The utensil of character development

This is the most useful utensil I've come across. You could survive any eating experience with it.


You could tear into a juicy slab of Alberta Beef; you could swivel pasta or noodles; and, you could scoop up some pudding for desert.


It's a multi-dimensional, complex utensil, just as your characters need to be multi-dimensional and complex.


Like my protag Cyd in the two novels of the Megabyte Mystery series, she can stab the antagonist with sarcasm and wit; swirl through plot twists and slide through the turns with intelligence and curiosity; and, care for her animal obsessed twin sister with compassion. She's a complex character. 


Donald Maass has an exercise where you take a couple of the positive characteristics of your protag and give them to your antag and vice versa. This is how you create complex characters; characters aren't all good or evil all the time. 

Similarly to the utensil, your character can then dig into any literary meal you throw at them.

    

 Gotz to get me some Alberta beef!