Day 147: Finishing a Character Arc

Representing character growth well is something I struggle with. Keeping a character true to their core while they simultaneously develop in fundamental ways is critical to a good narrative, but so far, I feel like I haven't been able to do this well at all. Thankfully I have plenty of wisdom to draw on from other books. While reading 'Timeline' one of the main characters, Chris, has stuck out to me as a good example of a simple, strong character arc. His is a classic trope. A weak worrywart turns into a more confident, easy-going person by facing down adversity. I've been struggling to make such a clear and powerful change in my own story, and while I don't think Chris represents very subtle character crafting, I do think he exemplifies the basic structure so well that a lot can be learned from him.

I've made some observations that are helping me to craft a better arc.

1. Chris is a terrible character to read at first. He really is just the worst, a complainer whose always getting into trouble though sheer lack of agency, dragging his friends into trouble too. Everything you hate to see.
2. Chris is forced to face adversity several times in order to save someone else. He goes up against a marauding knight and survives, though he does get beat to a pulp. Then he has to escape imprisonment, though he does ultimately fail. Then he realizes he's been led on by a love interest for the second time. Then he has to escape again. It's a lot for him.
3. At some point, Chris realizes he's been chased, beat up, imprisoned, shot with an arrow, lied to, and overall had a really bad couple of days. But he's still alive. The things around him are still beautiful, and he still has friends who are both helping and relying on him.
4. Chris' gains some confidence through this realization which helps him move past complaining all the time, and lets him exert some agency to help save his friends. They're even audibly impressed with his sudden development.
5. Chris carries this change through the rest of the story and is ultimately a better person on the other side of everything.

This is probably the most basic character development possible, but I think investigating it will help me see what I'm missing. Already I can see I'm not nailing one of these steps despite being able to spot it easily in other peoples' work (funny how that happens). Namely it's step four. Or I guess it's more like step 3.5. I've had my character realize they've made it through many struggles, but it doesn't translate into real change in her character in a powerful way. The issue is, the story isn't as simple the plot in 'Timeline.' With all the time travel gobbledygook 'Timeline' seems complicated at first, but really it boils down to saving one person in distress. There is an obvious goal. He doesn't really need much agency to begin with because his path is already defined for him and all he has to do is follow it. Once he gets going, he becomes more able to push forward on that path after a few well-defined catalysts for growth. In the end, he comes out a lot stronger than he used to be. The structure of his arc is admirably straightforward, and gets the job done well.

My character is the opposite. She struggles to find a path to follow, and it seems that every time she picks one it falls out from under her feet. Largely the story is about a struggle to express agency in a world full of powerful forces. It's hard to have agency when the writer is constantly stripping it from you, but that's how I wanted the story to go. Many other characters have conspired to alter her life. The environment is difficult to navigate, and the decisions she makes have bad outcomes that were impossible to see coming. She sees this, and sees that she's struggled through anyway, but can't see a good way to adapt and get what she wants. I think I've gotten myself into a bit of a conundrum here.

Fortunately, I think see a way out. First I need to define what she wants, and that can boiled down to one word: freedom. She's always been beholden to someone else's goals in her life, and through the entire story she's struggled with the fact that everybody else has something they want her to do. The people who dragged her into the world got her on their path, and that got messed up. The 'Sith Lord,' for lack of a better term, wants her to do something else. Even the friends she makes all see the 'best' path for her and aren't afraid to tell her what they think it is. What she needs is to realize she's always had the agency to make her own decisions, even if those decisions are still muddied by everything else. There's nothing she can really do about that. Much like Chris, she's been doing what she needs to do all along, even if she hasn't fully realized it. The biggest mistake she's made is a lack of resolve in her decisions, similar to Chris' lack of confidence. The freedom she wants is already there. I think I can give her some newfound strength based on this, and hopefully that will carry her through to a good ending.

I had that all generally planned to begin with, but putting the pieces together in a concrete way is a lot easier said than done. I have the perfect place to put her moment of real growth now that I've been working on the novel for a long time, and I'm happy to be putting the last piece of her arc in place.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley