Well-Rounded Characters

[EUOL]

So, how do you really do this?  It seems to me that there is a very fine line here.  In an amateur story I recently read, a character suddenly did something completely out of character.  The author's explanation is that he was trying to make the character seem well-rounded by giving him more complex motives.  Yet, it came across to me as a break in characterization.

I wonder about this.  Everyone always says that characters have to be well-rounded, they can't be 'flat.'  This seems very hard to do, especially if it's not a viewpoint character.

[Entsuropi]

One problem with all my RPG characters is that i tend to go for pretty simple ones. I almost do it terry prattchet style - i choose a trait and build the character around that. My character in the Planescape game down there is based around arrogance.

That characters history is a good method. You want him to do something like... attack a mercenary warband? Make it so that someone mentions that he lost his entire family when their town was attacked by mercenaries. Not only makes him more 3D, also happily explains away the action you want.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I would suggest that a 3d character comes across by NOT building on a single emotion or trait. At the very least, spending the story examining HOW he's come to embody the trait. Give him multiple motivations which may at time conflict. I would imagine that the problem with your amateur story example, EUOL, was that he hadn't previously allowed the reader to know there was another motivation at work, but just focussed on the previously dominant one. If you can see there's a second (or third or fourth) motivation underneath, it won't  be such a break in characterization when he makes the change.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

A 3D character behaves like a human does, is able to hold two contradicting arguments inside themselves and not explode. However like real people the character should keep to a simplified routine, or state of inertia. Most people after all coast through life trying not to upset their own status quo, (even if the status quo they have constructed for themselves is messed up) Only a major event, or unusal circumstances prod a character into doing something uncharacteristic. Sometimes thats a good thing, and sometimes its bad.

A good example of a 3D character is Frodo from LOTR after all he's a character who is noble in spirit but not supremely keen on going out on adventures, or putting himself into great harm.

[Mistress of Darkness]

I saw a good example of this last night. It was a secondary character that acted out of the ordinary. The main character and another secondary character discussed it between themselves, pointing out that this character could sometimes be surprising.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

yeah

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

yeah you definately have to explain to the reader why someone would do something out of the ordinary. In Jennifer Government, Hack Nike does some crazy stuff because he's had it up to here with other people manipulating him.

[EUOL]

The big question--not that you aren't addressing it, but I wanted to reiterate--is how do you do all of this?  It's one thing to notice that Frodo is well-rounded.  It's another to create an equally interesting character in your own fiction.

And, of course, it seems that some people don't always want to read well-rounded character.  In my most recent book, I disappointed someone as the book progressed and I characterized one of the characters in a way that I thought gave him depth.  My reader, however, had originally saw this character as a paradigm of virtue and all-around-superman-ness.  

As I gave the character a few rough edges--making him a bit hesitant to act, and a little bit tired of life--it ruined my reader's original impression, and generally proved to be a disappointment.  I'm left wondering if I did something wrong--if I should have just left the character as a flat, but very noble, person.  

(Note--I'm not making the 'You have to make good people have a little bit of evil' argument.  I don't believe that.  I was simply trying to make this character real, and by making him real he couldn't be the perfect, tireless seeker of justice my reader wanted to see.)

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Were those my comments? (just curious)

If they were:
I know I sounded a little disappointed with a few things, but I wouldn't really change the essential character of the heroes.

I don't think people want flat characters, but at times they want predictability. And they want a clear "good guy" that they won't be disappointed in. If he has problems, he should be able to, in the end, get around them.  (note, this is in the particular view I'm talking about, not what art should or shouldn't be). It can be jarring to see soemthing that doesn't meet these criteria, but not necessarily undesirable.

By this set of criteria, you could do what I had before: give a character two sets of desires, the "seeker of truth and justice" and something maybe a touch more selfish (though even more interesting would be something else virtuous but that might come into conflict in certain circumstances). Then have those come into conflict. If he wavers, and even chooses the more selfish motivation at times, he will be human, but still heroic if he chooses the more virtuous path when the crunch really comes.

[EUOL]

No, it was Morag.  He didn't like what I did with Dalenar.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

k, (I added more above if you didn't see it).
I liked Dalenar. He had the strength at the end to even forgive a crime and offer someone he didn't like to retain his position, even though he personally felt the person was dispicable. His love for his son won out in his personal feelings, but he could still act more nobly. That was human and well-rounded, btw.

[Entsuropi]

Actually, Dalenar jarred me a bit at the end. It felt somewhat like he was a different character - i didn't feel there had been enough intermediatary change. He went from one mindset to another and though it made sense, it still meant that his actions jarred me since i still was thinking of the original mindset.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I think we mean different things by "jarring." the way I'm using it, it means "out of no where." that's not the case with Dalenar. You yourself admit that it seemed reasonable. It came up before. Heck the whole reason he went to war was because the king killed his son (both of them, he thought), so it wasn't out of left field. It made sense and the story even built up to it. Even in this case, it can still have some shock value and hit you hard with how things have changed so much.

[Entsuropi]

I'm meaning jarring in the sense of... it didn't fit, or felt like it didn't fit. Like when there are two artistic styles mixed in one painting, or two colours that don't match.

And that description is just incredibly confusing.

[Mistress of Darkness]

Yes, but Morag tends to prefer his characters black and white, so that might just be how he reads, rather than a general reflection on your writing. He GMs like that too.

To make a well-rounded character I believe you have to do as Saint suggested. Create a character with personality, rather than a single emotion. It's helpful if you introduce situations where they don't simply revert to type. For example: one character is extremely against killing, except in a certain circumstance, where her bigotry outweighs her inclination against violence. Naturally, you have to write the situation in such a way that the reader can understand the sudden change. There will still be readers who will disagree with you, because they will have previously built up the character "like so" in their head, and you've messed with that. But they're your characters, and in most situations--after the initial shock--the reader becomes accustomed to it, and it ceases to bother them.