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

by K.M. Weiland

Star Wars, Episodes I-III: I’ll start off this example by saying what everyone already knows: these movies are, almost entirely, examples of how not to do things. However, the one thing they do get right is the basic structure of the fall of Anakin Skywalker in what (in my admittedly biased fangirl opinion) could have been one of the best Corruption Arcs in cinema had it been told within less dismally awful movies.

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IN ONE WORD, the Negative Change Arc is about failure.

If the Positive Change Arc is about redeeming self and the Flat Arc is about saving others, then the Negative Change Arc is about destroying self and probably others as well.

In Positive and Flat Arcs, the character will face down death, come to terms with its power, re-embrace life, and rise ready to once again do battle. But in a Negative Change Arc, the protagonist will find himself impotent in the face of this horror. The Lie he has stubbornly embraced throughout the story now renders him powerless. In essence, he’s lacking the one weapon—the Truth—necessary to fight and defeat the Lie. His only option is to surrender himself still deeper into the grip of the Lie in an effort to convince himself he has chosen the right path.

Positive Change Arcs get happy endings. Negative Change Arcs get sad endings. Broader “umbrella” genres such as fantasy, westerns, and historicals can tell just about any kind of story. But most romances, for example, are going to require a Positive Change or Flat Arc.

Character arc is always the final sum of your story’s ending minus your story’s beginning.

Characters in Disillusionment and Corruption Arcs will end in a place that’s a darker reflection of their beginning, while characters in Fall Arcs will end up in a place that’s the same as the beginning, only worse.

The true character-arc-as-subplot variation is the tangential arc, in which the character’s arc is full and prominent, but is only obliquely related to the main plot. It affects and is affected by the main plot, but only indirectly. For the most part, it can stand on its own, apart from the main adventure, and could conceivably occur as the result of any number of catalysts.

“Impact character” is the term coined by Dramatica authors Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley to describe what is just as accurately termed by editor Roz Morris the “catalyst character.” This is the character who slams into your protagonist, catalyzes him into change, and has a major impact on his life.

The impact character is the one who enables, empowers, or sometimes just plain forces another character(s) to change. Basically, this is a Flat Arc character.

If the antagonist represents the story’s outer conflict, then the impact character represents the inner conflict.

The protagonist believes the Lie; the impact character already knows the Truth.

“Only enemies speak the truth. Friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.” —Stephen King

Allowing each character to approach the subject from a slightly different angle gives you all kinds of material to play with in exploring every aspect of your theme.

When you think about an antagonist, you’re likely to focus on the ways in which he’s different from your protagonist. But some of the most important aspects of your story will emerge thanks to the ways in which the antagonist and the protagonist aren’t so different at all.

Used with care, multiple arcs can create characters of great depth and complexity. But here’s the rule of thumb to always keep in mind: No minor arc can overshadow the protagonist’s primary arc.

Your protagonist’s arc is the story (and if it’s not, then he’s not the protagonist). All other arcs must be subordinate to that arc. They must support that arc and contribute to its specific moral premise.

Properly structured scenes are split into two segments: action and reaction. The action half will be structured into three parts of its own: goal, conflict, outcome. That outcome is almost always going to be disastrous or partially disastrous. We call these partial disasters “yes, but…” disasters. They are disasters in which the character’s main scene goal is obstructed, but only partially.

Situations entertain us; stories entertain and teach us what it means to be human.

Just as character arcs can bring untold depth and resonance to your standalone stories, they will also lift your series out of mediocrity and into memorability.

If you’re going to write a story worthy of your amazing protagonist, the first thing you have to do is write a character arc that resonates with your readers and leaves them gasping, cheering, or crying. Or all three!