Three Tips for Writing Realistic Character Arcs

What’s worse than an unbelievable plot that breaks every rule of reality?

An unrealistic character arc.

From the first page, readers are zeroed in on your characters.

They’re interesting, they’re unique, they’re dynamic, they’re practically real people… until they start changing abruptly, for no reason at all, without even a struggle.

Why is this an issue? It’s fiction—anything can happen.

This can be true, yet having characters change in unrealistic ways will cause your story to instantly lack power for one reason: readers want characters they can relate to.

If your characters don’t act like real people, real people won’t be able to emotionally connect with them.

This is why character arcs are so important.

Essentially, a character arc is how your character grows as a person over the course of a story; it’s how he or she changes.

Since real people will change for the better or worse, having a character arc in your story adds a level of realism as the events of the plot shape the characters.

Writing a character who changes in a realistic way is no easy task.

Though we ourselves change constantly in our everyday lives, it still can be a struggle to figure out how to make a character change in the same way a flesh-and-blood person would. Here are three tips to help you.

1. Give the Character a Strong Reason to Change

Nothing is more unrealistic than a character changing without any reason to.

People hate change.

We like things to stay the way they are. Stepping outside our comfort zones and examining our flaws is, well, uncomfortable; thus there has to be a good reason why we should do something that makes us feel that way.

Characters are the same.

If a character starts the story lying to make people like him, why should he suddenly start being truthful halfway through the story?

Just because someone tells him lying is bad? Something bigger than that must prompt him to change his belief.

That “something bigger” could be a number of things: a disastrous event, a near-death experience, or the loss of a friendship.

All of these are a form of poetic justice.

Poetic justice is when a character is punished or rewarded for the way he lives.

For the character who lies, his dishonesty could be discovered by a good friend or a family member, and the revelation destroys the relationship.

Now the character has a strong motivation to begin being truthful.

2. The Character Should Struggle to Change

As I mentioned above, people don’t like to change.

Yet even when we have a strong motivation to do so, that change will still be very difficult.

If a character has been living a certain way for a long time, he’s fallen into a habit.

While he may want to break that habit, it’s so easy to fall into it again that he must struggle against the urge to do so.

That struggle is a key part of realistic character arcs.

 If the character doesn’t struggle to change, he comes off as being perfect, and readers will likely stop relating to him. 

Everyone can relate to struggle and suffering, so having your character experience that will make him more sympathetic and human.

3. The Change Should Be Gradual

A mistake writers often make is to have their characters change abruptly.

They give a reason for the character to change—say, a disastrous event—and suddenly, the character realizes he’s been wrong all along, must change this instant, and proceeds to do so.

Looking back at tip #2, it’s easy to see why this is so unrealistic.

The character should be struggling to change, and that struggle shouldn't last a mere a day or two.

Think about the last time you or someone you know tried to significantly change the way they lived. It likely didn’t happen overnight.

This is why a properly executed character arc takes up an entire novel: every part of the story is slowly pushing the protagonist towards change.

Scene by scene, he’s growing from his wrong belief into his correct belief.

If a character triumphed over his false belief at the midpoint or even the one quarter mark, what is the point of the rest of the story?

Every event after the character’s transformation would be unnecessary if it didn’t move him towards his new belief.

Writing a character who changes realistically can be hard.

Although tips like those I’ve shared can be a good starting place, the best way to ensure your character is acting like a real person is to compare him to a real person.

What would force you to change a belief you’ve had for most of your life? How difficult would it be?

Fiction is a mirror of reality.

Given this, you can gather plenty of knowledge of how people change by looking at your own life and the lives of those around you.

Pulling off a realistic character arc will still take practice, but it’s certainly worth the result: creating living characters that your readers can relate to.

- Audrey Caylin