Sign of good character development

Just realizing this after reading comments in latest chapter of "Pure Love X Insult Complex"
Have you ever saw novel with 10 or more focus character(close to main character) and remember their names and traits?

Thats one sign of good character development.

Because there are many novels who have supposedly important character but we just thought "who is this again?" and need to reread again to remeber them. And i think it is because the development of those character are not good enough. Sorry that i can't give an example because i cant remember them, but thats exactly the point.

Share your thoughts about this!

 

Doesn't need to have good character development to be remembered. As long as he or she stands out and is still continuously relevant to the plot, he or she will be remembered. There are special cases, though. Cases where one specific moment immortalizes said character in the novel.

 

Or they can be like the like the Geomchis.

 

well, one novel with a good character development for me is the second coming of gluttony. i can't say why i find it a good sign, as i am not really a book critique, but as a reader, i can point out that a good character development for me is that is features the realistic thoughts and feelings of a character or mc, not just having a sad background, then have a lucky encounter and then proceed to smash everything on the path (you get what i mean).

 

Hm, good character development takes time, and that means these guys are likely around for prolonged amounts of screen time. Time they have to actually matter. You won't find this in xianxia. The power scaling doesn't allow for it. In other novels you might have more luck with that but as is that list is very short and very western. For example I have read 3 Er Gen novels (up to a certain point anyway), and CD, and all of that within the last 4 years. Yet I remember more characters from Eragon or Bartimäus than these 4 novels combined, despispite having consumed them a decade ago. Why? Because the xianxia power systems do not allow for a second or third major character to lurk around from start to finish which actually gets shit done.

On the other hand there are characters with next to zero growth which people remember. Gandalf is an exemplar of the paragon subtype. Or uncle Iroh, for that matter. These characters do not grow in personality, and very rarely in power, but serve other purposes. So, despite having next to no growth, why do we remember these characters? Because they were well written. And that requires no development.

All in all good character development means characters are memorable, but the reverse ain't necessarily true.

 

This seems like an awfully low bar. It should be considered below the very minimal amount of characterization that a book should have. To be fair, I've read (and enjoyed) plenty of books that don't meet this minimum. For example, I've read "Kumo Kumo Kumo Bear" which has a thousand interchangeable little girls who are mainly distinguished by living in different places. Another one is by a book by the writer of "Holy Roman Empire" where there are a ton of characters, but they don't really have any personalities and the only difference between them is that they are in different positions so they have different goals. These books have terrible characterization and I don't expect anything interesting out of them in terms of writing. Also, since they don't have much personality, the dialogue in such books tend to be bland and uninteresting.

On the other end of the scale, the books I prefer tend to have dozens of memorable characters. Where once you see a character mentioned, you'll instantly recall what faction he belongs to, his position within that faction, his interests and motivations, his unique goals and other foibles. But I don't even regard this as particularly good characterization either. I think that for the kind of story these are, it's what the bare minimum should be. For actually good characterization the reader needs to be more absorbed into the character; to be able to empathize with him and be invested in his successes and failures. This is a level of characterization that I don't see discussed on NU at all so I assume that it's very rare.

 

Yoh mean "kuma kuma kuma bear"? Almost mistaken it with "kumo desuga, nanika?" as kuma = bear and kumo = spider

And yeah, memorable are quite a minor trait for good chardev

For a reader to be immersed in a character, it's actually depend subjectically on the reader themself like if you have some similar peculiarity with said character which connect you empathically to that character to be immensely invested.
There's of course an exception for people who have great empathy and/or imagination that can connect to a character easily.

We usually are more inclined to be immersed in a scene rather than character and thats why immersive character are rare

 

Unique characters help. I feel like some MCs have good development (as in they do change and progress over time), but they all progress towards the same end. Not that interesting even if there's good development.

 

This is one reason i hate xianxia novels. That power scaling that dump everything else behind.
And memorable is only one trait of a good chardev, and which now i learn are quite a minor trait. But i guess a char with fixed role and moderate or more screentime can also have that trait

 

I could read a similar progression dozens of times without being bored. The problem is that everything else is a bland mess as well.
In xianxia it gets so bad that most people stop remembering names. Why bother with the villains if they are all bland cannon fodder anyway? Why bother with the friends if they add nothing meaningful to the story? Why bother with love interests if they are the same stupid doormat in distress every single fucking time? Why bother tracking power levels if they don't mean shit and are without properly introduced power ceiling?

 

Yeah, I don't like the term "character development" to begin with because it can mean one of two different things, and any term that is inherently ambiguous ends up being cumbersome to use. I prefer the terms "characterization" and "character progression" instead because it just a lot more clear what I'm talking about.

Yeah, it's Kuma Kuma Kuma of course. Then again is there really any difference between a spider and a bear?

Anyways, I think that the idea that a reader has to be similar to a character to have any empathy for him holds no water. While it's true that some readers have a lot of trouble empathizing with someone else, it's still all about a writer's ability to bring out the traits of their characters. I can imagine that most of the popular books out there can't really do this, but these writers exist, and their books are out there.

 

Exactly my feeling, comparing it to games it's like mediocre JRPGs where you just grind your way through without caring about the gameplay or worldbuilding or games where progression requires understanding gameplay or where the story is engaging, I still like mediocre JRPGs and Xianxias tho.

But those problems are not just one of narrative structures, sure the arcs tend to be almost episodic and require monotonous escalation but even within such a structure, there is no inherent reason why they should also involve monotonous characters both in their personality, role in the story and even appearance. That's at least multiple flaws stack together, is a miracle I tolerate those stories still.
On the note of appearance, in a story the "jade beauties" were at most differentiated in personality and... breast size(not even, just their relative scaling, which is dumber), no idea of any character's hair colour or for females even height, which you would think could be the laziest way to create a visual association to a character and yet they either don't tell or if they tell it's either black or one single character has some weird magical hair color, sooo unnecessarily boring.

 

you mean memorable character?
ubul, zhi long, liu bei, liu chan, cao cao, cao ren, dong zhou, diao chan, sun ce, sun jian, zhuge liang etc from romance of the three kingdoms~ do they have character development? meh~ but the story give so much impact for this cat hence remember those name~ it can happen to any story be it hentai, romance, xuanhuan, bl ect~
this cat may remember 51 early pokemon generations name with it attribute, attack ect but cant even remember 10 chemist elements period table~

 

Baddie A appears. He is rank MC+1(or two if its real garbage). Peanuty gallery jacks him off. MC beats the crap out of him so his grand daddy who is rank MC+2 can get his ass handed to him. Rinse and repeat.
The names don't even matter at that point. All the same garbage anyway. Enemies are evil cuz enemies and MC is good cuz MC. Cultivation realm doesn't matter either. And sadly neither of the two are driving the plot in any meaningfull way.

Meanwhile proper(ish) writing, with barely any more effort, can get sth along the lines of this:
Char A fucks up B because he really really wants that shiny resource Z. B didn't want to trade it because he knows its too important for A. A is established as someone dumb powerful, the apex of the power system, so ofc B is either equally powerful or in dire straits. He might get some help from char C cuz he offers him half of Z if he helps him scare off A. A calls BS and starts the party. In the meantime we get to know why A is currently such a dick about it and suddenly there is an antagonist whose motivations are not on the level of "Oi, that was MY dinner table."

Like, at least try to give the enemies and characters motivations beyond "I want his D" (the doormat), "I want his D as trophy"(the ignorant enemy of the day) and "That girl wants my D for sure"(the retarded mc not worth being called a protagonist).
A good example for a super villain (the most blad of them all usually) would be Thanos.

 

In fact that's why I prefer worlds where everything is grounded in an actually vast and relatively uniform world instead of having realms stacked on top of one another whose difference is just the level of the mobs.

I mean you can still have an RPG-like power progression but if you keep it mild you don't have the problem of having to either drop half of the established casts and enemy factions because MC is too strong and also avoid the contrived solution of having villains and allies somehow keep up with what is otherwise often described as miraculous growth that the MC experiences.

Even bad xianxia novels tend to have relatively good moments when MC is weaker than its enemies but has to do something clever or non-conventional. This also why I prefer worlds with actual rule of law and states over the virtual anarchy of sects and clans, because the latter often doesn't go beyond being just a "free for all" while the former allows for the existence institutions that have a logic and purpose to them beyond being a loose congregation of people that may or may not share the same goals and that for some reason has a coherent group identity that is hostile to other groups, which is basically what sects are.

Especially jarring when you consider the fantastical nature and the supposed vastness of such worlds, the various creatures living with them, the otherworldly journey you could and how such settings are contrasted heavily with the shallowness of the people living in them and their relations to one another. You have a world so vast, so full of things to do and what you do with is describe continuous tribal-factional warfare over resources...

 

I personally think that for a good character development to happen, the MC need to struggle and experience a hardship or any kind of real challenge and actually learn a lesson. Pretty rate to find this in NU, though

 

On the other hand, consider a story where many characters are never named after hundreds or thousands of chapters, yet are full of personality and charm that makes you want to cheer them on in in their quest to have the protagonist call their name. I'm thinking Haruka will probably give in around chapter 4000 at this rate...

 

It helps, but I don't think it's necessary. The advantage of a character who has to struggle is that the reader gets to see more aspects of his personality; especially the aspects that would normally rarely show up. For expert writers this isn't as necessary because they already have a good idea of how to get the most out of their characters, but it should really help less proficient ones. An easy example here is Ainz from "Overlord". He never sees any real challenge (although plenty of self inflicted ones!), but he's actually pretty good as a character.

I don't think such books are that hard to find on NU either. All you have to do is to avoid the wish fulfillment books that are allergic to conflicts that actually challenge the protagonist. These books are relatively easy to identify so it's not really that bad. Warning though that books that are like this include some of the most popular books and book genres on NU.

 

it's good character development when they get married and have babies.

it's bad character development when the child is left out of the plot for 90% of the story once she's born like DE.

 

I think that the 'struggle' could also persist in a less dramatic form, such as getting a high score on exams, or striking a conversation with a classmate. After all, struggle is merely a reaction of 'conflict', and conflict is always exist in most novels. The trick is to have the character gained an appropriate level of "lesson" according to their level of struggle. But yeah, maybe i either ran out of good materials to read, or simply haven't searched deep enough

Anywah..... I think i misinterpreted the "development" part in this convo as character growth? Sorry! Language barriers sucks