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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43931
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43931
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In my opinion, a character needs some kind of impetus or crisis or catalyst or heartfelt realization to change their character. To me, that reflects reality. For a positive change of character, something has to _cause_ the change, to make the character either realize they don't _want_ to be the same person, or realize they have been _wrong_ and someone -- themselves, their family, innocent people -- have now been hurt by them being wrong.

On the flip side, for a negative change of character, something still has to _cause_ the change, but this will usually be an _injury_ to the character; literally or metaphorically. They were trusting, and that trust made them a victim. Or even without them trusting, circumstances (like poverty, racism, bigotry) cause them great harm, and their reaction, in despair, in sorrow, in outrage, is to cause great harm in return. They decide to _take_ what they need when it isn't going to be given to them, or to harm others to get ahead in what they see as a dog-eat-dog world: The dog being eaten didn't do anything wrong, it was just too weak to win the fight.

However, these circumstances require at least several pages to set up (for me chapters to set up) and the issues and current "setting" of the character must be described in even more pages, and the triggering event must seem realistic as a cause of change.

How many pages depends on your skill as a writer. Thus how many such changes with realistic causes you can get into a novel depends on your writing ability. For me, it isn't many, for a single character I have one epiphany, or perhaps two unrelated epiphanies, but I also have two or three characters that can experience such growth.

Original score: 14