on Live Write Thrive:

Great fiction features great characters—there should be no argument there. While plot is crucial (as is having a terrific premise), for any story to be both memorable and engaging, it must have fresh, compelling characters. What we’re going to examine in this post are dynamic vs static characters, which should help you add insights to your writer’s toolbox.

You’ve no doubt heard about character arcs—a gradual change readers follow from start to end that shows how the events in a story impact the character so that by the end of the story they’ve grown in some way or learned important things about self and/or the world.

But not every character needs to change (but many should and can). Some characters are called “static,” while others, who manifest those “arcs, are “dynamic.” A static character remains unaltered throughout the story, while dynamic characters undergo significant internal or external transformations.

The key to determining whether a character should be one or the other lies not in whether they change but in how well they are crafted to contribute to the narrative’s balance and intrigue.