Hey there, folks! My name is Mr. Album, and I have a serious question to ask you all:

How much depth is enough for a character?

To help give a context to this question, I'd like to draw my attention to an OC, the main character of my incomplete long-form story My Little Poem: Pantrostic.

He's got... layers to him. On the surface, he's neurotic and a worrywart. He's also kind of a lazy bum, not wanting to do more than he has to. He's competent, and very skilled at his talent (using and manipulating the written word), but he rarely acknowledges his strengths and often calls attention to his weaknesses.

Dig a little deeper, and some things come to light: He has had a very traumatic past, which compounded into something ridiculously painful and uncomfortable to talk about or even think about. The end result of the traumatic events was that, even though he wasn't ready or able to care for young foals, he was forced to in order to avoid consequences unthinkable to him.

You can see why he's neurotic: going through a massive personal trauma and THEN having to care for two needy individuals immediately afterward is something that demands the utmost focus, perseverance, patience and strategic thinking. Energy must be managed to a fault, because a waste in energy creates a lack of ability to respond to a young foal's requirements. He has had to adapt and work around his personal pain, rather than deal with it directly.

Dig even further, and patterns start to develop. He has a tendency to throw himself at a problem, even if he doesn't know the solution to it. He wings things a lot, trying to go with the flow rather than cause conflict. His mind is always in crisis management mode, even in situations that may not require such thought patterns. To say he rarely relaxes is an understatement. If something works once, he tends to try it again if faced with a similar situation.

He also doesn't call attention to himself; he dislikes being put under a social microscope, because he's afraid that everyone will focus on his problems and not on their own, or on whatever problem may be at hand. He wants to solve his problems by himself, because he thinks it's unfair to force his problems on other people. Anything that can get him out of whatever limelight he believes he doesn't deserve is a good thing for him; he'd rather people ignored him and went about with their lives rather than pick his own life apart.

At the deepest level, he's a very emotional individual. He often curses his own existence, only within his deepest thoughts. He despises his weakness brought about by the trauma, and never ever wants to experience that trauma again. Anything that brings up his past hurts him in a very visible manner, which makes his anger something he fears. He doesn't want to lash out, but he can't stop feeling what he feels.

All of this depth comes to a head through the course of the story, and he is forced to confront his issues in multiple ways.

And folks have a VERY hard time getting into the character's head or relating to him. I've gone over the story several times. I have made corrections, but I think I made the character too deep. There's too many layers.

It's one thing to have depth. It's another for that depth to be so deep, people can't see the bottom. If they can't go down, why would they want to explore?

I'm not saying for characters to NOT be deep just so the audience understands them; I'm saying that knowing HOW deep to go is very important. Plus, you can make a character deep in a lateral sense instead of a literal one: how about make a shallow character, and make his/her's "depth" the fact that he/she sees nothing wrong with being shallow? He/she scorns those who call him/her out for his/her one-dimensionality, because from such a character's perspective, there is no reason TO be deep. It's still character depth, but in a way that no one may expect.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Any thoughts or comments? Is this a valid worry that I have, or am I overreacting to a couple people's opinions? Let me know!

Sincerely,

Mr. Album

As a general thing, I think the story takes priority. The characterization needs to serve a purpose in the story, and in a character-driven story it is essential that the readers can understand the character. Remember: We give the characters depth and complexity because it lets us tell better stories. I'm not sure it has any inherent value beyond that, though.

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Also keep in mind that the reader doesn't have to actually see everything you know about a character. Having more information in your head or on paper about the character is great when writing, because it gives you a lot to draw from, but the story does come first.

I've had bits of Diamond Tiara angsting about this and that that hasn't made it into Cubic Zirconia, or most of Scootaloo's backstory, for that matter, simply because there either was too much else going on in the story at the time, or because it'd be out of character to actually have that information revealed yet...

--arcum42

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Keeping in mind the important things the previous two said...

A main character cannot have too much depth (as long as you, the author, prevent his depth from clogging up the story if the story doesn't need it).
A secondary or minor character, though, can have too much depth. The less important a character is, the shallower they should be. They can still be memorable by making them a little larger than life, but keep them simple. If they are too deep -- especially if they are deeper than your main character -- it can be detrimental to the story.

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Makes sense to me. Diamond is my main character, and she's actually gaining depth as the story goes on. The story really is all about her.

Scootaloo is a secondary character, but one that's important enough that I do really have to explain her backstory to some extent. Fortunately, I can use that to develop Diamond at the same time and bring them a bit closer.

--arcum42

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Though, you're going to have to adress those things sooner or later. You're making a lot of promises, dropping hints about Scootaloo and so on. At this point you kinda don't have the option to not work it all into the story somehow.

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Yeah. Fortunately, I'm in a spot where I can address Scootaloo pretty soon. She's pissed about her wings and at Apple Bloom, and feeling a little more favorable towards Diamond. She's actually gotten to a position where she'll want to talk about what's bothering her.

--arcum42