Flat Characters

Most of the characters you ever create will be Flat Characters. In a novel with a cast of dozens, perhaps even hundreds, only a small handful can ever become Round Characters. The minor characters will all be flat characters - as a matter of fact, they must be two-dimensional.

Just because a fictional character is flat, though, doesn't mean to say that he or she cannot stand out from the crowd. I'll talk about how to make them memorable in a moment, but first let's be clear about what these characters are, exactly...

What Makes Characters Flat?

A flat character is essentially a stereotype. For example...

• A rude shop assistant.
• A cheerful paperboy.
• The old lady next door who always has the TV up too loud.

They are defined by a single character trait - rudeness, cheerfulness, deafness - and we never get to know anything more about them. Now, as readers of the novel in which these characters appear, we know that there must be more depth to them than this...

• That the rude shop assistant volunteers at a soup kitchen on her days off, perhaps.
• That the cheerful paperboy is the school thug.
• That the old lady keeps the TV turned up to muffle the sound of her counterfeiting machine.

Such things would be the first step towards giving these characters greater dimension. But because their role in the novel is minimal - just two or three brief appearances, perhaps - one or two brushstrokes is all that the storyteller needs to paint their picture.

Making Flat Characters Memorable

The first thing to say is that you won't want all of your cardboard characters to be vividly portrayed. A lot of them will be little more than extras - in other words, part of the setting. Just occasionally, though, it is a good idea to take one of your minor characters and really make them stand out.

The way that you do this is through exaggeration. So if flat characters are defined by a single character trait, take that trait and magnify it tenfold.

Don't just make the shop assistant rude to the customers, make her spectacularly rude...

• If a customer doesn't wipe their feet, she has a go at them for traipsing mud through her shop.
• If they don't have the right change, she sighs and curses under her breath as she rakes through the till.
• Anytime a customer wants help, it is always too much trouble.
• Oh, and to really make sure that the reader won't forget her, she always dresses totally in black and wears an oversized crucifix.

Do everything you can to make her vivid, even comic - but don't turn her into a round character.

Her stereotype is "rude shop assistant," and that is how she must stay. If you start adding depth to her character, by giving her traits which work against this type, the reader will expect her to be a more significant character in the novel than she is - and they will be disappointed when they never hear from her again.

Flat characters always act according to type and never surprise us, but that doesn't mean you can't make them steal the occasional scene.