Part of character development is your character changing as your story progresses. If your character doesn’t change, readers will have no reason to understand his sentiments and motives. However, changing a character just because he should without the proper circumstance to trigger this might throw off your audience.

A character’s change must be given solid evidence. In a readership that demands a “show, don’t tell” attitude, you as the story writer must demonstrate how a situation would compel your character to evolve and how this change would affect him and the people in his life. There are three stages that go into making a change in character:

1. A realization of a grave fault or a wrong choice. Your character is a mirror of flawed humanity. We all make wrong choices and grave mistakes. Your character realizing what he has done serves as a trigger that change is about to happen.

2. A willingness to change. What is realization without the element of wanting to become better? This change is essential in leading to a new twist in your plot.

3. A situation that demonstrates that the character has changed. This is where you put your character’s resolve to the test. How much he can withstand will brand him admirable or average. Go for admirable.

First Stage: Burt is a successful hedge fund manager who is lured into joining a religious cult. His pregnant wife and his in-laws warn him not to join, but Burt finds the cult’s tenets are in line with his values. He even manages to persuade a few of his colleagues to join the flock. His wife suffers post-partum depression after giving birth, and Burt vehemently forbids her to seek counseling and medication, as these practices are against the teachings of his cult. His wife commits suicide and Burt realized too late that he never did anything to save her.

Burt acknowledges his mistake, but it will never bring back his wife. He understands that losing his wife to depression is the price he must pay for joining the cult.

Second Stage: At his wife’s funeral, his mother-in-law makes a scene by berating and blaming him for his wife’s death. “How can someone so smart be so stupid as to join a stupid cult!” his mother-in-law said. “You’re the one who killed my daughter!”

Burt decides to sever his ties with the religious cult.

Leaving the cult is proof of his willingness to change. In this stage, show the challenges and pressure he faces in leaving a cult that strictly forbids its members from leaving. Show how he deals with harassment and threats and how he manages to overcome all of it in the process of taking his life back.

Third Stage: Show how he demonstrates change. For example, a) put him back to work where he continues to receive calls from the cult asking him to return but he hangs up on them; b) have him help his recruited colleagues to get out of the cult; c) put him on a crusade to dismantle the cult as he forges an alliance with the media, former cult members, and law enforcers.

Be sure that the events that will push your character to change are believable. It must trigger an emotional reaction in your audience and make them think at the same time. An effective character change makes for a transformed figure worth reading about.