How Does Your Character Change?

You know your character must change somehow over the course of your novel. But how? And more than that, how do you sync the changes with the external plot? The middle of a novel can suffer from the dreaded “sagging middle” and it’s mainly because you don’t have a firm handle on the character’s inner arc and how it meshes with external events.

I’ve found three approaches to the inner arc, each trying to laying out how the character changes. While these overlap a lot, there are differences in how the emotional changes are approached.

Hero’s Journey: Quest for Inner Change

In the Hero’s Journey, laid out so well in Christopher Vogler’s book, The Writer’s Journey, a character receives a Call to Adventure that takes him/her out of the normal and ordinary world into a world where they must quest for something. One of the key moments in this paradigm is the Inmost Cave where the character faces his deepest fears.

Melanie as an Example

So, we’ve got Melanie who wants more than anything else to get her mother’s approval, but can’t because her mom’s a chef and Melanie can’t cook worth a flip.

In the Hero’s Journey, Melanie might get a Call to Adventure: a challenge to create the world’s largest hot fudge sundae. Her darkest moment will come when she realizes Mom think’s she’s real goof-up and she’s not up to the task. Of course, she wants to give up, but somehow manages to rally (perhaps, recruiting friends to help, learning to make a sundae, etc.) and create something that makes Mom proud.

Iron Sharpens Iron – Friendships

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17
In this paradigm, two characters cross paths in Act 1 and usually hate each other, but Act 2 throws them into a situation where they must act together. Here, the characters’ strengths and weaknesses work to create change. It’s an up and down battle of learning to trust each other and ultimately find some sort of love, whether it’s platonic, romantic or maternal. Key moments are the midpoint when they totally lose faith in one another and a re-commitment to each other as they move from Act 2 to Act 3. Act 1 and 3 focus on the external story, while Act 2 follows how the friendship affects the characters.
For more on this paradigm, read, Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot by Peter Dunne.

Back to Melanie:

Melanie agrees to participate in the Biggest Sundae Ever contest, but as the contest starts she’s assigned a dunce to work with, Phillip RunnyNose. They clash immediately and have different ideas on how to create the required masterpiece: Melanie wants total creative control, while Phillip wants to just take pictures of the masterpiece. During their practice run–about the middle of act 2–Phillip leaves the ice cream out to soften up, but it melts, ruining the practice sundae. Of course, they fight and demand new partners, but that’s denied. Finally, they find that Melanie is great at building the base of the sundae, but Phillip is better at decorating it (characters have changed, because they accept different roles: Melanie does the basic work, Phillip the artistic/creative work– but they are better together than alone.) They go into Act 3 still unsure of each other’s roles, but committed to trying to create that Great Sundae in the sky and eventually Melanie earns her mother’s approval.

Flawed Way of Coping

Jeff Gerke, in Plot versus Character, describes a different way of dealing with the inner narrative arc. For him, the main character has developed a coping mechanism for dealing with a situation and it’s flawed, inadequate. The change that comes through the course of the novel exposes that coping mechanism as flawed and insists that the MC find a new way of dealing with things. It’s a journey from dysfunctional to functional (or at least some improvement in the way of functioning.)

Melanie as Dysfunctional

Melanie agrees to participate in the Greatest Sundae Contest in order to impress her mother, who runs a bakery that is slowing going out of business because of lack of customers. Mel practices once and gets 100 scoops one on top of each other, then stops to take pictures of the project, but it falls apart just as she snaps her pictures. Mom is furious at the mess in her bakery, but Mel’s pictures are interesting and catch the attention of the newspaper, who publish them, resulting in more business.
When Mel tries again, her masterpiece again falls apart when she starts to take pictures; Mom is even more furious; this time the pics get picked up by a state magazine, resulting in even more business.
Mel persists. A key moment comes though, when she realizes she likes the photography process and decides to do more of it, moving into Act 3. She creates the masterpiece, but this time takes pictures of the entire process from start to–inevitably–collapse. (of course, you’ll add lots of conflict: icing on the camera’s lens; dead battery; etc.) By now, though, Mom is excited by the pictures and realizes she’s got a goldmine in advertising revenue. I’m proud of your photography, she tells Mel. Will you photograph me while I decorate a cake and we’ll use it in advertising.
In short, Mel tried to impress Mom with her skill in creating a sundae, when what really impressed Mom was her photography. She’s replaces an inadequate way of coping (impress Mom with her cooking) with an adequate one (impress Mom with her photography).

Comparing the Paradigms for Character Change

Each paradigm comes with different requirements and different key moments that your plot must provide.

Required Characters

• Main Character Alone: In the Hero’s Journey, it’s a lonely quest where the main character changes him/herself. Yes, there are supporting characters, but they are secondary to the internal arc.
• Friends: The Friendship arc requires two people who appear to be polar opposites, but eventually change each other.
• Either: In the Dysfunctional arc, you can feature another character, or it can be against a situation or event.

Key moments:

• Fears. Hero’s Journey requires an Inmost Cave, the moment when the character faces his/her worst fears and comes out changed.
• Difficult Relationship. The Friends arc requires a blow-up in a relationship, with some compelling reason to later recommit to that relationship.
• Coping. The Dysfunctional arc has that moment when the dysfunctional coping crosses paths with the functional coping and one takes precedence over the other.

What I like best about these paradigms is that they give me a way to navigate the difficult Act 2.

What other types of character arcs are there? Probably several. Do you have a favorite way of thinking about the character arc? Do you naturally think in terms of one or another? I’m still trying to think about this whole topic and would love a discussion.

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Time Line Helps You Plot

I know that my new novel will take place over a 98 hour span of time. So, I’m working with those 98 hours, creating and structuring the time line of the story in these ways.

Divide the Novel into Acts

The idea of 3 acts is old, but still useful. Some divide a story into four acts. In 3 acts, the structure is the opening, the middle and the conclusion. In 4 acts, the middle is divided into two sections and can have various structures. For example: conflict/resolution, trying to solve a problem/learning to accept the problem. It is useful to think about some sort of twist or change at the midpoint of a story, something that escalates the story or twists it in a slightly new direction.

For example, in the movie Lion King, in Act 2:part 1, Simba is living the good life, makuna matata. But at the midpoint of the story, he sees his father in the stars and realizes he must return to take his rightful place. Act 2:part 2 is about Simba struggling to take back the pride.

While that sort of midpoint change is helpful, I still like to think of a story as 3 acts, instead of four because it helps me keep the middle integrated better.

Act 1: In the opening act, I want to introduce the main events and characters and explain exactly what is at stake. The act ends with something that forces the characters to commit to solving a problem in a certain way.

Act 2: Emotional Heart This act has been called the emotional heart of the story. I’m learning to make sure that the emotional arc of the characters is clear here. At that midpoint, the character inevitable faces what s/he fears the most and there is some sort of character growth.
Act 2: Solving the problem. Also in Act 2, the main character tries a number of strategies for solving the problem and most of them end in a disaster which makes everything worse. Oh, he learns things and has a few successful moments. But they are illusions.
Act 2 ends with another disaster which sends the story into Act 3, with the potential for a lot of action.

Act 3: Here, the story events build to a climax. The story can actually end one of four different ways.

• Failure, but that’s good.
• Failure, and that’s bad.
• Success, but that’s bad.
• Success, and that’s good.

In other words, the main character of your novel can succeed in his/her goal. But the story events will tell the reader if that success or failure is a good thing or not.

Slot Novel Events into Time Line

Besides dividing the time line into acts, I’m also trying to slot in events. I know certain events are possible given the setting and characters, but the order of events has some flexibility. I’m finding the combined time line and division into acts useful. Originally, I wanted two characters to star gaze at a particular point in Act 2, that is in the structure of the story. But when I consulted the time line, it was mid-afternoon. Won’t work. If they star gaze, they’ll have to have a different dynamic going on than I had planned because they’ll be at a different point in the act structure.

Track Emotional Arc through Time Line and Events

Once I have the time line divided into acts and have slotted in some events, I’m looking at the emotional arc of the main characters and of the subplots. How do the stages of the emotional arc fit into the structure I’m building?

Whew! Seems like a lot of prewriting. Yes, but my weakness is making sure the emotional arc is strong and I’m trying harder to solve problems in the planning phase. Also, the event can not stretch out any longer. This story must resolve in 98 hours. So, the nature of the beast requires more planning this time. Lots of planning. But I’m also starting to try out some voices, and when I get to that, it’s starting to be way more fun. That’s when the structure will allow me to turn loose and be very right-brained about the story, secure in the knowledge that the skeleton is right.

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Character Revision: 8 Ways to Jumpstart a Make Over

You have a first draft, but you realize that your character needs work. How do you retrofit a character when you revise?

I don’t think of a personality transplant. Instead, I try to add to and enrich a character. Here are 8 suggestions on how to revise your novel’s character.

1. Change the name. The apocryphal story is that Gone with the Wind‘s Scarlett O’Hara was named Pansy in the first draft. Sometimes a simple name change will resonate throughout a text.
2. Change the gender. Yes, a basketball player can become a female and a cheerleader can become a male. Sometimes this change will create a unique character with lots of nuances as they work against gender stereotypes.
3. Give the character a more interesting job/role/activity. In my Creative Writing for Children class, one common problem was that students concentrated on developing the character relationships to the exclusion of anything else. They did a good job of laying out the emotional conflicts of the story. But the characters were boring because they weren’t DOING anything. For example, one YA story had a young man who was being bullied by football players. When I suggested that the main character become the sole male on the cheerleader squad, the story took on a vibrant tone. The character had something to DO, while the relationships were happening. Another student had a family in the throes of divorce and step-parents became an issue. When she gave the main character a goal of winning a title showing horses, the story became concrete and believable. The horse story became the backdrop and the mirror for the family story.
4. Create internal conflicts. What does your character want or feel? What is the opposite of that? Can your character want both things at the same time? Depending on your mss’ length, find several specific spots where you can add this type of conflict. For example, one of my current characters is bathing at a lake and takes mud and smears on himself. Then he gazes at himself in the still waters. He’s ashamed of who he is and wants to become someone greater–which is in direct opposition to his usual pride in himself.
5. Create zig-zags in the emotional pacing. If I look at the first 100 lines of Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty,

   I find these emotional zig-zags: surprise, disgust, fear, argue with Mom, defiant, sarcastic, misery at heat, annoyed, thinks of father, mother sighs, rejected, ignored, longing, stranded, misunderstood, lonely, annoyed, bored, satisfaction, hope.

   That is, in the margins of the book, I noted what emotions the main character was feeling. Many authors make the mistake of letting the character feel one overriding emotions. For example, anxiety that their father is sick. Most people, though, feel a much wider range of emotions and your characters will be more fully developed, if you give them a wide range, too. When I did this exercise for one of my mss, I found that I had about the same number of emotions in 100 lines, but not the same depth of emotions. Bray?s book had bigger zigs and zags, more variation and deeper variation. Better emotional pacing.

6. Give your character larger-than-life qualities. What would your character never say or do? Of course, they MUST say or do this very thing. And do it with memorable lines. One of my characters knows his place in his world and it’s a humble place. So, when he says he’d be Emperor some day, it enlarges his characterization.
7. Slow down. Big emotions, big scenes, big thoughts–these all require space to develop. Give your characters several pages (and lots of emotional zig-zags) to properly express the development of these Big things. The climax scenes should take up more space than any other scene in your story. Give blow-by-blow accounts of what is happening. Let us feel the emotional tensions as fortunes swing wildly.
8. Raise personal stakes. What’s at risk in the story for your character? What would make the conflicts mean more? What could raise stakes to the highest plane? This is a place where you write down 20 things and throw them out. Write down 20 more things and you might finally be past the cliches and have something worth keeping. Dig deeper to understand what really motivates this character. Why do they care about the outcome of the story? How can you make the outcome matter even more? Put more at risk. Give the character an unanticipated loss. Extend the problem to a different front, from public to personal, or vice versa. Kill off a close ally. Give the character a close call, a mini-disaster, a preliminary loss. Take away a physical asset. Undermine the character?s faith. Or the faith of a supporting character. Set a clock ticking?time is running out. In short?push characters to the edge. Other suggestions?

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Use Character Traits to Make Your Character Sympathetic

Yesterday, we looked at 9 character traits that can be used to develop sympathy for your character. Today, we’ll look at using those traits in your story. It’s not enough just to tell yourself, or write on a checklist, that your character has these traits and is, therefore, instantly sympathetic. You must USE these traits. How?

Literary agent Donald Maass is a master of telling us how to use traits to create break out novels. He pushes you to go farther and deeper at ever turn.

Using the Character Traits

• Flaws. For character flaws – a necessary part of a sympathetic character, since perfect characters are not sympathetic – try making the character aware of his/her problem. When the character berates him/herself for being so grouchy in the morning, we have sympathy. When I announced to my 5:45 a.m. spinning class that I was a Grouch, that I had gotten up on the wrong side of bed, they all laughed and were extra kind to me that day. (The instructor still made me work hard, but at least I didn’t have to talk to anyone and pretend to be nice.)
• Hero or Heroine. Take any of the character traits we talked about before and push or shove it until it becomes heroic. Be careful not to become comic or melodramatic; but push the limits of what you can do with one trait.
• Multiply. Remember we said that victims get a certain amount of sympathy and pity. What if your character is a victim of multiple things? Pile it on and we’ll sympathize even more. Not only is your character in a wheelchair from a car wreck, but the bank is about to foreclose on her business; and she’s about to discover the cure for the common cold. That piles it on AND gives it a wider, public scope. Be careful here or we’ll get that contempt for this poor victim who can’t rise above her circumstances. But multiplying conflict is one way to increase sympathy for a character.
• Inner conflict. Give your character conflicting Dreeds and Plopes (dreams, needs, hopes, plans) and you increase sympathy. How can your character possibly choose between justice and the ineptness of the justice system?
• Paradox: While characters should be consistent, if you can add a believable paradox, you quicken our interest. The key is making it believable. What is it that your character would never say, do or think? Have them say, do or think it! But make sure you make the motivations and emotions clear.
• -Er or -Est a Trait. Push the trait to an extreme: Bigger, smallest, most vulgar, funnier, more clever, clumsiest. Make sure the reader notices your character!
• Raise the Stakes. Take their Dreeds and Plopes and make them matter more, put more at stake. The outcome of the hero/ine’s sacrifice will affect their family, their profession, the world. Why do you think evil men are always trying to “take over the world”? So they have the widest possible stakes. Take a cue from that cliche, though: make the increased stakes believable.
• Inner Change is Apparent. Finally, what character quality, trait, attitude, dream, need changes for your character. Yes, many things should change for a character. But your story should show a reader that people can change this one quality. What is it? Can you map a narrative arc for that one quality? From disbelief to faith; from a loner to accepting help; from defiant to accepting; from dependent to independent. Map it out. Raise some stakes and add some -er and -est.

Wow, I have some work to do on my VNovel! Because I want you to love G, even when he fails.

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Do you make these 5 plotting mistakes?

1. Are you too nice to your characters?

   Low tension. Give characters large, overwhelming obstacles to overcome. Of course, you love this dear fellow you created and like any good parent, you want only the best for him. But if you want readers to read and care about Fella, you’d better give him an interesting problem.



2. Do you start one story, but finish a different?

   Rambling story. If you story starts with a character wanting to make the basketball varsity team, then you must answer the question at some point: does s/he make the team? Yes, there is the idea that some plots spin off into a different direction at about the midpoint of the story. This is the idea that what a character wants isn’t what a character needs. When the character fails to make the team, then s/he turns instead to photography.

   In this case, the story question is really larger: can a character learn to accept his own interests, rather than be ruled by others’ opinions? (Or some variation of this.) Learn to phrase your story question is larger terms, so that you can provide a twist in the middle and still keep telling the same story.

   Example: “The Lion King” starts with the question of what Simba will do when his evil uncle takes over the pride. For part of the story, Simba hides and goes after the good feelings, the good life. But the story question is larger: how can Simba take his father’s place? At first, the answer is to avoid the question entirely by banishing himself to a happy place; but as Simba grows up, he realizes he must go back to the pride and defeat his uncle.

3. Do you connect the dots?

   Disconnected narrative. Can you point to a series of scenes in which the character’s emotional arc changes slowly? Can you point to a series of scenes in which the main action of the story progresses through conflict-failures toward the last major confrontation? Have you built in the possibility of success at the end? (Or failure, if you’re writing a tragedy?) Can you physically put your finger on these places?

   I’m emphasizing pointing and putting your fingers on these scenes, because too often these scenes are still in our heads! The dots aren’t connecting because you didn’t write the connection, you only made the connection in your head. Make sure these are on paper.

4. Is every action/reaction appropriate for the audience, genre, and story you’re writing?

   Appropriate events. Check again and again, if the story events are right. Maybe this is too simple or too complex for your target audience. Maybe you’re writing a love story and you’re throwing in too many scary scenes and spilling over into horror. Keep reminding yourself of your reader.

   OK. Some writers don’t like to do that. “I write for myself,” they say.
   I’ll give you that on the first draft, where you’re just finding out what story you want to tell. But on the revisions, you do need to consider your audience – if you expect to sell your story.

5. Is your story predictable?

   Boring! How can you use what an audience expects but turn it upside down? Before I start a new chapter, I often ask myself, what does the audience expect next. And I try not to give it to them. They expect a cat fight? Well, maybe I’ll give them a tiger/jaguar fight; our characters go to a circus and the big cats get loose from the cages. It’s still a cat fight, but not the house-cat fight they expected. I acknowledge, whenever I can what an audience expects, but then try to turn it around, twist it, serve it up in a different package, set it in a different place, etc. Change something! Do not be–

   Well, give your reader a slight thrill, a chill. Be different. They’ll stick with you better. And when you’re plotting a story is the time to plan for this.

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by Darcy Pattison

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Interior Thoughts Reveal Character

I spent time yesterday adding more interior thoughts to a character. My critiquers felt they needed to know the character better at this point in the story. I’ve done the requisite “Show, Don’t Tell,” but readers still felt they needed more to really know the character. What does she FEEL here? What is she thinking?

Some things I learned:

• Show, Don’t Tell. Be sure you’ve done this first and done it well.
• Action, Reaction. The right places to put interior thoughts are as a reaction to an action. Or clearly, the story’s pace must be so rapid that there’s no time for thought and the reader understands that the reactions are delayed, but they will come.


Why did he reach forward?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/keenahn/3265008271/

• Less is More. I didn’t need lots added anywhere, except once. I just needed to clarify. For example, if A slaps B on the face, B could have many different reactions: I deserved that; how dare you; my last girlfriend did that and therefore, I hate you; etc. The goal here is to clarify what the emotions are.
• The Why of Emotions. This is the hardest for me. Why does the character feel this way? asks a reader. Well, just because they do. Nope, that’s not enough.

  I don’t have to explain the WHY all the time, but there are crucial times when it must be there. The reader doesn’t want, “I feel this way because. . .” But there must be something to make feelings understandable.

  Flashbacks work here, but should be used sparingly. A hint of a reminder about something earlier might work.

How do YOU handle interior thoughts that reveal emotion and character? Any examples or tips?

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A scene goal must have a showdown

I’m revising my WIP novel and I’m at the end of the first section of the story. In this section, my character lays out a specific goal, and of course, the character should face the goal head-on. Right now, adults decide the goal, off stage.

As soon as I realized this, I knew the last scene in this section needs a revision. It’s a bit complicated, because there’s a minor scene with his best friend in which they make a bet; and I need that bet. But I think I’ve worked out how to do this, adding a twist of emotions and then throwing in the bet.

In the course of doing this, it will result in much stronger emotions, which the story also needs.

The same thing applies in the overall goal of a story: does the main character face obstacles head-on? Does the set-up match the pay-off? This must be true in both scenes, sections (whether you call them chapters or sections or whatever) and in the overall story.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

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I’m worried. :-/
Are my characters boring?

One-Note Characters

One common difficulty is to create characters with a wide range of emotions. Yes, your character may be chronically sad or mad; but if that note is hit over and over and over, it becomes boring. And unrealistic.

I’m afraid I’m on the verge of doing this for my main character. I’ve got to go back and track the small shifts of emotion within a scene, as well as the overall tone set for each scene. One technique is to simply write the dominant emotion in the margins of the mss and track what you’ve done.

The harder part is to build in those emotional changes in a book character. First, I’ll tackle the overall tone of the scene, lightening it up. This means small choices throughout, favoring more upbeat language throughout. It doesn’t mean I can’ use sad or mad as one of the emotions; it doesn’t mean that the character is overwhelmingly cheerful. It only means there needs to be a dominant tone of mad, but trying to get over it! And there needs to be lighter moments within the story.

For more on how to revise a novel see this series:
30 Days to a Stronger Novel

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

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While my WIP novel is out with readers, I thought I’d look at my process for this novel and how it differed from others.

Writing Process for Novels Vary Widely

YWriter was a good experience for me and I’ll probably use it again, because it allowed me to organize so much in one centrally located file. Will I use it next time? I don’t know. I may go back to spreadsheet plotting. But I know I was glad to expand my novel writing tool box with this great program.

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Connecting Emotional and Narrative Arcs

The emotional arc is the inner conflict; the narrative arc is the outer conflict. How do you get these two arcs to mesh?

Peter Dunne, in his book Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot has a simple suggestion. Dunne says to write the headline of a scene on an index card, and jot a few notes about the action being careful to only hit high points. Turn the card over and write a headline for the emotional content of this scene and jot a few notes about how the emotions change, being careful to only hit high points.  I’ve been doing my scenes on a spreadsheet, so I just added a column for emotion.

This is hard! At least for me.

If Jamie watches his Dad beat Red in a bowling tournament, how does Jamie feel about Red? Is he sympathetic, picturing himself in the situation of a painful loss? Or is he scornful of Red for choking at an important moment?

Turning the card over(or filling in an extra column) forces me to consider what my character would really feel in this situation. And it connects the inner and outer conflict in a simple, yet, powerful way.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

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