IGNORE THIS POST, IT’S NOT FINISHED AND IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE UP YET
I’m finally getting a grip on the big picture of the book (the “What the hell is this book about, anyway?”), and as always, I’m seeing it through the four Point of View character arcs. ( PoV characters are Nita, Nick, Button, and Max.) Now that I know how this thing ends, I know where my characters begin and where they end. So now all I have to do is figure out how they got there (character arc!) and what it means. Which at this point is pretty clear: This book is about people finding their way home.
My first thought was that all books are about that, but I realized that’s not true. A lot of books are about protagonists who are happy in their stable lives and then something comes along and blows that good life up in the first scene, and they spend the rest of their stories trying to fix what’s gone wrong and establish a New Normal that’s safe and stable. Not everybody starts out in the wrong place. But Nita and Nick do, and analyzing the over plot today at the diner, I realized that so do my other two PoV characters, Button and Max. They all start out in the wrong places, and they’re all living lives that don’t fit because there are things they don’t know about themselves, they just don’t realize it until the story hits them and wakes them up. .
Where was I? Oh, right, character arcs for Nick, Nita, Button, and Max. So here’s the process, keeping in mind that you never do this kind of analysis until the majority of the book has been written (in this case, Acts One, most of Two and Four, and some Three in there, too).:
1. Describe where each PoV character is in the first act:
• Nita is a cop on Demon Island and her goal is to keep the island safe and stable; she sees herself as its protector.
• Nick is the Devil Elect (except the Devil isn’t elected) on the island to clean up the last few loose ends before he becomes Devil; he sees his job as keeping Earth safe from bad demonic influence and Hell stable.
• Button is a new cop on the island and her goal is to be incredible at her job and make her family proud.
• Max is Mammon’s fixer, and his goal is to keep the old guy safe from his own worst impulses while limiting the collateral damage.from his plans.
2. Describe where each PoV character at the end.
Where are they after the climax, who are they, how do they see themselves, what are their goals.
3. Do a one sentence description of each character for each act, showing how they got from the beginning of Act One to the end of Act Four by describing who they are and what their goals are for each act.
4. Describe how each PoV character has a major pivot at the plot turning points, keeping in mind that it’s an event that pushes that pivot, not just a change of heart, but that the events of the act have been leading up to it.
So here’s the character arc analysis for The Devil in Nita Dodd. There are spoilers below including new plot points below, so you have been warned.
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