# Character Development: Arcs, Example, Worksheet - Feldar > Character development for fiction writers: positive, flat and negative arcs, want and need, change shown in scenes, a worked example and a free worksheet. - URL: https://feldar.com/guides/character-development - Site: [Home](https://feldar.com/) · [About](https://feldar.com/about) · [Blog](https://feldar.com/blog) · [Careers](https://feldar.com/careers) · [Pricing](https://feldar.com/pricing) · [Download](https://feldar.com/download) · [Changelog](https://feldar.com/changelog) - Machine index: [llms.txt](https://feldar.com/llms.txt) · [full site content](https://feldar.com/llms-full.txt) --- On this page - The short answer - What character development means - Three kinds of arc - Want and need - The flaw and the lie - Showing change in scenes - Worked example: Elizabeth Bennet - Four more arcs, briefly - Free character worksheet - Common mistakes - Developing characters in Feldar - Sources - Questions Updated November 6, 2026 · By the Feldar team ### Character development: how characters change, with a worked example 10 min read What character development means in a novel, the three kinds of arc, want against need, and how to show change in scenes. Then one heroine traced chapter by chapter through Pride and Prejudice, and a worksheet to copy or download. #### The short answer - Character development is how a character changes, or refuses to change, across the book, and what that costs them. - Choose the arc: positive (they let go of a false belief), flat (they hold a true one and change the people around them) or negative (they fall). - Give them a want they chase and a need they resist. Then build a story that makes them choose between the two. - Make the flaw a behaviour, rooted in a lie the character believes, that has worked for them until now. - Show the change in a run of scenes: the flaw in action, its cost, a glimpse of the need, the reckoning, the test, the proof. - End on a choice that only the changed character would make. #### What character development means Writers use the phrase in two senses. The first is the work you do before and during drafting: a history, a voice, habits, the things a character would never say. The second is what the reader watches: a person who is different on the last page from the first, because of what happened in between. This guide is mostly about the second, because it is the one readers remember. A character can be vivid and never change. Sherlock Holmes is the same man in the last story as in the first, and a series can be built on that. But in most novels the reader expects the central character to be altered by the plot, and to have paid for it. If the events could happen to anyone and leave them as they were, the plot is weather, not story. #### Three kinds of character arc An arc is the shape of that change. Most fall into one of three kinds, each defined by what happens to a belief the character holds. Positive change They believe something false. The story tests it, they let it go, and they are better for it. Scrooge, Elizabeth Bennet. Flat They already hold a truth. The story pressures it, they keep it, and the people around them change. Often read in Jane Eyre's later chapters. Negative They turn away from the truth, or choose the lie with their eyes open, and end worse. Dorian Gray. There are variants. In a disillusionment arc the character learns a truth that hurts: Pip in Great Expectations learns in chapter 39 that the fortune he built his life on came from the convict he was ashamed of, and the rest of the book turns on what he does with that. In a corruption arc a good person is bought, a little at a time. Both are still about a belief meeting the world. #### Want and need The want is what the character chases: visible from outside, specific enough to win or lose in a scene. The need is what they must learn, accept or give up, and it is usually the thing they would deny if you said it to their face. For Elizabeth Bennet: Want To read people quickly and be right, and to marry only for love. Need To see that her judgments are shaped by her pride, and to know herself. The want drives scenes; the need drives the arc. The strongest arcs set them against each other, so that chasing the want feeds the flaw, and meeting the need costs the character something the want depended on. Elizabeth's pleasure in her own quick judgments is exactly what keeps her from seeing Darcy and Wickham as they are. #### The flaw and the lie The flaw is a behaviour; the lie is the belief that makes the behaviour feel sensible. "I am a good judge of character" makes quick contempt feel like discernment. "Business is all that matters" makes Scrooge's meanness feel like prudence. Give the lie a source and a reward. It should have protected the character, or paid them, before the book begins. Elizabeth's wit is admired at home; her father says in chapter 1 that she has "something more of quickness than her sisters." A flaw that has never worked is just a mistake, and nobody clings to a mistake for three hundred pages. A flaw is not a quirk. Being clumsy, or liking jazz, is texture. A flaw changes the choices a character makes when something is at stake. #### Showing change in scenes Readers believe change they can watch. That means a run of scenes, spaced through the book, in which the character makes choices under pressure. Six do most of the work: 1. The flaw in actionThe lie looks like it works. The reader may even agree with it. 2. The costThe flaw loses them something, though they may blame someone else. 3. A glimpseSomeone or something shows another way to live. They resist it. 4. The reckoningEvidence breaks the lie, and the character sees it. Often the book's quietest scene. 5. The testNew pressure invites the old behaviour. They hesitate, or slip once. 6. The proofThey act from the need, at a price, in a choice the first chapter's version of them would not make. Reflection has a place. A scene of a character thinking can be the turn of a whole novel, as long as it reacts to a hard event and leads to different behaviour later. What doesn't work is the narrator telling us the character has grown. #### Worked example: Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen's novel (1813) is a positive change arc with a second arc, Darcy's, running beside it. Here is Elizabeth's, chapter by chapter. Chapter numbers follow the usual one-volume numbering (61 chapters, as in the Project Gutenberg text); editions in three volumes restart the count in each volume. Chapter 3At the Meryton assembly Darcy calls her "tolerable: but not handsome enough to tempt me." She tells the story "with great spirit among her friends." The wound to her vanity is set, and she treats it as a joke. Chapter 5The lie, said out loud as wit: she "could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine." Chapters 15 and 16Wickham tells her Darcy cheated him of a living. She believes him in a single evening. The flaw in action, and it feels like good judgment. Chapter 18At the Netherfield ball she dances with Darcy and presses Wickham's case, telling him she hears "such different accounts" of him. Chapter 34Darcy's first proposal at Hunsford. She refuses him, citing Wickham and her sister Jane. She still feels entirely right. This is the cost, though she can't see it yet. Chapters 35 and 36His letter. She reads it twice, and the lie breaks: "Till this moment I never knew myself," and "vanity, not love, has been my folly." The reckoning. Chapter 43At Pemberley the housekeeper's account of Darcy and his changed manners give her new evidence. She weighs it instead of deciding at once. The glimpse, after the reckoning. Chapter 46Lydia has run off with Wickham. Elizabeth tells Darcy, and expects to lose him for it. The test: she now cares what he thinks of her. Chapter 56Lady Catherine demands she promise never to accept Darcy. She refuses: she will act as "will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness." Her spirit, now in service of the need. Chapter 58The second proposal. Both name their own faults, and she accepts. The proof. Two things to take from it. First, the reckoning gets a whole chapter of thought, but it is earned by events on either side: a proposal before it, Pemberley after. Second, Elizabeth's best quality never goes away. Her quickness and nerve are as strong in chapter 56 as in chapter 3; what changes is what they serve. Good development rarely removes a trait. It redirects it. #### Four more arcs, briefly A Christmas CarolPositive change in five staves (1843). Marley's ghost names the lie in Stave One: "Mankind was my business." The proof is in Stave Five: the prize turkey for the Cratchits and Bob's raised salary. Jane EyreOften read as a flat arc (1847). Jane leaves Rochester rather than stay on his terms (chapter 27) and refuses St John Rivers's loveless proposal (chapters 34 and 35). She keeps her self-respect; the men around her are the ones who have to change. Great ExpectationsDisillusionment (1861). Pip wants to be a gentleman after Satis House (chapter 8), learns where his money came from (chapter 39), and ends loyal to the man he once despised. The Picture of Dorian GrayNegative (1891 edition). The wish in chapter 2, his cruelty to Sibyl Vane in chapter 7, Basil's murder in chapter 13, the knife in chapter 20. Each choice is made with more knowledge than the last. #### Free character development worksheet Every field from this guide, one worksheet per main character. Copy it into whatever you write in, or download it as a Markdown file that opens in Word, Google Docs or Feldar. THE ARC Arc type (positive change, flat, negative): The want: The need: The flaw, as behaviour: The lie, and where it came from: PROOF SCENES 1. The flaw in action. Chapter: 2. The flaw costs them something. Chapter: 3. A glimpse of the need. Chapter: Copy worksheet [Download .md](https://feldar.com/assets/templates/character-development-worksheet.md) #### Common mistakes - Announcing the change in narration instead of showing it in a choice. - A flaw that is secretly a virtue ("too honest") and never costs anything. - Change that arrives all at once in the last chapter. - A want that is a mood ("to be happy") rather than something you can win or lose. - Backstory standing in for development: a history explains a character, it doesn't move them. - Every character changing the same way, or the supporting cast never changing at all. #### Developing characters in Feldar Each character can live on a Character card on the [Canvas](https://feldar.com/features/canvas), linked to the people and places around them with labelled relations. Develop offers Deepen details, Add pressure and Check continuity on a card, and Branch adds a related character that knows about the first. Feldar reads those cards when it suggests scenes or text, and every suggestion stays only if you accept it. Believes Elizabeth Bennet Twenty. Second of five sisters. Proud of how quickly she reads people. Mr Wickham An officer in the militia. Charming, and says Darcy ruined him. Develop Deepen details Add pressureIntroduce meaningful conflict Check continuity Custom instruction Free tools that help at the start: the [character generator](https://feldar.com/tools/character-generator) gives you a sheet with a want, a fear, a secret and a contradiction to argue with, and the [character name generator](https://feldar.com/tools/character-name-generator) finds a name that fits. To place the change in your plot, see [three-act structure](https://feldar.com/guides/three-act-structure), [the hero's journey](https://feldar.com/guides/heros-journey) and [how to outline a novel](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-outline-a-novel). #### Sources All quotations are from the public domain texts on Project Gutenberg, checked November 6, 2026. Jane Austen[Pride and Prejudice](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342) (1813) Charles Dickens[A Christmas Carol](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46) (1843), [Great Expectations](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1400) (1861) Charlotte Brontë[Jane Eyre](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1260) (1847) Oscar Wilde[The Picture of Dorian Gray](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/174) (1891) #### Questions What is character development in a story? The change a character goes through across the story, and the events and choices that cause it. It also means the work a writer does to make a character feel real, but readers mostly notice the change. What are the three types of character arc? Positive change, where a character lets go of a false belief; flat, where they hold a true belief and change the people around them; and negative, where they fall or choose the lie. What is the difference between a character's want and need? The want is the outward goal they chase, specific enough to win or lose. The need is the inner change they must make, often the thing they resist most. Good plots force a choice between them. Does every character need an arc? No. Give a full arc to the protagonist and one or two others, often the love interest or the antagonist. Supporting characters can stay the same and still be vivid, and their steadiness shows off the change in others. How do you show character development without telling? Through choices under pressure. Put the character in a similar situation early and late in the book and let them act differently. The reader sees the change without being told. What is the difference between a static character and a flat arc? A static character simply doesn't change and isn't tested on it. A flat arc character doesn't change either, but the story pressures their belief hard, and their holding to it changes other people or the world. #### Keep reading [Free tool Character generator A starting sheet with a want, a fear, a secret and a contradiction.](https://feldar.com/tools/character-generator) [Guide Romance tropes The major tropes, with enemies to lovers in depth.](https://feldar.com/guides/romance-tropes) [Feature A story bible on a Canvas Characters, places and plot beats as linked cards.](https://feldar.com/features/canvas)