is more important to him than driving safe.

To make him dynamic, portray him in the same way, but describe him as being shocked after a near accident- make him realize that it is just a game and he has to drive safe. ... Or something.

Martian

Augi has it more or less right. Flat characters don't necessarily have to be minor characters, but they usually are. A flat character is said to be so because they're one dimensional; another word that could be used would be a caricature. The character doesn't really have any growth potential and doesn't exhibit the well-rounded traits that would make them feel alive. These characters do have an important role to play in fiction, but they tend to be part of the scenery more than part of the action, if that makes sense.

Flat characters tend to be very difficult to empathize with. A round or developed character shows growth and has a more deveolped personality, which makes them easier to empathize with. To pull an example out of classic fiction, Ebenezer Scrooge is a round character, but Marley's ghost is a flat one.

Your scenes really shouldn't be related, as it will be difficult to portray the same character as both flat and round. The second scene could actually be retooled to work well as a flat character depiction; Bill is a Mariners fan and that's really all there is to him.

On a grammatical note, watch homonyms. This is something that gets me from time to time too. You brake a car, and break a fortune cookie.

__________________
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

- Journey, Don't Stop Believein'

Hain

Quoted straight from the words of my English professor. He would be proud.

It can be the same scene, just taken differently to show that Bill is more than just a Mariner's fan. That is called a "parallel" of the scene, no?

Martian

Turns out I'm not as dumb as I look.

Well, yes, you could do that. Showing the same scene from different perspectives is one way to tackle the project, it's just not the way I'd tackle the project. Then again, I'm a high school drop-out, so make of that what you will.

__________________
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

- Journey, Don't Stop Believein'

ratbastid

Since grammar and spelling errors are unacceptable, I'll point out that you've written "The Mariners is about to win...", and that the thing a car does to slow down is brake, not break.

I guess he was survived by his son, right? So you can't give us the emotional turning point I expected when you put the son's ball in his collection--I thought sure you were heading toward the son's death.

Couple things I also notice... The tone of these two scenes is very very different. In the first one, you're in the character's head. In the second, you're mostly talking about the character. Actually, I never really SAW the character, I just saw what was around him. To make it clearer that you're actually doing the flat/round assignment, you might put them both in the same tone, and have the main difference between them be flatness and roundness.

KellyC

What makes this so hard is that I only have one page to write about each type of character. How do I go about doing that?

I thought that if I include more details and show a bit more aspect about a character's life, it would make him more "rounded." That's what I'm trying to go for in scene 1 and scene 2, with the latter being more detailed. But this doesn't seem to be the case.

__________________
Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

Martian

You're on the right track. There does not need to be actual conflict in the story to create a well-rounded character. On the other hand, a round character does need to have a more developed personality. My method for accomplishing this is to try to put myself in a character's head. What does Bill do for fun (besides listen to Mariners games)? Does he love his wife? What's his job? Does he have retrement plans? Does he hate hippies? Is he a hippie? Once you have a complete character mapped out, just write about him as if he were an actual person. Focus on the character, rather than events or surroundings.

It's very possible to flesh out a character in a single page. The literary snob term for what you're writing is a character study. You're not really telling a story so much as describing a person who just happens to not exist (or at least not in the way you're imagining).

__________________
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

- Journey, Don't Stop Believein'

Hain

Like mentioned before, rounded does not apply to details of the character. What matters is did the character grow or personally change in any way. Is there a human being there that we can understand?

KellyC

Martian, that's what I did with the second scene. I tried to imagine how much "more" of a Mariners fan he can be and what interesting habits he would have as a Mariners fan. So I added his "unique" habit of collecting signature baseballs from Mariners.

Ratbastid, I really wasn't going for his son's death. I was thinking of ending on a sappy note. But if I were to end it wit his son's death would that help make the character more rounded? You know...even though he's a hardcore Mariners fan...his son still comes before the Mariners? And thanks for pointing out the difference in the tone. I'll keep that in mind when I do my revision.


I feel like there's more room to work on scene 2 to make Bill a more rounded character so I think I'm sticking to that. As for scene 1, do you think I should tone it down a little? I don't know where to start though...

__________________
Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

Martian

That's sort of missing the point. Defining him by one trait (Mariners fan) is by definition making him one-dimensional. We know he's a Mariners fan. That's already apparent. What else is there to this guy? Where's he been and where's he going? What makes him different from every other Mariners fan out there?

Looking at his obit, we can see that there was a lot more to Bill than baseball. Reading between the lines a bit, we can see that he was something of a family man. He worked for Boeing. He had an early career in pro ball. He served in the navy. He was a member of the Lions Club. These are all things outside of him being a Mariners fan that defined Bill as a person. To make him a more rounded character, you'd do well to explore some of this. Does he miss his first wife? How did he come to work for Boeing? Does he enjoy his work? Was he greatly affected by his military service? Does he have any regrets (particularly about his missed chance at the majors)? Does his love of the Mariners stem from nostalgia at his own missed chance? How does he relate to his children?

There's so much more here aside from Mariners fan. Focusing on one trait is a good way to create a flat character, but in order to cause him to be well rounded you need to include more, and in order to write a compelling piece of fiction you need to add some emotion to the piece as well. I would suggest exploring other aspects of his life outside of his interest in pro baseball to try to create a better developed character.

EDIT- I disagree with this. The humanity of the character is in the details. Growth through conflict is one way to bring that out, but there isn't really room to explore that in a one page character study. Other literary techniques will be more effective for a piece of this nature.

__________________
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

- Journey, Don't Stop Believein'

Hain

I am going to make some other suggestions, and unfortunately it will require more work. First thing one learns in a creative writing class: write what you know.

If you don't know anything about baseball, why write about it for this assignment? Pick something familiar.

Second thing, flat characters are predictable. If we were in their heads hearing their thoughts we can predict the next thing. This is why they are stock characters. Think comic relief. Round characters, when we get in their head, we follow their reflections and not predict them.

This is why fiction always has a problem or conflict in it, else what the hell can you write about? Without a conflict, you are writing a descriptive piece.

So since we both are in college, what is college know for aside from learning? Drama! What is more dramatic than...

There may be other ways of going about it, and while you are probably right, I would not go about this assignment like this. If we read only about what the character is and does on a daily basis, what else is to him? To me, we have invented a flat character with a colorful history like our own. But why should we care?

If inside we find that there is a conflict, and we can observe how this conflict is dealt with, then we have an actual character that lives and breathes, not just an image or a statue of a person.

These are just my interpretations of the assignment and flat/round characters.

ratbastid

This thing writes itself! Why did his pro career end? What were his aspirations there? What did he do with himself once he quit playing baseball? Does he secretly weep while listening to the Mariners games with his office door closed?

Martian

Exactly! This is what we're doing. A single page isn't long enough to really create and resolve a conflict while simultaneously developing a character. If we take that as given, we're reduced to choosing one focus or the other; either we write about the conflict or the character, since we don't have enough room for both. Given the nature of the assignment, the choice is fairly straightforward.

Sometimes I'm not as clear in articulating my thoughts as I'd like to be. This is especially true at moments such as this, when I've gone (eep) 22 hours without sleep. Growth defines a character, but the growth need not be concurrent with the story. Consider Bill the failed pro ball player who lives his dream vicariously through absorbing all things Mariners. He works a banal desk job to support his family, whom he loves dearly, but isn't really satisfied with it. He's always a bit preoccupied with what might have been. Now that his son is getting a bit older, he's begun pushing the boy in the direction of baseball and is wondering if he's right to attempt to force his child into living his own dream.

Or perhaps his son is from his first marriage. Perhaps the boy, now grown, relates to his dad through baseball. Bill might sit in his office cubicle, looking at keepsakes and remembering events of years past; games attended together, milestones reached, first home run, that sort of thing. Perhaps even his son is a young man now and has embarked on his own career in the navy. Bill is proud of his son for doing good work in the military, but deeply misses the bond they developed and the weekly ritual of watching games together.

Both of these scenarios present a rounded character and neither one contains a conflict happening concurrently to the story. Instead, we view past events as filtered through Bill's perception. The key to giving him dimension as a character is that we touch on several character traits; we can do this while maintaining a focus on baseball, even, simply by incorporating other aspects of Bill's life.

Think of it like a graph. Bill as a baseball fan has one point on the graph, which is baseball. This Bill is one-dimensional; he's a dot. If we add another point we create a line, if we add another we can create something a little more substantial and another past that allows us to create an actual three-dimensional character.

Okay, so I'm stretching the metaphor a bit. The point is that by giving Bill more traits, we create a deeper character. We give Bill more of a personality, which makes him seem more vital. Then, by attaching an emotion to the piece, we can create a connection between Bill and the reader. We give the reader something to empathize with, which makes the piece more interesting to read.

It's not really a statue so much as it's a snapshot.

__________________
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

- Journey, Don't Stop Believein'

KellyC

Thanks for the awesome feed back so far guys. I made some changes and here is what I have so far. Please let me know what you think. It's exactly one page. I couldn't set the scene to be in the same tone as the first one without having to rewrite the whole thing so I opted not to do it at all.

__________________
Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

Hain

Hmmm, I suppose you are right, Martian.

I still would write a conflict. I don't have to resolve the problem, merely show that there is a change in what the character sees and feels simultaneously as the stimuli is coming in.

ratbastid

Good, KellyC!

I'd touch on his age or empty-nesterness in the first paragraph. "Sports Fan" feels 20-something. How can you put some gray hairs on him in the first paragraph? You know, plant a gun that you can fire in the last few sentences. One way would be to have them be employees instead of coworkers. That reads older. You could have his secretary seated outside his door smile to herself at of the noises from the old man's office.

Hain

You tell stories to children around campfires, don't you?

ratbastid

I've never been accused of subtlety.

Hain