You have your story and your characters. But now it’s time to start tying the two of them together with character arcs. Some of your characters might not change throughout the story, but at the very least your main characters need to have their own story arcs.
Character arcs are what help your readers understand and relate to your characters. Your writing may be full of action, romance and adventure, but nothing will kill a story faster than a lack of a character arc.
Types of Character Arcs
There are plenty of articles on the different character arcs out there, but the bottom line is you have a few different types of character arcs: moral ascending, moral descending, transformational, and flat.
Moral ascending character arcs give your readers the warm fuzzies. These character arcs are when your character starts out as hugely flawed but then by the end overcomes their own flaws through the power of love or friendship.
Moral descending character arcs tend to give your readers the chills. These characters start out okay and spiral downward into the pits of despair.
Transformational character arcs leave your readers feeling motivated. These character arcs are similar to moral ascending character arcs, but focus on turning a nobody into a somebody.
Flat character arcs are usually done when the world around the main character changes, but the main character remains true to who they are throughout the book. Characters wind up exactly where they started at the beginning of the book.
How to Write Character Arcs
When writing character arcs, you’ll want to focus on tackling your characters desires, motivation, and challenges.
Figure Out Your Character’s Goal
Your character’s goal usually appears in the first couple of chapters in your book and is typically drawn from a desire for change of some kind. For example: Ariel from the Little Mermaid wants to explore the human world.
Make sure that it’s not an easily attainable goal since you want to hook your readers and keep them wondering, “How is this person going to reach their goal?”. Obstacles in the shape of other characters, the nature of the world you’ve created, or even your own characters’ shortcomings can help draw the reader in.
Characters That Help and Hinder
Figuring out what characters are going to help your hero achieve their goals or hinder achieving their goals can be tricky. Of course you’ll have a villain of the story of some sort, but the side characters around your hero need to be thought of as well. Will they help or hinder your main character?
An Impossible Decision
There comes a point in your story where your hero will set their mind to achieving their goal no matter what. The desire was a dull roar in the beginning of your book, but now it becomes a core part of your hero’s journey.
Typically this is done in the case of an “impossible decision.” This decision puts your hero in a situation where they have no choice but to follow through on achieving their goal. If they don’t accomplish what they set out to do, what will the consequences be? Make sure your readers are fully aware of what those consequences are. For example: if Harry doesn’t defeat Voldemort, what will happen to the world?
Character Growth
Cause and reaction. This is the basis of character growth for any story. A situation happens and your character must react to it. How they react, however, will change throughout the story as things progress. Understand that who your character is at the beginning may be very different from who they are at the end.
A part of this character growth is focusing on what their lowest point is in the story. This point is where all hope is lost, there is no light to be found, and the world is about to end. Dramatic, but true. Usually this is a pit of despair for the readers to go through because they are so invested in seeing your character succeed.
Figure out how your character’s growth will help them overcome the lowest point. Have they been training the whole story for this moment? Do they have a secret power that they can wield against their enemy? Dig deep here.
Conclusion
No matter where you are in your Preptober journey, make sure that you have an idea of what your character arc will be. You may have multiple character arcs to juggle during NanoWrimo, so make sure to map them out properly to keep track of everything.
Elizabeth Yuen 