Humor often relies on flat characters, but often minor characters in non-humorous pieces are also flat.

幽默通常依靠这些平淡的角色来传递，但是，少数角色在一些并不幽默的故事里存在。

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Dramatic irony also plays an important role in exposing flat characters' absurdity and round characters' defects.

戏剧反讽也生动地展现了人物的荒谬与缺点。

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Often when we call a character "flat" we mean that the author has failed in some way; however, many good stories require flat characters.

通常，当我们说一个角色平淡时候，意味着作者对于这个角色的塑造在某方面失败了；然而，挺多好故事里面需要平淡的角色。

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Are the characters well-rounded or flat?

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Taking their cue from a line in which one of the characters describes the Porters' one-room flat as "a very narrow strip of plain hell, " they have built a flat black wall five feet from the lip of the theater's stage, creating a claustrophobically narrow playing area in which the action takes place.

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Every week at its warehouse in Menlo Park, California some 10, 000 sheets of stamps, tens of thousands of posters and 20, 000 T shirts--almost every shirt unique and distinct from all the others--roll off the presses, sparkling with freshly printed images of cute kids, Disney characters, landscape shots and catchy tag lines (sample:"Not everything's flat in Lubbock, "reads the chest-high line on one).

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