What is Character Arch? How is it different from Plot?Character arch is the change your character...

What is Character Arch? How is it different from Plot?

Character arch is the change your character goes through during the story. That is very simple. And if you’re writing a character driven plot, then it is really that simple. “But K,” you say, “aren’t all stories character driven, or should be character driven?” 

Glad you asked.

No.

The Lord of the Rings is not a character driven plot, and it’s pretty good, or so I’ve heard [haha]. The difference is, The Lord of the Rings contains a very interesting self-driven plot [please lets not let the big bad eyeball rule the world] and has an underlying character arch for many of it’s characters. If you are writing about one person in particular unlike LOTR, then it’s important that this character in particular has growth, and preferably that growth should pertain to achieving the plot.

Examples

Character Driven Story

Sally hates her job. She’s afraid to quit because money. She realizes, money is not everything! Sally quits her job and becomes a professional cat mom. Lives happily ever after.

Notice how no swooping ‘call to adventure’ came in for Sally. Her unhappiness with work and need for personal growth [realizing money doesn’t matter to her] brought about, or drove the plot. Hence, character driven. 

Plot Driven Story

Sally wakes up one morning with meatballs for eyes. Not only is she blind and ugly, but also seagulls keep trying to eat her face. Through trial and error she realizes that mace works well on seagulls and can now live a relatively normal day to day life without fear of being eaten by sky rats. 

Notice how there needed to be [basically] no motivation from Sally. Even if her motivation did drive the plot [say it was her lover with meatball eyes who she was motivated to help] the story is still driven by the plot. In this example, Sally doesn’t have to go through any change as a character. But it would be arguably more interesting if she did.

I don’t want to write a character arch, though.

Okay, well you don’t have to, one, because you don’t have to do anything with your writing just because some chick on the internet told you to. But also because what you are talking about exists, it’s called a Flat Character Arch. It’s basically a character who doesn’t have to change because they already are what they need to be. James Bond is the usual example and I think superheros like Super Man also fit this description. They’re great. They just have to deal with a lot of shit in their life, which is inherently relatively interesting to watch. We know they have all the tools to get out of this situation, we just don’t know exactly how they’re going to do it until they manage it. This is okay, but it has been done a lot, and it can get pretty boring for obvious reasons. 

So, if you do want to include a character arch in your story, but aren’t sure how to go about it, tune in next week for some clarifications about character arch and motivation!