You’ve probably written a plot outline for your story, but have you written a character development outline? Often I encounter manuscripts where the writer has thought out the plot and paced it well, but the character remains flat. This means as the story progresses, the protagonist’s reactions are the same. The emotional engagement is similar from scene to scene: no change in how decisions are made, no change in attitude.

When this happens, I recommend the author create a character development outline, to go back and look at each scene in a manuscript and note the character’s emotions and mindset, and whether they grow or change.

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How to Write a Character Development Outline

One way is to make a list of the chapters, and what the character’s emotions are at the beginning of the chapter and then again at the end. Do the emotions build? Are there distinct consequences or outcomes because of the character’s behavior?

For Novels

The main character is supposed to make bad decisions—or fix things the wrong way—up until about the midpoint, where a shift happens, and something in the plot causes them to see they need to start making changes, although subtly. This continues until about two thirds to three fourths of the way through, when as we reach the climax the character feels all is lost, and must then make a distinct effort to fix things.

For Picture Books

Picture books also need to have character arcs that are informed by the plot. This might seem impossible to do in under eight hundred words, but let’s look at Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. The same points need to be covered in a picture book character outline as in a novel: the Beginning, Inciting Incident, Midpoint, Climax/Change Realization, and End. For Where the Wild Things Are, it looks like this:

1.     Beginning/Opening Emotion: Max is misbehaving and stubborn. He refuses to calm down.

2.    Inciting Incident Reaction: Max is sent to his room without supper. He doubles down on his bad behavior. He WANTS to misbehave. He NEEDS to calm down.

3.     Bad Decisions Build: Max is so convinced he’s right, he imagines a world where he gets everything he wants. He sails off to where the wilds things are and shows them he’s the wildest of all.

4.     Midpoint: Max is made king of the wild things, and decrees the wild rumpus to start. This is the culmination of his wild behavior, as shown in the pictures of him jumping and stomping, howling at the moon, hanging from trees, and riding on the backs of the wild things, waving his scepter in the air.

5.      Climax: Max orders the rumpus to stop and sends the wild things to bed without their supper. After all of his self-serving behavior he recognizes he’s lonely and “wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.” He realizes he needs to change, and suddenly what he needed at the beginning has become what he wants. He says goodbye to the wild things, and continues on, even when they beg him to stay. The wild things demonstrate all of their wild behavior, but Max maintains his resolve—you might say he’s still stubborn—and continues on in his boat, back to his bedroom.

6.     Ending Emotion: Max returns to his room, where he finds his dinner waiting for him. He knows this is where he belongs, where he is loved, where he can be calm again … because his dinner is still warm.

The Importance of Character Development 

As much as stories are about what happens, they are also about how what happens impacts the protagonist, and how the protagonist grows or changes as a result of the actions. For readers to engage with the characters, they need to see the growth as credible, which is why in novels especially the change is a subtle progression. The character is still the same person, but they’ve learned to harness their energy, or work around their weakness, or target their strength in a different way than what they understood in the beginning. They realize what they thought they wanted in the beginning wasn’t what they really needed, and now in the end, their need and their want are the same.

 Whether you’re writing a picture book or a novel, consider creating a character development outline as described above to make sure your main character is behaving, reacting, and emoting to their full potential. This will help make them more relatable, and thus more readable.

Need help creating a character development outline? Hire me to consult on your project, or give your manuscript a full edit. This post contains affiliate links.