The longer we work with a character, the more complex they’re likely to become. If they don’t change from our original concept, they’re caricatures, not characters.
I’m talking relatively major characters, of course. Those who exist primarily as ‘furniture’ (as Evelyn Waugh called them) need no depth nor development. That would just get in the way and distract from the main plot.
As an example from the novel-in-progress, I’ll give you Caroline Dunhill’s husband, Doctor Eric Dunhill. In his brief appearance in the first Tamarind novel, he comes off as an amiable nonentity, essentially there as adjunct to Caroline’s decidedly unlikeable persona.
That changes in this sequel. We see that most of that was a front he presented to the world. There are definite psychopathic elements to his personality, that come out when he feels his comfortable existence is threatened. He’s a user, simply put.
And Caroline? Still not exactly the nicest person around but we begin to see her more clearly, her unhappiness, her yearning. The whole gilded cage syndrome is hardly a new theme in literature, but it does reflect real life at times. Caroline is no Anna Karenina nor even a Madame Bovary; she is reasonably unique, and has a stubborn center to her that remembers where she came from, even if she attempted to distance herself from those roots. We are going to see it in action. Will it pull her through? That subplot is for the reader to discover one of these days.
Soon, probably. I’ve zoomed past 40,000 words and see no obstructions ahead. ‘The Complete Breath’ will probably not weigh in at quite the word count of ‘Asanas,’ but it will be a substantial-enough novel. One with characters that have grown into their envisioned roles, and then remade them.
