Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development

by K.M. Weiland

1. What misconception does your protagonist have about himself or the world? 2. What is he lacking mentally, emotionally, or spiritually, as a result? 3. How is the interior Lie reflected in the character’s exterior world? 4. When the story opens, is the Lie making his life miserable? If so, how? 5. If not, will the Inciting Event and/or the First Plot Point begin to make him uncomfortable as a result of his Lie? 6. Does your character’s Lie require any qualifiers to narrow its focus? 7. What are the symptoms of your character’s Lie? The Lie Your Character Believes is the foundation for his character arc. This is what’s wrong in his world. Once you know what’s wrong, you then get to set about figuring out how to make it right.

the Character Wants and the Thing the Character Needs 1. How is the Lie holding your character back? 2. How is the Lie making your character unhappy or unfulfilled? 3. What Truth does your character Need to disprove the Lie? 4. How will he learn this Truth? 5. What does your character Want more than anything? 6. How is his plot goal related to or an extension of the Thing He Wants? 7. Does he believe the Thing He Wants will solve his personal problems? 8. Is the Thing He Wants holding him back from the Thing He Needs? 9. Does the Thing He Needs preclude his gaining the Thing He Wants—or will he only be able to gain the Thing He Wants after he has found the Thing He Needs? 10. How will his life be different once he embraces the Thing He Needs?

If there’s one solid rule in fiction, it’s that every effect must have a cause. If your character is in need of undergoing a Change Arc, then one of your first tasks is figuring out why he needs to change. What happened to cause him to embrace this obviously damaging Lie? Humans are survivors. We’ll do anything we can to move toward life, comfort, and peace. But we’re also self-destructive. We can focus so tightly on one aspect of survival that we sacrifice other elements. In our quest to be top dog in our chosen careers, we can sacrifice our emotional health through poor relationship choices and our physical health through poor lifestyle choices. Worse than that, we’re usually deliberately blind to our destructive behaviors.

Questions to Ask About Your Character’s Ghost 1. Why does your character believe the Lie? 2. Is there a notable event in his past that has traumatized him? 3. If not, will there be a notable event in the First Act that will traumatize him? 4. Why does the character nourish the Lie? 5. How will he benefit from the Truth? 6. How “big” is your character’s Ghost? If you made it bigger, would you end up with a stronger arc? 7. Where will you reveal your character’s Ghost? All at once early on? Or piece by piece throughout the story, with a big reveal toward the end? 8. Does your story need the Ghost to be revealed? Would it work better if you never revealed it? Backstory is always one of the most interesting aspects of a character. In constructing yours, pay special attention to the Ghost. If you know what initiated your character’s belief in the Lie, you’re halfway to helping him overcome it.

Your Protagonist’s Characteristic Moment The Characteristic Moment must accomplish several tasks. It must: 1. Introduce your protagonist. 2. (Probably) reveal your protagonist’s name. 3. Indicate your protagonist’s gender, age, nationality, and possibly his occupation. 4. Indicate important physical characteristics. 5. Indicate his role in the story (i.e., that he is the protagonist). 6. Demonstrate the prevailing aspect of his personality. 7. Hook readers’ sympathy and/or their interest. 8. Show the protagonist’s scene goal. 9. Indicate the protagonist’s story goal. 10. Demonstrate, or at least hint at, the protagonist’s Lie. 11. Influence the plot, preferably directly, but at the very least in a way that foreshadows later events. This is quite a hefty checklist for the first scene of your story (especially when you add in related structural requirements). No wonder beginnings are so tough! The Characteristic Moment is a work of art. Don’t settle for opening with your character doing any ol’ thing. Select an event that will: 1. Make the protagonist appealing to readers. 2. Introduce both his strengths and his weaknesses. 3. Build the plot.

Questions to Ask About Your Characteristic Moment 1. What important personality trait, virtue, or skill best sums up your protagonist? 2. How can you dramatize this trait to its fullest extent? 3. How can you dramatize this trait in a way that also introduces the plot? 4. How can you demonstrate your protagonist’s belief in his Lie? 5. Can you reveal or hint at his Ghost? 6. How can you use this scene to reveal the Thing He Wants Most? 7. Does your protagonist’s pursuit of both the overall goal and the scene goal meet with an obvious obstacle (i.e., conflict)? 8. How can you share important details about your protagonist (name, age, physical appearance) quickly and unobtrusively? Don’t settle for anything less than spectacular for your Characteristic Moment. This is your opportunity to create a fun and effective scene that will introduce readers to your character in a way they’ll never forget—and from which they won’t be able to look away.

In the last chapter, you learned about how the Characteristic Moment ties into your story’s Hook by introducing the protagonist, the Lie He Believes, the Thing He Wants, and the Thing He Needs. But the Characteristic Moment is only half of a good character arc’s opening. It gives us character, but it still needs context. The Normal World provides that context.

Questions to Ask About the Normal World 1. What setting will open your story? 2. How will this setting change at the First Plot Point? 3. How can you contrast the Normal World with the “adventure world” to follow? 4. How does the Normal World dramatize or symbolize your character’s enslavement to the Lie? 5. How is the Normal World causing or empowering the Lie? 6. Why is your character in the Normal World? 7. If your character doesn’t want to leave the Normal World, what is helping him mask the discomfort caused by his Lie? 8. If your character wants to leave, what’s stopping him? 9. Will the character return to the Normal World at the end of the story? 10. If the Normal World is a legitimately good place, how will the protagonist need to change in order to appreciate it?

[Stories] are often built in three acts, which can be regarded as representing 1) the hero’s decision to act, 2) the action itself, and 3) the consequences of the action.

Good inciting events at first appear to be bothers out of the blue, but they end up being individually tailored for the hero.

Character’s Arc in the First Act 1. How will you introduce and reinforce your character’s Lie in the First Act? 2. How will you use the “elbow room” in the First Act to space out the various layers of your character’s Lie, goals, and personality? 3. How will you indicate your character’s latent potential to overcome the Lie? 4. What aspect of the Truth can you share with the character in the First Act? How will you share it (through another character’s mentoring, etc.)? 5. What will be your Inciting Event? 6. Why will your character initially reject the Inciting Event? 7. How quickly will your character get over his initial rejection of the Inciting Event’s “call to adventure”? 8. Toward the end of the First Act, how will your character’s belief in how he serves the Lie begin to evolve? 9. What decision will the character make that will engage him in the Inciting Event?

Questions to Ask About the First Plot Point in Your Character’s Arc 1. What major event will slam into your character’s Normal World and force him to alter his original plans? 2. What decision will lead your protagonist to the First Plot Point? 3. Will the First Plot Point seem favorable? If so, how will the complications turn out to be worse than the protagonist expected? 4. Or will this event be obviously disastrous? How? 5. Will the protagonist willingly embrace the First Plot Point and walk into the Second Act under his own power? 6. Or will he have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, through the gateway between acts? 7. Will the First Plot Point destroy the Normal World? Or will it physically remove your character from the Normal World? Or will it warp the Normal World around the protagonist? 8. How will your character react to the First Plot Point? 9. What new plot goal will the character form in response to the First Plot Point? 10. How will the First Plot Point put your character’s feet on the path to his new Truth? 11. How will the First Plot Point create a new world in which the character will be “punished” for acting according to his Lie? The First Act is about setting up your character’s Lie. From the First Plot Point on, that Lie’s days are numbered. From here on out, the Second Act is about destroying the Lie and helping the character find the Truth that will allow him to combat the external conflict and grow into a whole person. Pla...

IN THE STRUCTURE of character arcs, the First Half of the Second Act is where your character ventures (or is thrust) into uncharted territory—and gets lost. He may not quite see it that way himself, but this is where he begins to discover that the old rules (the Lie He Believes) no longer apply.

This puts him in a bit of a tailspin. He scrambles to react to the events of the First Plot Point, while chasing as hard as ever after the Thing He Wants. He’s reactive in the sense that he’s at the mercy of the antagonistic force; he is not in control of the conflict. But don’t confuse reactivity with passivity. Your character will be very active in his pursuit of his goals during this time, and he’ll be learning which methods of achieving that goal are ineffective. This new knowledge will, in turn, lay the groundwork for helping him begin to realize how his belief in the Lie is holding him back. The Second Act is the largest section of your story, comprising roughly 50%–which is why I like to break it down into three parts: the First Half of the Second Act, the Midpoint, and the Second Half of the Second Act.

The First Half of the Second Act is where your character reacts to the First Plot Point. The First Half of the Second Act shows your character trying to regain his balance and figure out how to survive in this new world in which he finds himself. The First Half of the Second Act features a Pinch Point (at the 37% mark), in which the antagonist flexes his muscles and reminds readers what the protagonist is up against. The First Half of the Second Act begins immediately after the First Plot Point and continues until the Midpoint at the 50% mark. Speaking generally, you can divide your book into two halves. The first half is about the character’s reacting to events; the second is about his taking action. This is nowhere clearer than in the First Half of the Second Act, as the true burden of the character’s Lie finally begins to emerge.

He won’t be given all the tools yet, but he will receive at least a nail. He will receive one piece of the puzzle. Or you might think of it as the first rung of the ladder he will use to scale the wall of the Lie. This first tool will come in the form of information on how to overcome the Lie. Often, it will result from another character (often a Mentor or Guardian archetype) offering advice. At the same time as he’s learning necessary physical skills to battle the antagonist in the Climax, he should also be learning Truths to combat his Lie.

But these seeming advances are just whitewash on top of worm-eaten wood. These surface victories are blinding the character to the true nature of his inner conflict. The lure of the Thing He Wants is pulling him toward his destruction. He may be on his way to succeeding in the outer conflict, but, if he keeps heading down this path, he’s destined to lose his inner battle.

The First Plot Point sets up a brand-new scenario for the character—one in which he glimpses, for the first time, what life might be like without the Lie. This glimpse will probably result from a demonstration of other characters’ actions and attitudes, but it could also come thanks to the character’s momentarily shedding his Lie and getting a hint of the reward of Truth. At this early stage in the story, the character shouldn’t get much more than a glimpse. But even though he’s not yet ready to be convinced of the faulty premise of his Lie, he should begin to see the cracks. There’s life beyond the Lie, and it’s a pretty awesome life. He needs to be given just the smallest sense of how great it would feel to cast aside the Lie and never look back.

Questions to Ask About Your Character’s Arc in the First Half of the Second Act 1. How is your character reacting to the First Plot Point? 2. What “tools” can you provide to help your character build the first rung in the ladder that will scale his Lie? 3. What minor character can offer advice or exemplary behavior to help mentor your protagonist? 4. How can you show the protagonist the first step in overcoming his Lie, instead of just telling him about it? 5. How will your character attempt to use his Lie to solve plot problems? 6. How will he be “punished” as a result? 7. How will these failures evolve your character’s outlook and tactics? 8. How will your character’s single-minded pursuit of his plot goal lead him closer to the Thing He Wants? 9. How will his pursuit of the Thing He Wants cause him to risk turning farther away from the Thing He Needs? 10. After the First Plot Point, how will the new world or the altered Normal World provide the character with a glimpse of how life might be without his Lie?

At the Midpoint, the character ceases to survive merely in a reactionary role and begins to take definitive action in overcoming the antagonistic force. He does this, not because his goal or his determination to achieve that goal have changed, but because the Midpoint is where he will gain a better understanding of both the external conflict and his inner self in that conflict. In other words, he finally sees the Truth. Stanley D. Williams calls this the “moment of grace.” James Scott Bell calls it the “mirror moment” (since it metaphorically—and sometimes literally—involves the character looking in a mirror and seeing the truth about himself). The character has been seeing evidence of the Truth throughout the first half of the story, but the Moment of Truth at the Midpoint is where he finally accepts that Truth.

At this point, your character is now a divided person: caught between the Lie and the Truth. His incomplete understanding of how to implement his new knowledge of the Truth is the reason he will not yet be able to achieve total victory in the remainder of the Second Act.

The Moment of Grace is usually triggered by a subtle event that is undergirded by earlier, more dramatic events. It is not the Moment of Grace alone that changes the character’s behavior, but it is the “straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

Jane Eyre: A glimpse into the horror of Rochester’s secret and his growing dependence upon Jane—and a realization that she cannot continue to work for him if he is to marry someone else.

Questions to Ask About Your Character’s Arc in the Midpoint 1. What personal revelation strikes your protagonist at the Midpoint? 2. How is your protagonist different at the Midpoint from who he was at the First Plot Point? 3. How does the revelation at the Midpoint prompt the character to move from reaction to action by providing him the knowledge to start taking control of the conflict? 4. What definitive action will your protagonist take against the antagonistic force? 5. What new understanding of the conflict does the protagonist gain at the Midpoint? 6. What new understanding of himself does the protagonist gain at the Midpoint? 7. What is his Moment of Truth? What Truth does he recognize and accept? What causes him to accept it? 8. How is your character still consciously clinging to his Lie? 9. What actions is he taking that are based on the Truth? 10. How does the contrast between the simultaneously held Lie and Truth evolve his inner conflict?

The Midpoint is one of the most exciting moments in your story. It’s the moment your character finally gets it. The puzzle pieces fall into place. He realizes what he must do to win the conflict, and he adjusts his actions accordingly. This isn’t an overnight transformation. It’s a build-up of everything he’s learned in the First Act, and he will continue to refine his understanding of the Truth throughout the remainder of the Second Act.

When planning your Midpoint, identify the Truth your character must recognize and create a mind-blowing scene to support it. Done right, it will end up being one of th...

with a strong action from the protagonist, based on his Midpoint revelation. The Second Half of the Second Act features your character moving forward confidently, taking control of the conflict. The Second Half of the Second Act is where you need to assemble all your story’s playing pieces, so they’re in place for the Third Act. The Second Half of the Second Act begins with the Midpoint and spans 25% of the book to the beginning of the Third Act at the 75% mark.

Speaking generally, the Second Half of the Second Act is the “action” phase. The protagonist charges ahead, thinking he now sees clearly. But the key thing to remember about this section of the story is that your character is still half-blinded by the Lie. He’s charging into the conflict, thinking he now has 20/20 vision, when, really, he only has one eye open.

Thanks to the lessons learned in the First Half of the Second Act and the revelation at the Midpoint, the character is now able to act in ways he wouldn’t have been able to in the first half. Specifically, this means he now has new tools to work with, which will allow him to make significant progress toward the Thing He Wants. Before, he may have been trying to tear down the brick wall between him and his goal by using his fingernails to pry bricks loose.

Think of these as “before and after” scenes. By purposefully placing the character in a second-half scene that is similar to a first-half scene, you’re able to give readers a dramatic representation of the progress he’s made in his personal evolution. In the first half, he was a selfish jerk who threw his fast food garbage at the homeless guy on the corner; in the second half, he looks at the guy, looks at his uneaten Big Mac—and hands it over.

But that inner conflict boils up more insistently than ever. The Thing He Wants is right there. And, by golly, he still wants it with everything that’s in him. But he’s unsettled. Something about the whole thing doesn’t feel right. If he’s going to claim the Thing He Wants under these circumstances, he will have to subject himself to the Lie’s thrall once again. He will have to sacrifice the Thing He Needs and stifle the call of the Truth. Is it worth it? After all, he’s been after the Thing He Wants ever since the beginning of the story. And here it is—his for the taking. So what does he do? He takes it. He convinces himself the Thing He Wants is not an obstacle to the Thing He Needs. He can have the best of both worlds.

Subtlety is one of the writer’s greatest weapons. But now is not the time for subtlety. Now is the time to bring out the big guns. Right before hurling your character into the maw of his personal crucible (aka the Third Act), you have to give him (and the readers) a solid validation of the Truth. Spell it out. What is the Thing He Needs?

Your character needs this final tool at the end of the Second Act, because, come the Third Act, it will be his first line of defense against the Lie.

Hub says, “Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most…. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. [A] man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.”

Questions to Ask About Your Character’s Arc in the Second Half of the Second Act 1. How is your character starting to take control of the conflict after the Midpoint? 2. How is the revelation at the Midpoint allowing your character to see the conflict in a new light? 3. What “tools” has the Midpoint revelation given your character that make him more effective in confronting the antagonist? 4. How is your character still clinging to his Lie? 5. How is his new Truth causing friction with his old Lie? 6. How is your character still out of sync with the Truth? 7. How does your character’s mindset still support the Lie? 8. How do his actions demonstrate his growing belief in the Truth? 9. How can you use a “before and after” scene to prove how your character is different from who he was in the first half of the story? 10. What false victory will end the Second Act? How has your character compromised the Truth in order to (seemingly) gain the Thing He Wants? 11. How have you blatantly demonstrated the Truth somewhere in the Second Half of the Second Act?

On its surface, the Second Half of the Second Act will seem comparatively great for your character. Everything is going his way. He’s learning the value of implementing the Truth in his life. He sees the Truth in action and begins to value it—probably without even realizing it—more than he values the Thing He Wants. Out of habit as much as anything, he’s going to betray that Truth at the end of the Second Act, but he’s already too far gone on the Truth to ever abandon it. He’s already a changed person—and when he reaches the Third Plot Point, he’ll prove it.

IF YOU HAD to pick the single most important moment in a character’s arc, what would it be? The Third Plot Point, you say? Well, you’d be right. Now here’s the harder question: Why is this the most important moment? The Third Plot Point is the low moment in your story. A minute ago, at the end of the Second Act, your protagonist seemed to have won a victory. Everything seemed to be going his way. He was getting the Truth figured out, and he seemed to have pushed the Lie to the back of his life. Even the antagonist appeared to be at his mercy.

But that’s only one side of the choice. The other is the Truth—which he has also come to realize he can’t live without. Even as the siren song of the Thing He Wants beckons him almost irresistibly, his eyes are finally opened to the full horror of the Lie. He shudders at the thought of sacrificing the Thing He Wants, but he is equally sickened by the possibility of having to reject the Truth and step back into the shadows of his Lie. In Plot vs. Character, Jeff Gerke emphasizes:

Since this is a Positive Change Arc, your readers all know, deep down, what your protagonist is going to choose. However, the harder his choice, the more readers will begin to doubt his final decision—and the more powerful his choice will be when he makes it.

The Old Self Dies Finally, his heart feeling as if it’s about to tear in two, the protagonist makes his choice. He chooses Truth. He chooses to reject the Lie. He will not allow himself to live by this false belief anymore. He will embrace the Truth and do the right thing, even though it means (or in some stories, seems to mean) forever losing the Thing He Wants. (Whether or not he actually gains the Thing He Wants in the end is irrelevant. For now, the only thing that matters is that he is fully willing to give it up.)

Jane Eyre: The discovery that Rochester is already married to a madwoman and that Jane can only remain with him if she’s willing to sacrifice her spiritual and moral freedom by becoming his mistress. She decides the price for being loved is too high—and flees.

1. What crushing event and/or revelation turns your character’s apparent success into the worst defeat yet? 2. How was this defeat enabled by the character’s refusal, thus far, to completely reject his Lie? 3. How does this defeat force your character to face the true ramifications of the Lie? 4. How can this defeat offer the character a clear path toward the Thing He Wants? 5. If he takes this path, how will it force him to reject the Thing He Needs? 6. How can you set up a clear and decided choice between the Thing He Needs and the Thing He Wants? 7. Which will he choose? 8. How can you literally or symbolically represent death in this scene as a way of reinforcing the demise of your character’s Lie-empowered old self?

That, as you’ve just learned, is why we need the Third Plot Point. The Third Plot Point rips away all those options and forces the character to a place where he has no choice but to be absolutely honest with himself about himself and about his situation. In the coming Climax, your protagonist will rise from the ashes, ready to do battle from a place of inner wholeness.

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” —Neale Donald Walsch

He did the right thing. And he did it from the depth of his soul. But now he has to live with the consequences. He’s grown to believe in the Truth—and yet, the Truth just ruined his life. On its exterior, the Third Act is all about your character’s scrambling to regain his balance before he has to face the antagonist in the Climax. But within your character’s interior, the Third Act is all about him figuring out if he really wants to serve the Truth after all. Is it worth the price he’s just paid? If he’s ever going to return to his life of “safety” in the Lie, this is going to be his last chance.

1. Up the Stakes After his soul-wrenching realization in the Third Plot Point, the character now has to deal with the aftermath. And it’s pretty gruesome.

Questions to Ask About Your Character’s Arc in the Third Act 1. How does your character react to the Third Plot Point? 2. How has his embrace of the Truth made a mess of his life and, specifically, his pursuit of his plot goal? 3. How can you up the stakes by forcing him into both physical and emotional straits? 4. How do these straits force your character to reconsider whether or not the Truth is the right choice for him? 5. How does he rise from these doubts determined to cling to the Truth? 6. What doubts is the character still experiencing about the Truth? 7. How is his inability to completely reject the Lie keeping him from total happiness and empowerment? 8. How are your character’s attitudes and actions different in the Third Act from how they were in the First? How can you subtly reinforce the difference prior to the Climax? 9. How will your character’s devotion to the Truth be put to the test? What character or situation will you use to try to tempt or bully your protagonist back into serving the Lie? The Third Act is where you get to tie off your story’s loose ends. When it comes to character arcs, those loose ends include testing the character’s devotion to the Truth and showing his final growing pains as he sheds the Lie and moves forward to face his ultimate test in the Climax.

Questions to Ask About Your Character’s Arc in the Climax 1. How does your character prove he is a changed person in the Climax? 2. Does the renewed attack upon his new Truth happen before the Climax or during the Climax? What are the pacing challenges of either choice? 3. How does the character’s final embrace of the Truth enable his victory in the exterior conflict? 4. Does he fully embrace the Thing He Needs in the Climax? 5. How does he use the Thing He Needs to defeat the antagonist? 6. Does he gain the Thing He Wants? 7. How has his view of the Thing He Wants changed? Does he still want it? The beginning of your story asked a question: Will the character overcome his Lie to gain the Thing He Needs? In a Positive Change Arc, the Climax answers that question with a resounding yes. More than that, it provides visual and dramatic proof of how the character has been changed by the Truth. Your character has just completed his arc. He leaves your story a better person than he

Questions to Ask About Your Character’s Arc in the Resolution 1. How does your Resolution contrast your story’s beginning? 2. How does your Resolution mirror your story’s beginning? 3. How is the character’s new Normal World different from the original one? 4. Does the character return to his old Normal World? 5. How does the Resolution answer your story’s thematic question? 6. How can you state the answer to the thematic question in dialogue without making it seem like a “moral of the story”? 7. How does your character act differently in the Resolution from how he did at the beginning of the story? In some ways, learning how to create a solid Positive Change Arc is even more complex than learning how to properly structure a story. If you can understand the psychological workings at the heart of human change, then you’ll also understand how to create a story about a character who changes, from worse to better, in a convincing way.

There are far more ways to do things wrong than there are ways to do things right (hence my ongoing blog series “Most Common Writing Mistakes”—which will probably never run out of fodder). So it goes with character arcs. The Positive Change Arc has one basic manifestation. Same for the Flat Arc. But the Negative Change Arc can