Writing Tips

How to Write a Three Dimensional Character

When I was finishing up one of my stories, "Me, My Curves, and I" last year, one critic said that my female character of the story, Jaelyn is one dimensional. So, I decided to Google search on how to write a three dimensional character and discovered a question on the website, Quora. What makes a character feel so real, relatable, and three dimensional stem from a playwright, Lajos Egri's three dimensions of character model from his book, The Art of Dramatic Writing. Lajos' idea is that in order to conceive a character, a writer should consider three dimensions; a character's physiology, psychology, and sociology. 

Physiology considers how the character's body helps or hinders them in life - whether they're unusually short, tall, fat, ugly, beautiful, athletic, crippled, etc - and what adaptations and habits they develop to cope or compensate.

Psychology looks basically at the character's early family life. Like, for example; a protagonist or antagonist with a painful childhood.

And Sociology looks at the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of how the character developed - whether they were raised rich or poor or in between, in the median culture or some other culture, to a prominent family or a family of peasants, etc.

Taken together, these three dimensions of character should give the writer plenty of material to consider a character's background and disposition. The idea has found its way into writing character sheets. Used judiciously, it can help a writer explore a character's motives.

Here is the link of how to write a three dimensional character;

http://writersrelief.com/blog/2013/11/5-ways-to-create-three-dimensional-characters/