(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . WriteOn! What Lies Within [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-07-27 There’s a lot of different pieces that all need to work together to make a novel go. You need a main character (or characters) for the readers to follow, root for, etc. You need a motivation — something the MC is trying to achieve. You need obstacles that stand in the MC’s way. You need change. Sometimes that change is on the outside. The world is saved, the murderer is caught, the day is won. However, there’s also internal change, because we are as affected by what happens around us as we can affect the world. Character Arcs One way this is shown is to not just have an external story arc (events and challenges to overcome) but to have an internal character arc as well. The MC begins at one place, faces their deepest fears/biases, is forced to mature, adapt, and become something else. Or fail. One example is the hero’s journey. This is the Star Wars journey, the Frodo journey, the move from an ordinary life to something extraordinary, only to return again a changed person. Campbell broke it down in an internal structure as well. Another is the heroine’s journey, which is a similar concept but faces different concerns and challenges for a person to overcome. Does this mean they’re restricted to one gender? No, not at all! But they’re two different structures you can use to consider how a character faces challenges to their inner self, and how they change as they overcome those challenges. The Greeks relied on hubris — the fatal flaw. Either a hero overcame it, or it destroyed them. This is something that still shows up often in books and other storytelling methods. It’s the scorpion and the frog. It’s a villain creating the very heroes that will take her down. It’s also restrictive in its own way, because one challenge is that a Fatal Flaw character is often less than sympathetic early in the story. However, there’s another one that I find particularly interesting because it’s less prescriptive. It’s a concept used heavily in romance circles and called an inner wound. In a romance novel, this is the reason a character believes they will never find love. In other stories, it can be any number of other things. In this case, it’s not a flaw to overcome, but a rent in a character that the challenges they face and the people they learn to rely on help to heal. In this day and age, there’s a lot to be said for that, and it creates a character that’s sympathetic, layered, and who a reader wants to root for. Inner and Outer Arcs All of this should have a character whose growth inside is paired to and contrasting with the threats and challenges they face externally. The two arcs should complement, reflect, and enhance each other. Sometimes, an author will use a secondary character and their subplot to contrast against the main character and reflect the growth they need to achieve (or what will happen if they don’t). In this, a novel becomes a woven tapestry of different golden threads and throughlines, all building to create something far more complex and beautiful than any could be on their own. And it isn’t possible without having an internal arc as well as an external. Different genres will place different emphases on the internal and external arcs. Litfic, upmarket, and romance are strongly driven by interanl arcs, for instance, while mystery/suspense and horror are by external arcs. Speculative and historical fiction are more setting-defined, and so you’ll see the weight going either way depending on the subgenre and specific story itself. Food for thought What internal arcs are you trying to achieve in your writing? If not deliberate, what themes and character arcs have grown along your story’s path? Tonight’s challenge! Choose either a Fatal Flaw or an Inner Wound, and write your character facing this and growing (or failing) because of it. Choose either your own characters or one of our stock characters! If possible, keep this under 300 words. READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/27/2183711/-WriteOn-What-Lies-Within Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/