Character Bends
One thing even experienced writers (and I'm one of them? I guess? Let's say for today's purposes I am!) forget is that not all characters have to have a pronounced arc to their story. Many do, but a lot don't. The world around them does.
It's called a Flat Arc, and the quintessential example you may know (but not realize) is Captain America. He changes, yes, but not fundamentally. He has his truth and he believes in it. He isn't going to change, and this forces the world around him to change. For the most part, he is the same person he is at the beginning of his story as he is at the end. Here's the best part: That's why he's Captain America. Steve Rogers was chosen because he is fundamentally good, and could be trusted with the superpowers he was going to be given, using them for positive purpose.
An example from my books is Elise. Elise is fundamentally a caring, empathetic person who changes the people around her, namely Millie. Look at who Millie was in Remember, November and compare that to the Millie at the end of Colours of Dawn. She's completely different, and that's largely because of Elise. Elise's arc is to bend Millie around her, and to a lesser extent, Victoria. She is the heart of EVE, she can't change fundamentally without throwing off the orbits of everyone around her. And that's good! As long as she is changing the world, and other characters, change is still happening! It remains dynamic. A flat arc still has an arc; it doesn't mean static. A static character is boring, and Elise isn't boring at all, even if she herself doesn't change that much. (There are flashes of the Devil in the Angel, though!) But she's also not a Point of View (PoV) character. I took it for granted from the very beginning that she would be that way, and I've never thought to change that.
So you can imagine my panic when I realized a PoV character I'm working on now wasn't changing. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with her! All of my writer instincts and training (if you can call it that) were telling me that something was off and I needed to fix it.
Turns out, I didn't. I just hadn't seen the totality of the story I was telling.
Flat Arc characters tend to have very strong personalities, right from the off. They are who they are, and don't need to change, the world does. I knew that, yet didn't. So I went back to some of my earliest books on writing, and refreshed myself on character fundamentals. Luckily, I realized what I was doing was actually the right thing all along, just not intentionally. Until then, I had been panicked by what I thought needed to be happening rather than listening to the characters and doing what they told me.
The book I'm working on now is my sixth novel, yet it's very easy to get lost in the weeds by thinking you have a handle on what you're doing. Nope! Writing is an iterative process, and one you never, ever stop learning from and about. For the most part, I trust my instincts, and sometimes they tell you something is wrong (good!), but for the wrong reasons (not so good!). But at least they're honed enough to make me stop and check. And in that assessment, I found a lot of valuable insight, both into the character and the story.
Never be afraid to ask questions, especially of yourself. Take a step back, reassess, and sometimes you'll find that the problem wasn't actually a problem at all, your expectations were. You can be building a perfectly fine straight road through the desert, but imagine it being all windy and exciting. Why? It's the desert! Make it windy when you get to the mountains. (Just make sure there are mountains.)
Always serve the characters first, often they know better than you. If it looks like they aren't walking, check the ground beneath them; you might find that it's moving all the same.
It's called a Flat Arc, and the quintessential example you may know (but not realize) is Captain America. He changes, yes, but not fundamentally. He has his truth and he believes in it. He isn't going to change, and this forces the world around him to change. For the most part, he is the same person he is at the beginning of his story as he is at the end. Here's the best part: That's why he's Captain America. Steve Rogers was chosen because he is fundamentally good, and could be trusted with the superpowers he was going to be given, using them for positive purpose.
An example from my books is Elise. Elise is fundamentally a caring, empathetic person who changes the people around her, namely Millie. Look at who Millie was in Remember, November and compare that to the Millie at the end of Colours of Dawn. She's completely different, and that's largely because of Elise. Elise's arc is to bend Millie around her, and to a lesser extent, Victoria. She is the heart of EVE, she can't change fundamentally without throwing off the orbits of everyone around her. And that's good! As long as she is changing the world, and other characters, change is still happening! It remains dynamic. A flat arc still has an arc; it doesn't mean static. A static character is boring, and Elise isn't boring at all, even if she herself doesn't change that much. (There are flashes of the Devil in the Angel, though!) But she's also not a Point of View (PoV) character. I took it for granted from the very beginning that she would be that way, and I've never thought to change that.
So you can imagine my panic when I realized a PoV character I'm working on now wasn't changing. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with her! All of my writer instincts and training (if you can call it that) were telling me that something was off and I needed to fix it.
Turns out, I didn't. I just hadn't seen the totality of the story I was telling.
Flat Arc characters tend to have very strong personalities, right from the off. They are who they are, and don't need to change, the world does. I knew that, yet didn't. So I went back to some of my earliest books on writing, and refreshed myself on character fundamentals. Luckily, I realized what I was doing was actually the right thing all along, just not intentionally. Until then, I had been panicked by what I thought needed to be happening rather than listening to the characters and doing what they told me.
The book I'm working on now is my sixth novel, yet it's very easy to get lost in the weeds by thinking you have a handle on what you're doing. Nope! Writing is an iterative process, and one you never, ever stop learning from and about. For the most part, I trust my instincts, and sometimes they tell you something is wrong (good!), but for the wrong reasons (not so good!). But at least they're honed enough to make me stop and check. And in that assessment, I found a lot of valuable insight, both into the character and the story.
Never be afraid to ask questions, especially of yourself. Take a step back, reassess, and sometimes you'll find that the problem wasn't actually a problem at all, your expectations were. You can be building a perfectly fine straight road through the desert, but imagine it being all windy and exciting. Why? It's the desert! Make it windy when you get to the mountains. (Just make sure there are mountains.)
Always serve the characters first, often they know better than you. If it looks like they aren't walking, check the ground beneath them; you might find that it's moving all the same.
No comments have been added yet.
