Thread:JeloElducal/@comment-30384301-20181114140820/@comment-8138569-20181117140403

Redfork2000 wrote: Chilly Bean BAM! wrote: *sigh* Here's some character development.

This isn't character development. It's called characterization, which is something very different.
 * Kernely's childish and she also plays the violin.
 * Blovy knows how to play basketball with her friends (No, not the other 5. Unnamed friends.).
 * Pealy cares for Kernely more than the others.
 * Richard prefers classical music over other music.
 * Samantha frequently adds the word "like" to her speech.

Character development happens through a process in the character's story. They experience different events that affect them in different ways, or through significant interactions with other characters. In any case, character development will come from what the character has learned by the experience.

For example, if you had a story where Kernely wanted to learn to play the violin, but she struggles in the process, perhaps even having an antagonist rival character telling her something like: "You'll never  learn how to play the violin." Kernely struggles, and reaches a point where she's so frustrated that she gives up the violin as a whole. However, in the darkest moment of her frustration, she looks at something she wrote as a little child: "When I grow up, I want to be a great violin player, and play the violin on a stage, with hundreds of people enjoying my music." She suddenly gets flashbacks to how much she wanted to learn to play the violin as a child, and why it was so important to her. She realizes that all this time she's been focused on proving that antagonist character how wrong they are, instead of focusing on herself and her dream. So she decides to go back to learning how to play the violin, and after several weeks of hard work, she gets very good at it, and even decides to do a presentation in front of a large crowd in Foodland. She then sees everyone clapping and cheering for her, just like in her flashback.

If you made a story like this, then Kernely would've gotten a good dose of character development. And by the way, in this example, playing the violin isn't even the most important of the character development. No, the most important part is Kernely's cahracter and personality. She learns to work hard for her goals, even when others are telling her she can't do it. She also learns to not focus on what negative people say, and instead focus on enjoying the progress. And that my friend, is some really good character development.

What you did there is characterization. Characterization is simply to show what your characters are like, what they do and what they like. It can be done in-story in very subtle ways, for example, if Blovy likes basketball, then you could have a scene where her friends come to her house, and while the scene takes place, some character notices a basketball in the background. You could also do it by having Blovy applying the abilities from basketball like running, jumping and tossing, and applying them in daily life situations. For example, perhaps she has to take an empty bag of chips to the trash can, but instead decides to roll it like a ball, and toss it into the trash can from a long distance. Or perhaps have her be capable of doing large jumps.

Characterization is good, but it's not character development. While Character development is how a character grows through significant events and interactions, characterization is just displaying some traits the characters have so we get to know them better. For example, if Kernely plays the violin, you can have her friends come to her house one day, and hear someone playing the violin, only to then learn that she's practicing to play the violin.

Also, I strongly recommend you don't try to copy characterization ideas from other characters. That last one, "like", is way too similar to Leni, who by the way, is already in IaLR. And believe me, copy-pasting ideas from other characters makes a creator look unoriginal and lacking creativity. It's better to come up with something new yourself. Okay.