Fiction Writing: Why Character's Should Change in Fiction

One of the biggest tropes in fiction, one many writers falter on or forget about, is that the characters, whether there are one or a dozen, must change. It sounds simple: Most coming-of-age stories have the necessity of a character changing, developing a mind or body, living life. Most published novels will start out with a character, plot, and a central question. These all relate into the character as he/she adjusts to life. In real life, people change; so it isn't a leap to say that they must change in fiction.

As an example, take any story of a youth who is becoming an adult. It could be anything, from the young comic book character of Jubilee in X-Men comics, the discovery of love in Howard Mittelmark's horror Age of Consent, or the short stories you might find in the New Yorker. Those are precise examples, it could go farther, to the journey of a hero in such ficton from Ursula K. Le Guin, L.E. Modesitt jr., even J.R.R. Tolkien, the characters all have changes as they travel through distant lands.

It becomes more complicated when approaching a more literary group - not that fantasy or comic books cannot be considered literary - of the kind you would see in the works of a John Updike or a Virginia Woolf. The changes are more evident in just the thought processes of characters, whether it be the troubled Rabbit in the Rabbit novels of Updike, or the inane thinking found in To The Lighthouse.

It all sounds complicated - and it is - but take a look at any published book or short story and you will almost always see that change, whether it be mental, physical, or metaphysical, can be found in the works.

So how should characters change? There are plenty of tricks, no solution that hasn't been done before, but it depends on what form the writer is attempting. Novels do not need early change; obviously hints of it in a short story is necessary. Usually after the climax of a story is point where change in a character can occur. It can be an epiphany, the end of a relationship, or the beginning of a new one.