I am currently working on my first High Fantasy series. This is an endeavor I have wanted to undertake for a longtime. Many would say the first step is to write plan the plot, but I started somewhere else. I have a vision in my head for the main character, and his inner journey, rather than his outer journey. To make sure that I map the plot on to his inner journey I had to first develop a character arc.
To gain inspiration I have been dissecting characters from my favorite books, movies, and series. So lets look at character arcs as a whole, positive, negative, and flat arcs. Over the next month I am going to look at Game of Thrones, The Lord of The Rings, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Series, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Star Wars.
I will map out visually character arcs, and plot, side by side. Then I will explain which plot points, and internal struggles map to which points. Not every story will fit perfectly into the preconceived arcs, so we will take a look at why that is, and which stories work without a strong character arc.
First, let’s go through what the character arcs are, and what points make them up as outlined in K.M. Weiland’s — Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author’s Guide To Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development.(I cannot recommend this book highly enough).
The components of this analysis model are the character arc, ghost, lie, want, and need. The ghost drives the story, and either appears in the first act or is referenced frequently. This ghost is a traumatic event which has affected the protagonist and shaped them. Think of Bruce Wayne — his ghost is the death of his parents. Everything that he becomes, a rebel, a vigilante and eventually Batman, stems from this experience. The ghost informs the lie, it has created an alternate vision of life for the protagonist. In a positive story arc the character will struggle with the lie, and eventually overcome it, casting aside their foolish wants and embracing who they need to be. The negative arc has multiple paths, and can sometimes move from want to lie, or can see the protagonist fall further into darkness.
Positive Arc: Character Believes Lie > Overcomes Lie > Accepts Truth
Negative Arcs:
- Disillusionment Arc: Character Believes Lie > Overcomes Lie > New Truth is Tragic
- The Fall Arc: Character Believes Lie > Clings To Lie > Rejects New Truth > Believes Stronger/Worse Lie
- The Corruption Arc: Character Sees Truth > Rejects Truth > Embraces Lie
Finally we will move through the individual points of the character arc. This section is long and dense. It is meant as a reference and will be linked in every article so feel free to skim it now and refer to it often.
The Positive Arc
First Act
- Characteristic Moment
- Reinforce the Lie
- Indicate Potential to Overcome
- First Step to discovering how to change
- Inciting Event to refuse
- Evolve belief in the lie
- Make the character decide
1st Plot Point — Leaves normal world, no return
Pinch Point — 37% Antagonist Flexes Muscles
2nd Act
- Provide tools to overcome the lie
- Show difficulties in pursuing the lie
- Closer to what he wants farther from what he needs
- Glimpse of life without the lie
- MIDPOINT — move from reactive to proactive, the mirror moment
- 2nd PINCH POINT — 67% — Emphasize antagonists ability to win
- Allow character to act in enlightened ways — use tools he has discovered
- Trap character between the lie and truth — bipolar between ideas
- Initiate characters attempts to escape the lie — begin to be selfless
- Contrast your characters before and after mindset — show reverse from 1st half
- Provide with false victory
- Blatently demonstrate crux of arc — needs find tool
Third Plot Point — lie confronts head on
- The thing he wants calls to him, shudders at thought of having it, but can’t go back to the lie
Third Act
- Up the stakes — wallow in misery for a bit
- Keep character off balance — has doubt
- Prove how far he has come — nonchalant small but physical ways
- Renew the attack on characters new paradigm
- CLIMAX — reveal what the journey was really about, all worth it, confrontation must occur, reject the lie at the climax. Antagonist hammers with the lie
- THE RESOLUTION — Show the new normal world now that he has accepted the truth
The Flat Arc
a) Hero will have to journey out of his good world to save/defend it
b) Normal world has been cursed by a lie, which truth will stand in opposition to
First Act
- Characteristic Moment — what makes him ideally suited
- Setup what horrible thing will happen if lie isn’t overthrown
- Spends this act discovering something is wrong
Second Act
- First Plot Point — Up to this point seeking to avoid the lie
- First Half of the Second Act — Still in reaction mode, might not know extent of the problem, spends half getting punished for the truth
- MIDPOINT — reversal caused by major revelation allies who revisited teh truth will change their minds
- Second Half of the Second Act — Midpoint changed everything, 100% sure of the course but its a longshot
Third Act
THE THIRD PLOT POINT — smacked down in the most intense defeat yet
- Reacts to plot point for much of the act
- CLIMAX — The Final Battle etc.
- Resolution — The character has saved the world, and can now return home
The Negative Arc
First Act
- Normal World
- Characteristic Moment
- Develop truth and the lie
FIRST PLOT POINT — Might be positive, the story needs somewhere to fall from, something that seems good but the fall is foreshadowed
2nd Act — The heart of the negative change arc
FIRST HALF OF THE SECOND ACT — React to first plot point, moving towards thing he wants most, but it is to his disadvantage in some way
THE MIDPOINT — Needs to be confronted with the truth and given a chance to follow it
THE SECOND HALF OF ACT TWO — This is the heart of the negative change arc, HOW or WHY is the character going to fall
3rd Act
THE THIRD PLOT POINT — Reeks of death. Rages futilely against death but is not humbled by the experience. The supporting characters may try to reason with the main character.
THE CLIMAX — Everything finally falls apart.
One of these two things will happen:
a) Wins an outer victory and inner defeat
b) Outer and inner defeat
RESOLUTION — Comparatively short, this ending should not inspire readers to stick around in the story world.
Josh Pyle
February 2019
