After answering this question: Character is onscreen for three seconds I took a look at the tags. characters and plot
I added character-development but realized I didn't know if I should delete characters or if both were appropriate, or maybe I was wrong to add character-development.
characters - Real questions about imaginary people. x550
character-development - Anything pertaining to developing the details associated with characters in your writing. x387
I checked the synonyms and there are none for either of these tags (except that character points to characters).
The only relevant Meta question I found was Moderator re-tag requests: [characters] and [character-naming] The question is about a different but related problem, though character-development is mentioned in an answer.
Other character related tags are: child-characters and character-naming
So...how are characters and character-development different? When would we use one vs the other? When would we use both?