Writing Excuses 9.13: Three Pronged Character Development

We talk about characters a lot, which is fitting since characters are what make things go in most of our favorite books. Brandon introduces a new model for examining characters in which three primary attributes - Competence, Proactivity, and Sympathy - are contrasted. We treat each one as if controlled by a fader or slider, like on a mixing console, and we look at what the relative positions of those sliders do to a character.

It's only a model, obviously, and it's not how we go about starting a character, but it has proven useful in troubleshooting characters who aren't accomplishing the story purposes we want them to accomplish.