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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/43902
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A good well-written three dimensional character requires a lot of work. You need to really show them through their ups and their downs. You have to flesh out their strengths and weaknesses. You have to get to know them. I often find myself developing backstory that I never share with the reader but that exists because _I_ need to know them better in order to know how they will act in the story. For this reason I am not necessarily eager to flesh out every character I put into a story.

Not only is it a lot of work but sometimes an archetype can be useful as a symbol. When a character is meant more as a foil, or as exposition, or some symbol of deeper meaning, then sometimes having them take the archetypal form is the right way to do it. As useful as it is though it is rare that making the archetype multi-dimensional would be problematic or wrong.

But how do I know _when_ a character has grown beyond being one-dimensional? Is there a percentage of the story that they are present for? Is it the role they play? Protagonist? Antagonist? Foil?

As of right now I currently use _feel_ to decide if a character is important enough or meaningful enough. Surely there is a better way. Some metric or rule of thumb I'm not really considering?

Original score: 4