This feature however, only requires their arc being flat. However, he also said that a flat character represents an idea, by being unchanging, almost like a force of nature.

Forster said a flat character is someone who is both two-dimensional and has a flat character arc. That means that according to Britannica, E. I forgot to mention these further confuddling details. Other times, I hear flat character explained as a character that has a flat arc, but one that's not necessarily two-dimensional.įrom this Britannica definition, who defines the term in the first way, I suspect that maybe this is a case of these terms originally being well-defined, but after misuse, are now ambiguous? However, sometimes, I hear two-dimensional character explained flat character.

Here, a two-dimensional character is character that shows a little, and not very complex, emotions and/or traits.

The way I understand it, the term flat character is used for a character that is both two-dimensional and has a flat character arc.

Flat character type definition