Characters are defined by or define the story. In a character driven story your character would obviously be complex, but they wouldn't start that way, not to the reader anyway. Their, well, character, develops through their reactions to events in the story.

A simplified character is for short stories where you rely on tropes or stories like (usually bad) fantasy or sci fi where the environment is so novel or strange that developing a complex character would be alienating to the reader.

Also secondary characters are obviously simplified

You should watch LocalScriptMan on YouTube fren

But tbh you're looking at it backwards. One-off characters can become pivotal like Jesse, Mike, and Saul from Breaking Bad. While a simple character might work for a children's story, you want as much depth and nuance as possible. Layered, often contradictory motivations. Inject lots of subtext in dialogue and how they behave. Test the limits of their skills and beliefs.

Make a dilemma--force your character to adapt/get help at risk of dying or losing it all. For some people that's the point. It's fun to see how far someone pushes their luck before getting put in the ground.

Flat characters can maybe work (Geralt, Saitama, James Bond) but unless you've got a truly stellar cast they're imo

I give every character

MASSIVE TITTIES

!writecel

oh boy we're really stretching for any hint of intelligent life on rdrama today, aren't we.

Characters are just people but less real. If you know anything about people, you can write characters. What makes them interesting is how they react to the environment you put them in.

Character is the filter through which we perceive and interact with the world. At a basic level, it means certain traits or motivations that are consistent regardless of the current scenario.

Suppose our protagonist had an awkward and unpleasant encounter with a stranger. There are a few ways she might tell the story, depending on her character.

"I met this fricking butthole today," "I met the biggest idiot today," "I met a racist today," "I made a fool of myself today," "I had this really weird encounter today," "I'm just having a really bad day," etc. She might express this with confusion, anger, sadness, or humor. Or she might not express it at all, maybe she doesn't ruminate about such minor events.

When encountering this person, she might have reacted in all kinds of ways. She might have acted polite, acted passive-aggressive, escalated the situation, or even whipped out her phone to post the whole thing on Twitter.

And of course, when we read or write about our protagonist judging this person, we are also judging her.

Complexity comes from exploring or complicating her response. For example, maybe there's a character with a chip on her shoulder who goes for the questionable "I met a racist" story every time. She's also open about her mental illness and struggles with paranoia, but she's never noticed the connection between these issues. She also tells racist jokes. She's also legitimately a very kind, funny, and generous person that most people like being around. Of course, expressing this degree of complexity also requires skill. Otherwise you run the risk of either telling the reader how to feel, or else contriving something that doesn't feel real (for example, the character I described just now is a real person I know and like, but I'm not sure she sounds plausible when reduced to bullet points).

Most of the time, character complexity emerges naturally from interesting plots and scenarios building on each other. I don't think it's truly possible to write about a complex character getting up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and driving to work. But the longer a story goes, and the more complex/novel scenarios the character goes through, the more complex they will become--as long as you are really simulating them in your mind, and taking all of their experiences into account as you pick their next word/thought/action.

Chinese characters and kanji are inherently more complex than Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic characters. Hangul characters are pretty cool.

Characters dont need to be complex. Make them female and have them r*ped. Enough said

I made this post to brag and to gloat about how everything that you've ever tried to do to stop the transgender acceptance movement has failed. Transgender acceptance is, somewhat ironically, the pinnacle of American exceptionalism.

I use the bathroom which aligns with my gender identity. I have never had a problem.

One time I was on a team and we got new shirts. The women (including me) shuffled off into another room to change. No one batted an eye that I was there; literally no one cared.

I got into an argument with a cis woman regarding trans women in sports. I said that it is reasonable for sporting bodies to analyze statistics, hormone levels, etc. and set reasonable guidelines (e.g. hormone testing) for transfem competitors. She argued that HRT changes your hormones and that you should be eligible as long as you're on it.

People tell me that I pass very well; the last time that I got misgendered was when I went to vote and they saw my s*x on my ID. (I voted dem ofc)

You may have noticed that all of these examples have to do with cis women. That's because most of my friends are women; women accept me as one of their own. That's because I am a woman, and there is nothing that you can do about it.

I was talking to a man and somehow we got into the conversation about whether it would be gay to date a trans woman. He straight-up said "It would be a straight relationship if I was dating you." Keep in mind this guy is raised Catholic, and he's a very non-degenerate and popular guy.

Speaking of which my prestigious Catholic high school ($20k+ yearly tuition) let me wear a dress to the prom. (I am obv no longer in high school, this was a few years ago.) While using an affirmed name was against their policy, the principal used my affirmed name on the last day. I had other teachers approach me during the school year and ask about my gender identity, apparently because it was obvious. They started using my affirmed name in private.

Everyone that I know is at least a leftist, ranging from classical Democrat to anarcho-communist. We hear occasionally of the mythical republican, but I don't know of any by name. They are a dying breed here.

These people -- these young people who accept me -- are the building blocks of our future society. Boomers aren't getting any younger. My friends who work at Raytheon call it ✨Gaytheon✨. We will bomb the middle east and we'll make it gay.

Everything that you have ever done to sabotage the trans acceptance movement has failed.