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In the interest of saving the world, I’m going to try to answer @r-m-archer and @ethryndal‘s question today.

The question is basically: how do I fix the problem of having a character I feel like I understand well that’s coming across as flat.

Now, this is one of those questions that’s tricky. There could be a lot of answers and I don’t know which one is causing this problem, so I’m just going to take a shotgun approach and list several possibilities and hope one of them applies.

Steril character relationships.

No character is an island. In fact, they’re connected by a complex web to everyone around them. Pluck one of those strings and your character is going to dance. A sure recipe for a character that doesn’t matter to the reader is a character that doesn’t matter to the other characters. Maybe they care about him or her, but as far as meaningful relationships go, the character is disposable. You may know a character’s great aunt’s maiden name, but if he’s just there to make quips, or be really nice all the time, or plan tactics — if he’s defined by who he is not what he’s becoming, he will seem flat. I commend to you K.M.Wieland’s recent post on character chemistry. https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/how-to-create-character-chemistry/

Lack of motivations and goals

Again, the character must be evolving. If they’re not striving for something — and striving for something of real, deep meaning to them, then they will be flat.

For POV characters, unclear dispositions

A character’s disposition at any given point in a scene is one of the most fascinating aspects of that scene. It is really what gives the scene meaning and purpose. (To know how to do this well, see the post I made last week about internal monologue.) Whenever a POV character has a significant change in disposition, it is worth noting. Scenes that do little to no work showing the disposition of POV characters will risk having characters that seem to act for no reason or purpose.

Trying to characterize too much in a short amount of time

Let’s say a side character is a poor old widow who is struggling financially and is slightly deranged and thinks your protagonist is her long-lost daughter. This character is only present in the book for one scene where your protagonist bumps into her on the street and apologizes before moving on. Imagine trying to convey all that information about her in one line from her and one facial expression. If you try, readers will only be confused and they might even expect you to clear up the confusion later and to bring back the old widow as a side character. You thought by giving this side character a huge backstory you would make her deeper, when you have only made her flatter than she would have been if you had just concentrated on showing she was poor. Deep characterization is WONDERFUL, but it requires time to show. If you don’t have that much time, either make time for it, or keep the characterization basic.  (Or write in omniscient, but that’s another story.)