Writing Cookbook: Showing Character Growth

Let’s say you want to persuade us that your company has grown.

The easiest option would be to say baldly “Our company has grown substantially,” and sure. That’s the fact of the matter, but we’re not sure how much your company grew or in what ways it grew. It’s not going to stick with us.

Another option would be to say something like “Last year we made $100,000, and this year, we have five employees.”

It helps to provide specific figures, but now it’s confusing, right? Seems like you probably grew, but still hard to tell how or how much.

Instead, you might say, “Last year we made $100,000, and this year, we made $250,000.” Or, “Last year we had two employees, and this year we have five.”

Much better. We’re convinced.

Now let’s say instead you want to persuade us that a character has grown.

As before, you could just say “Davey overcame his shyness,” but it’s still not going to stick very well. “Davey used to be afraid of speaking to large groups, but now he’s a master public speaker” is a little better but still not really selling it.

Instead, your best bet is to contrast the same situation Before and After:

Before: Davey hid his sweaty hands behind his back so the audience couldn’t see them quivering as he slunk towards the podium. From the middle of the auditorium, it was easier to hear the slackers in the back row punching each other and giggling than it was to hear Davey.

After: Davey’s bone-dry hands on the podium now seemed to hold the auditorium itself in place as his voice boomed to the back row.

One of the most common mistakes is to mismatch the Before and After:

Before: Davey used to walk around a room full of new people with his eyes locked on the ground, the sweat from his right palm degrading the leather of his calfskin wallet.

After: Davey’s bone-dry hands on the podium now seemed to hold the auditorium itself in place as his voice boomed to the back row.

This is like saying, “Last year we made $100,000, and this year, we have five employees.” It could be that Davey grew, or it could be that he simply handled two different situations in different ways.

Keep the situations and details as symmetrical as possible. This will create the “lab conditions”, with as many variables as possible held constant, that prove the character has grown.

Groundhog Day is basically a 101 minute illustration of this principle.

Phil (the Bill Murray guy) faces the same scenarios every single day in an endless loop, providing these perfect “lab conditions.” Over the course of the story, the way he handles these scenarios evolves, which proves to us that it is Phil that changes, not the scenarios themselves.

The character that grows could be in a story you’re writing or in a story you’re analyzing for a paper; that “character” could even be you in something like an admissions essay.

Whatever it is, contrast the same Before and After.

PS: You can use the inverse as well to demonstrate similarity or stagnation. Show your character in different situations that produce the same results.