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@valtmy, congratulations character!
Oh, if y’all ever need to know what it feels like to slowly faint, I can help with that. I didn’t fully lose conciseness, but I think I can describe it fairly well
WIP - Decisions
Kapeefer til we're old and greyI’ll keep that in mind though I don’t know whether I would ever need my character to faint. My MC might pretend to faint (which is likely given her job) but she’s not the kind to actually faint. 😛
@valtmy, @rochellaine, I’m gonna have to head to bed now.
WIP - Decisions
Kapeefer til we're old and grey@valtmy, alrighty
WIP - Decisions
Kapeefer til we're old and greyBye!
I’ll be here a little while longer so just let me know if you’re still around 😛
All right, Catwing, I am here to give you instruction in the way of the glorious character arc.
I’ll try to keep this concise:
So, I feel the trick to Character arcs are these two things. Basically, a character arc can’t just be the character going from A–B. I’ve read books/seen movies where the characters are one way at the start, something happens and then they’re another way (sometimes better, but in the case of villains, where I see it happen more often, they’re worse, obviously). I think this is a sign of bad writing skills and I would like to propose the way arcs should actually be written.
As a process. Its not the character teleporting like Dr Who from A to B, its the character walking from A————to————–B Each of those dashes represents a step they have to take in order to change. Most of these steps are going to be small and maybe not even noticeable but they’re all going to build up to a major change in the character around the climax.
I don’t know what sort of changes you want to make in your characters, so I’ll humbly use my own character arc as an example.
- My MC starts the book hating her absent sister and being unable to forgive her.
- Said sister returns to the scene. MC dismisses her angrily.
- Various confrontations between them follow.
- Sister tries to warn MC away from a bad path. MC chooses not to listen.
- eventually MC listens to her sister’s story and begins to understand why her sister did some of the things she did and begins the process of forgiving her.
- MC listens to advice from sister and acts on it, furthering the process of forgiving her.
- MC openly apologises to and forgives her sister.
- In the climax, MC realises exactly how much she loves her sister and that, despite her show of hating her sister, she’s really loved her all the time.
So the first and last points are A and B, but there’s a lot in between them (I’ve left out a lot of it). My MC doesn’t change overnight, but rather its a step by step process.
Secondly, I think that do a good arc you have to make the character choose between things.
Example: at the start of my novel, the absent sister returns and the MC has the opportunity to forgive her, or to continue in her hatred. To forgive her would mean the character arc ended right there, so of course she has to continue hating her. After that, each decision the MC has to make involves choosing between forgiving and continuing with her grudge and the gradual change of her arc is shown when she begins to listen to her sister, and follow advice, etc.
So, the character needs to have decisions between doing the right thing and the wrong thing. And they need to be mixed up a bit. Sometimes even after people have begun to change they make the wrong decisions. Sometimes even after people are on a downward spiral they still make the right decision. Do you see what I’m saying?
To sum up:
The character needs to make steps, rather than just leaping from A to B.
The character needs to choose between right and wrong. Sometimes they choose right and sometimes they choose wrong, but it shouldn’t always be right or wrong.
And finally, after all the little steps, the character will probably snap and take a big step during the climax. Everything that’s been heaping up on them throughout the book will make sense and they’ll finally decide who they are and where they stand. That’s when they’ll make their change–for better or for worse, but there’s got to be stuff leading up to that. It can’t come out of the blue.
Phew! Does that make sense? Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with!
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
Anyone around I’m editing my novel/reading a short story for a friend. 😀
@catwing @jenwriter17 @rochellane @valtmyINFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
@rochellaine Got your tag wrong 😀
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
@seekjustice, I’m outlining
WIP - Decisions
Kapeefer til we're old and greyHey. Really wish I can join but I’ll be working now. Thankfully there’s nothing on my plate yet since I’m new and I might be able to pop in during lunch. So just letting you know that I’ll still be stalking around. 😛
@seekjustice Oh, oh! I scrolled up a bit and saw the end of your long post to @catwing where you said “to sum up.” Immediately, this flashed into my brain:
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
That’s pretty much how it is 😛 It reminds me of when I try to explain musical plots to my family.
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
@rochellaine, me too!
@seekjustice, Its going pretty well. I’m almost done with the basic outline, so once I’m done with that I have to research the psychological effects of human isolation on children. know anything on that?WIP - Decisions
Kapeefer til we're old and greyAwesome 😀
I’d do some research, but I’d hazard to guess that the consequences wouldn’t be good. I think it also depends on what sort of isolation it is. Is it isolation from absolutely everyone? Isolation from everyone but one or two select individuals? Isolation from everything except a group (say, a church)?
I think each of those would have different effects.
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
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