After listening to a speaker tout the merits of character growth, I pondered its importance in a short story. I published quite a few stories before realizing I hadn’t considered whether any of my characters actually “grew” or not.
I puzzled over my working cadre of short stories and asked myself if any of those characters actually broadened their horizons, began to embrace the good with the bad, learned about the importance of forgiveness, or morphed from a wallflower to a politician. After this introspection I had to admit, no. Nothing like that. Due to an experience in the story, a few of my characters might have changed their minds about something. But did they “grow” as an character? I’m pretty sure they didn’t.
Then I had to consider my genre. I like to write spooky, weird, off the wall stories, so my characters generally deal with harrowing, life-threatening situations, including monsters, ghosts or aliens, and somehow they prevail. But their character doesn’t actually change.
I’ve never cared much for predictable, softhearted stories and movies where a tiny squabble or matter of discontent gets blown out of proportion, then it’s resolved, and everyone hugs and loves each other forever. I yearn for more action than that, definitely more intensity, like being weirded out or scared out of my socks. Yeah, movies like “Alien” appeal to me.
I like to stun, shock, bewilder, confuse, or frighten with my stories. But now that I’m pondering character growth, I’ve begun thinking of characters in books and movies I’ve enjoyed. The characters might kill the monster, quiet the ghost, or send the aliens home but did they “grow” as an individual, a character, a person? I have to admit, at the end of the thrillers I’ve enjoyed, the characters remained largely unchanged, just more banged up.
Most stories where protagonists show obvious character growth due to a difficult, moral choice they’ve made are not thrillers. Thrillers have something dynamic happening every chapter or even every few minutes. There’s so much mayhem or violence going on there isn’t much room for a development as subtle as character growth.
Yet, I have to admit: Stories that contain characters who have dealt with their personal struggles until they become a different person (or character) do tend to stay with us longer. Although I’m jazzed by thrillers, I remember stories like “Stone Pillow.”
In the script for the movie “Stone Pillow,” Ms. Goldemberg (author) revealed important character growth in Daphne, the NYC case worker investigating homeless women. In the end, Daphne’s mind was changed forever. Meanwhile, the main character (played by Lucille Ball), an old homeless woman whom Daphne investigated, didn’t change. Her circumstances appeared to change, but she didn’t. That movie aired on TV in 1985 and I’ll never forget it.
At the end of my quandary about character growth, I came to the question: Do I want my stories to thrill, titillate, and scare, or do I want them to be remembered for important character growth? Maybe, once in a while, I’ll be able to accomplish both.
Hope so.
After writing my debut in the women’s fiction genre, my second book is more psychological suspense with a stalker pursuing a district attorney. But the character growth is still there in my protagonist who, through the cauldron of the experience of first being harassed, and then arrested for murder, learns the life lesson that work is not all there is to life. So I think there’s room for both, particularly in a longer form like a novel.
Hi Maggie,
I appreciate your comment. Your psychological suspense novel sounds intriguing. Sounds like you accomplished both in your second novel: penning a thriller where the protagonist demonstrates character growth.
Thanks,
Ann
Hi Ann,
Like you, I write short stories (mine are more in the mystery / suspense arena). And like you, I’m not totally convinced that characters can change much (if at all) in those kinds of genre stories. As you write in the blog, in your situation, “killing the monster, or quieting the ghost” is the point of the story, just as in a mystery it’s finding the killer / embezzler etc., or finding out who’s behind the criminal plot.
“Literary” short stories are a different category, and there much of the point of the story IS to create some long-term character change (it may not be “growth,” per se … but some kind of change).
But character growth in genre stories is an interesting question. I think having it (or not) depends on whether or not the author wants to create a “lessons learned” / post-story result. And depending on the market you’re writing for (and any applicable word limit), the author may or may not want to do that. (I certainly would not shortchange the plot or character development in the story, in order to allow for character growth.)
So it’s an interesting conundrum … but my sense is that most genre stories won’t have it.
Hi Chuck,
Thank you for your comments, and I agree with what you’re saying. An author could find room for character growth in a genre novel, but inserting it in a genre short story can be a tough ask. Most of the time there just isn’t enough time – or room.
Write on!
Ann