Character Development - Protaganist
Craft well-rounded and relatable characters with clear motivations and conflicts
Good character development adds depth, complexity, and emotional resonance to characters. It drives the narrative, creates empathy and memorable characters, and provides context and motivation for their actions. A truly engaging story that has a lasting impact on readers by focusing on character development, you can create engaging stories that leave a lasting impact on readers.
Grok believes a larger part of character development is based on the character description:
Character descriptions play a significant role in shaping the protagonist's character development throughout a story. The way a character is described can influence the reader's perception of the protagonist and how they interact with other characters. This, in turn, can impact the protagonist's growth and change over the course of the narrative.
ChatGPT provides these tips to keep in mind when considering character development for protagonists
When developing protagonists in a short story, prioritize clarity in their motivations and goals to provide a sense of purpose. In this constrained format, offer a concise yet impactful backstory that directly influences the current narrative. Craft character arcs that unfold within the story's limitations, showcasing subtle growth or change by its resolution.
Employ the principle of "show, don't tell" to reveal character traits through actions, dialogue, and behavior, fostering reader engagement. Maintain a consistent narrative voice aligned with the character's personality, and utilize dialogue as a tool for both plot progression and character revelation. Embrace imperfections and vulnerabilities, as characters with flaws are more relatable and authentic. Finally, consider the impact of external events on the protagonist, and incorporate symbolic elements that enrich the character's journey within the confines of brevity.
Our narrative summary describes our protagonist in the following terms:
A young woman named “Pandi” - a name based on the Wunambal language
ChatGPT and Grok tell us that someone with the Wunambal language most likely lives in or around Kalumburu in The Kimberley region of Western Australia
Travelling around India alone, we can infer she is adventurous
Pandi is approachable evidenced by engaging encounters with multiple strangers
She is a good communicator and knows how to tell an engrossing story
Reviewing our narrative summary, our AI collaborators also point out that Pandi is:
an adaptable and open-minded individual
resilient and open to unexpected opportunities
has a cooperative and adventurous spirit
embodies a sociable nature and genuine interest in connecting with others
As Grok suggests, a character description will play a pivotal role in developing Pandi as a character. Collaborating with AI when iterating over character ideas is a huge advantage. Our Generative AI series on Dad Jokes demonstrated how Bing, Midjourney, Leonardo.AI, RunwayML, Magnific.AI and PikaLabs could be used to spark various creative directions with conceptual control driven by the context of a the given prompt.
Let’s use some of these generative AI tools to give us some ideas of what Pandi may look like.
RunwayML
Midjourney
Bing Image Creator
Leonardo.AI
We then used Midjourney to blend together all these ideas and then use Magnific.AI to age our subject to 18 years of age
We can then use Midjourney to picture our subject. For example, sitting in a passenger waiting area of a train station in the Indian state of Kerala
Now that we know what our protagonist looks like, something else we can probe with ChatGPT is to ask if the story we are telling actually develops Pandi as a character, or is she the same person at the end that she was at the start?
While the narrative summary provides glimpses of Pandi's character and her interactions, the extent of her development is not fully detailed. However, certain elements suggest potential growth and change.
Pandi starts the story facing challenges, such as purchasing the wrong train ticket and being low on cash. Throughout the narrative, she demonstrates adaptability and openness to unexpected opportunities, like assisting with the pop-up clinic and joining the British tourists. These experiences, along with her interactions at the tea plantation, have the potential to contribute to her personal growth.
The special prize awarded by the tea plantation owner suggests that Pandi's engaging and friendly nature leaves a positive impact on those she meets. If her journey involves overcoming obstacles, forming connections, and embracing new experiences, it implies a transformative journey that could shape her character by the end of the narrative.
Ultimately, without a detailed exploration of Pandi's internal thoughts, emotions, and reflections, it's challenging to definitively assert her character development. The narrative summary provides glimpses of potential growth, but the full extent would be revealed in the nuances of her experiences and reactions throughout the story.
The last paragraph is crucially important, and tells us that our story to truly capture Pandi developing as a person we should probably describe her internal thoughts throughout the course of the story. We’ll pursue that challenge in a future article on “Point of View”
Thanks
We used Midjourney, Leonardo.AI, RunwayML.com, Magnific.AI, ChatGPT and Grok for the content of this article. We also began to use Google’s Generative AI API “Gemini” to proofread the text.
and we can use MidwayML to animate some of the scenes and storyboards which we will produce up in a later article