Flat or Static Character Arcs
There are three main types of character arcs: positive, negative and flat/static. This is the third of three blogs that will analyze these types of character arcs. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)
Negative Character Arc
There are three main types of character arcs: positive, negative and flat/static. This is the second of three blogs that will analyze these types of character arcs. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)
Positive Character Arcs
There are three main types of character arcs: positive, negative and flat/static. This is the first of three blogs that will analyze the three types. First up: Positive arcs. Caution: Spoilers ahead.
Character Arc: Steps for Developing the Arc (Part 3 of 3)
This is the final blog in a short series about developing a character arc. The first blog defined the character arc and its importance. The second discussed how to begin developing that arc. This final blog offers concrete steps to take to create a fully developed character:
Writing a character is like giving birth to a fully grown person. You are in charge of making them from how they look, walk, speak, act and everything else that comprises a person. Here are some tips to bring them to life:
Character Arc: Developing the Arc (Part 2 of 3)
Characters need to be a fully realized, complex people with virtues and flaws. They need convictions and fears, hopes and worries, and skills to help and hurt their progress. Most importantly, they need to change. This is the crux of character development. But how do you do that?
Character Arcs (Part 1 of 3)
When we read a story, we want to get pulled into the lives of the characters on the page, to connect and engage. We want to struggle with them. Fall in love. Experience everything they do. We want to see them change. That’s how their journey becomes ours.
It doesn’t matter how amazing a setting or world is if there is no character for us to identify with or rail against. It’s the characters who pull us into and through the story. Characters who prevail and share their triumphs and failures with us. Ideally, these characters change somewhere between the beginning and the end.
The course of a character’s story is called a character arc.
7 Questions to Ask Your Character: The Stanislavski System
Studying acting is a great way to learn how to create characters as a writer. In my last blog, I wrote about what I’ve learned from acting. In this blog, I am going to delve into the Stanislavski System of acting.
Constantin Stanislavski is recognized as the father of modern theater. He created a system of acting that dug deeper into the emotions of the actor and the work. He created a series of seven questions to help actors approach a character. I have listed those questions below with tips for how writers might use these questions to create better characters.
18 Lessons for Writers from Acting: Bringing Characters to Life
In many ways, I learned more about writing from my music and drama classes than I did from my writing classes. I learned about rhythm, cadence and flow from music. How to build tension and action to a crescendo in the work and then how to release it for a satisfying ending. Those are the building blocks of music theory. I learned how to explore character, motivation and emotion in my acting classes. All of those are valuable lessons for a writer.
My writing classes taught me the craft, but music and acting taught me how to add depth and bring those mechanics to life.
Characterization (Part 2 of 2)
This is part two in Developing Characters. You can read the first part here. It talks about creating characters that are complete, like people. This part is focused on the big answers you need when creating a good character.
Characterization: The Basics (Part 1 of 2)
Building a character is harder than making a friend (which is not a small statement for an introvert to make). This is, of course, if you don’t make a habit of analyzing everything about your friends and their every action, which would be both presumptuous and rude, at the very least.
Dissecting Your Way to Success: How to Break Down a Novel (Part 2 of 2)
This is the second part of a blog on approaching a book like a writer. The first part can be found here.
The best way to learn how to write a novel is to pull some apart and analyze how they were put together. Here is the second part of things to look at during your dissection:
Dissecting Your Way to Success: How to Break Down a Novel (Part 1 of 2)
What I am advocating is to approach the book like a writer. Investigate what made the book work and fail. Pull it apart into its component parts — plot, character, scene, POV — and see how it was put together. There is no better master class in writing than looking deeply at the books you love and love to hate. But you have to be critical in your analysis.