Character Building

Not to be confused with the act of creating characters for the story.

When a character changes over time, let it be positively, negatively, or neutrally. 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. Character Building's only bane is the Fix, 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.