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Children have amazing imaginations. Everything around them is new and marvelous. Their amazement at each new wonder opens the door to even more exciting possibilities. And within the scope of possibility lies a vast realm of make-believe. Thus, many children are natural storytellers.

In their world of discovery, children will dream up all manner of fantastical creatures, superhuman abilities, and incredible scenarios. But in the inexperience of youth, their storylines remain shallow—a simple sequence of events. They lack the self-awareness and emotional maturity to infuse their characters with real depth.

Adult stories need not avoid these larger-than-life elements, but from our vantage point where we have seen how life’s journey directly affects our inner being, we have the ability to craft the inner journey as well. The tales told by our scars and callouses offer wisdom for overcoming, so surely in our stories we should endeavor to move beyond the simple play-by-play action of our youthful imaginations to expose the matters of the heart.

This inner journey—or character arc—will touch our readers in a far deeper way, even resonating with people across the generations, because it speaks to the human experience. The readers may never walk where the character’s feet tread, but they will absolutely experience the inner journey alongside the character.

This post is part 1 of what will be a two-part exploration of characterization. We will start here by defining the character arc:

In our message-driven approach to story writing, every story element flows from the message we want to deliver. The character arc is no exception. Thus, the inner transformation of the character—by design—illustrates the central message of the story.

Unless you are writing something like a parable or fable that teaches a moral lesson about the consequences of our actions, the plot itself does not generally deliver the message of the story. It’s the inner transformation of the character that communicates the life lessons. And this makes sense, doesn’t it? When you share your own testimony to help others overcome their personal challenges, do you not detail how you felt and how you changed over the course of your experience?

Methodology

Let’s consider what this characterization method might look like as we build up our characters around the protagonist whose story will deliver the central message.

Message (example): We need each other and cannot live only for ourselves.

1. Define the arc of the protagonist’s transformation—attitude, beliefs, priorities, heart, etc.—that communicates the central message.
   • Example: The protagonist goes from being a self-absorbed workaholic to being a family man who both gives and accepts help.
2. Define all influences/motivations to be used in driving that arc.
   • Example: forces of nature, threats, health issues, other characters, surprises
3. For each character you plan to use to work this change in the protagonist, decide whether that character must also go through an inner transformation to help deliver either the central message or a related message of his/her own. If so, this supporting character must also be a POV character.
   • Example: The crisis prompting the protagonist to change involves a debilitating injury on the job. You use his boss to force him to take an extended time off. There’s no need for the boss to change in the execution of his role, so in this case, the boss would never have the POV.
   • Example: You also use the protagonist’s wife to make him see the importance of prioritizing his family. The changing dynamics of their marriage will affect them both, and the wife’s transformation emphasizes the central message or highlights another tangential truth concerning relationships. In this case, the wife will require the POV whenever we need insight into the progression of her arc.
4. Repeat steps 1 – 3 for each POV character.
5. For each character arc, break the arc into scenes and identify which portion of the total arc will be implemented in that scene. While performing this step, it may be helpful to consider some questions that Jerry Jenkins poses in his post: How to Create a Powerful Character Arc.
   • Example: Scene 1 may present the protagonist as being wildly successful in his career but out of touch with his family; this establishes the starting point of his arc.
   • Example: Scene 2 may be written in his wife’s POV to start highlighting their dysfunctional relationship.
   • Example: In scene 3, the protagonist may suffer serious injury on the job and end up in the hospital.
   • Example: Each scene after would be designed to incrementally move both the protagonist and his wife through their inner journeys until, by the final scene, their beliefs, priorities, etc. are aligned with the message that we need each other and cannot live only for ourselves.

This mapping of the character arc into scenes is NOT plotting. You may identify specific events that must take place in a scene if those events will drive the targeted change in the character. But this exercise is only intended to accomplish two things: define the incremental change in the character, and identify the stimulus that will provoke that change.

Check out this post from The Write Conversation for some excellent insights on how to select the details that make up the character arc. Also, Jerry Jenkins provides an extensive list of potential drivers/motivations that can be used to prod or direct the character along the arc.

Parallel Stories

Where there are multiple POV characters, the protagonist arc carries the primary storyline and each additional POV character arc narrates a parallel storyline that relates to the primary story.

Remember: POV characters do not randomly appear in scenes to “conveniently” offer another perspective. They must each be fully developed.

If a character is given the POV anywhere, he/she must be given a fully developed character arc that tracks through the story. This parallel story relates to the protagonist’s story in the shared space you have created for them.

To better illustrate this idea of parallel stories and shared space, consider a stage play. The stage is the “shared space.” On the stage, the set is made up to depict two independent rooms that may not even belong to the same building. One character in each room is narrating his personal story, including his opinion of the other character. They know each other, so their stories have intersected at some point in the past. But in this moment, they are not aware of each other, and the audience is witnessing both of their stories independently.

You can get creative with this idea of “shared space.” In the most straightforward example, the storylines of the POV characters intercept in a shared scene. Only one character can hold the POV in a given scene, but if both characters have the POV at different points in the story, then their interaction in the scene must serve to advance each of their arcs.

Shared space can also be established by mirroring the protagonist’s arc in another POV character who lived during a different time period or another region of the world. In this case, the characters never meet, but each of their life stories echo the same or a similar message. This asserts the universality of the issues we face, and depending on how each character navigates his/her transformation, may suggest that history repeats itself.

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This concludes our look at character arcs. Next month we will wrap up characterization with a discussion of the various character types.