The Basics Of Character Arc
One of the greatest things in stories is change. Readers like change. Something in your story must irreversibly happen. The question is, what should change?
Characters. We want to see how people move past their flaws and become better versions of themselves. Or maybe they don't move past their flaws, tragedy inspiring change in ourselves. Or even when our hero doesn't change themselves, but helps others to change.
How the character changes is what we call character arc. Even though I'm no cook, I like to think of character arcs as recipes. Like any recipe, let's start at the beginning: the ingredients list.
The Five Ingredients
The five basic ingredients of character arcs are: the Lie, the Truth, the Wound, the Need and the Goal. All arcs have these ingredients no matter which type of arc your character undergoes. The specifics of the ingredients change depending on the type.
In this post, I'm mostly talking about the ingredients from a Positive Arc perspective. I'll go into more detail when I go into types of arcs in a future post.
The Truth
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This is what your theme is about. The message you're trying to send should also be something the character has to discover throughout their journey.
In most arc types, learning the Truth is something that has a positive impact on their life. It's what allows your character to be satisfied with their lives.
Let's take the famous A Christmas Carol for our example. The moral of the story is to not judge someone based on how much they have. Likewise, the Truth is that someone's worth is not measured by their wealth.
The Lie
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The Lie is a belief the character harbours that holds them back from being completely satisfied with their lives. It's a false understanding of the world.
Don't mix up the Lie with a character flaw. A Lie can be a type of character flaw, but not all character flaws can be the Lie your character believes. While a character flaw can be physical, like clumsiness, the Lie is something intangible, a belief or value.
Because of their belief to the Lie, the character is held back from the Truth and ultimately, happiness. The Lie won't help them get what they want.
Scrooge's Lie is his belief that a person's worth is measured by the money. The Lie is basically the stark opposite of your Truth statement.
The Wound / The Ghost
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The Wound, sometimes known as the Ghost, is why the character believes and can't see past the Lie. It's probably one of, if not the most, important bit of backstory.
The Wound is the event or the series of events that built up over time that caused the character to live by their misconception. It's the defining moment that drives the character.
Contrary to what it's called, the Wound can be anything between something as traumatic as witnessing their parent's deaths or to something as uplifting as being constantly told how amazing they are.
The reason Scrooge believes wealth is the measure of a person's goodness is because of his childhood. He was a poor boy who grew up, you guessed it, poor, until he sacrificed the love of his life to be able to better pursue banking.
The Need
The Need is the Truth, or heavily based on the Truth. While the character is trying to get their Want, they're completely missing what they really need. Your character may want to eat all the apple pie in the world, but apple pie isn't enough to provide the nutrients humans need to survive. (You need to add icecream. And whipped cream.)
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To get the Need, your character may have to give up what they've been trying to get the whole book. Unlike the Want, the Need is usually something intangible, like receiving someone's love or respect.
Their Need will be what truly satisfies your character's internal longings.
The Goal / The Want
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The Goal, also known as the Want, is what it sounds like. What is the character searching for? Their Goal is fuelled by their Lie. The character tries to compensate for the misery the Lie is causing them and tries to get something they think will give them ultimate satisfaction.
The Want is almost always tangible, like trying to get that vintage plushy toy. But it can also be something intangible, like trying to gain their friend's respect.
The Goal is one of the fiddly things that can change as the character grows. They may start out wanting a million dollars, then two thousand dollars, then only enough for basic needs. They may want a million dollars throughout the whole story only to change their minds at the end and say toodle pip to millionaire life. Their goal might be their Need and what's stopping them is their Lie-based actions.
How the Ingredients Interact
Now we know what the ingredients are, how do they relate to the other ingredients? If sugar makes the cake sweet, what does the chocolate do? (Make it perfect.)
Something happens to the character (Wound) that makes them believe something false (Lie) so they are after something that won't really fill their inner need (Goal). Throughout the story, the character has to move away from the false belief (Lie) to the true belief (Truth) which gives them what ultimately fills their inner longing (Need).
The beginning can be summarised with this totally professional flowchart:
Wound --> Lie --> Want
Character arc is basically Truth vs Lie. Need vs Want. Whichever wins out, depends on the type of arc. Do they realise the Truth and get their Need? In a positive arc, they get both. In a flat arc, they already have the Truth and Need so the story is about them sharing that with the people around them.
There are three types of negative arcs. In negative arc type 1, they don't get the Truth or Need. In negative arc type 2, they get the Truth and Need, but the Truth is not a positive one. In negative arc type 3, they see the Truth and Need, but they refuse it to fully immerse themselves in the Lie.
But I'll go into that in a future post.
With these five ingredients, you can craft every character arc. Because of an event in their past, your character believes something that's not true about the world, which fuels their plot goal. Over the course of the story, your character has to realise the truth about the world which will lead to full satisfaction in their life.
Related:
Writing Is A Real Job! An Author's Purpose
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