Three Dimensional Character

THREE DIMENSIONAL CHARACTER

Try thinking about it this way. It may be oversimplified but it's a good starting point.

The first dimension, being the first way a character is appraised, is appearance. Looks, skin color, height, scars, clothing, etc. Easy enough.

The second dimension is the persona that the character chooses to display to the world. Does he or she appear to be kind or selfish, peaceful or combative, formal or casual, etc? All writers can handle this one.

But here's where it gets tough. The third dimension is the part of their persona the character is trying to conceal but is dragged to the surface by the story. It is almost always an inner contradiction to at least one of the other dimensions.

An example: In the film A Few Good Men, Tom Cruise is a handsome and supremely confident Navy lawyer. He appears to take enormous pride in his plea bargaining skills but inside, he fears going to trial because he believes he can never measure up to the legendary courtroom skills of his father. The life and death stakes of the story force his third dimension into the open.

In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart has convinced everyone he's a cold hearted man who only operates in his own self interest. But little kindnesses, revealed only to the audience, suggest something else. Eventually, the hole in his heart is exposed and healed, allowing him to openly act selflessly when it counts the most.

So it comes down to inner contradictions, but not contradictions for their own sake. The story must make it so they can no longer co-exist.

Even secondary characters can be three dimensional as long as what they are trying to achieve in your story brings out that third dimension.

Imagine a very good life sized photo of someone. It can be as detailed and lifelike as you can possibly make it, but the moment someone sees it from the side it's still only going to look like a big sheet of paper. The illusion of reality falls away the moment you get beyond the surface.

Compare that to an extremely lifelike 3D rendering such as a statue. The artifice isn't revealed quite so easily under scrutiny, because no matter which way you approach it from it still looks like a person.

That's what the term “three dimensional character” is meant to evoke. Two dimensional characters rarely get development on or off the page beyond what they do to further the story. A careful examination of what their motives might be or how they came to be where they are leaves the reader with nothing to show for it.

A three dimensional character, on the other hand, has been developed to the point where a more careful examination of what, how, and why they do things makes some degree of sense. Even if the writer doesn't include the full background for the character, they're presented with enough consistency and nuance to make it easy to believe that such a background does exist somewhere to explain it all. This makes it more likely that they will keep reading in the hopes of learning more about what that background might be.

A three dimensional character is basically a real person, someone who thinks, reacts, learns, struggles, and overcomes. Think of your life and how it molded you, how people have affected you, and you them. You did not start off complete, but you learned through life's lessons how to deal with the world. Main characters must be three dimensional to be relatable. Non essential characters, who either help or hinder the main cast, can be two dimensional. In other words, two dimensional characters are reflexive; they don't grow, develop, or learn; they either introduce an obstacle or a solution, but they're not complete. They're like shadows; they're there, but they don't really have their own thoughts. In the first Harry Potter movie, the only good one, Harry, Harmione, and Ron are three dimensional, but Longbottom is two dimensional; he was necessary to drive the story forward, but he didn't become three dimensional until later on.