Character Building

Not to be confused with the act of creating characters or World Generation seemingly spawning characters into existence.

Story-wise, Character Building is one of the greatest things that can happen to a character. It can turn the most uninteresting one-dimensional Paper Cut-Outs into three-dimensional realistic people rich with history and personality. It can take a single story or it could take a whole series to develop a character.

This is what coming-of-age stories are all about. Its only bane is the Hardened Clay Person, someone who has little to no change in personality or other characteristics over the course of the story. The opposite of Character Building is Flanderization, the deconstruction of a character.