: Doubt about the concept of "true (or complex) character" Following the answer of @Cyn and my comment (on Doubt about a particular point of view on how to do character creation ): I would like

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Your fully realized character has an entire life story, not just what you plan to write about them in your book. They have a childhood, adolescence and adulthood. They've had relationships and passions, they endured pain and they've been shaped from it all.

If all you imagine for your character is a short time line which will be covered in your book you haven't imagined all the factors that have shaped how they think, how they interpret others. Without having thought about how all of this works together, your character is a stranger that you recognize but you don't know how they think so you can imagine them either helping or ignoring the chance to help in your example equally.

You would not expect a character who has had a lifetime of being abused and cheated to help the person when their suffering has led them to the conclusion that the only way to protect themselves is to withdraw completely and become willfully blind to everyone else.

tl dr;
A character isn't just a set of loosely connected actions and words exchanged. They are shaped by their actions so that as they choose one action the result of that action is carried forward to weigh in on their future actions.

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Your character takes an action. It all happens in your imagination.

Well, imagine then: could your character take the opposite action? Could they, proceeding with your example, choose not to help?

If right now you're thinking "maybe they were really busy"or something along those lines, you are making an excuse for your character's out-of-character action. That is, you know that normally your character wouldn't act like that, so you're trying to find an excuse about what would cause them to do it. You are familiar with your character, you can anticipate their response. They are a person in your head, the action comes from how you see that person.

If, on the other hand, the character could just as easily have chosen not to help, if they're just the same character to you, I would say they're under-imagined. What you're holding in your mind is not a person, but a pawn. You have not given it enough character, enough personhood, to have free will.

The choices we make (the big ones, not "what shall I have for breakfast") are determined by who we are, how we see the world, what kind of people we are. Also by how we feel that day and what recent experiences might affect our perception of things, but that ties into the same thing: our choices are not random. It is the same for your character - their choices are bound up in who they are, how they see the world, what kind of people they are, what affects them that day. One choice would be true to all those things, the other choice would not. If both choices appear the same to you, then you just don't know who your character is. You've got to find out who they are to understand how they would act.

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