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

by K.M. Weiland

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.