How Scene Choices Determine Successful Character Arcs

While reading, we become active participants in a point-of-view character’s journey (seriously, our brains become the character). This means that when characters undergo a deep journey of change, we do too. Character arcs are the method through which authors move hearts, change minds, and influence the world.

What is a character arc?

A character arc is the trajectory of a character’s inner journey of change. They begin the story with a false view of how the world works (often called a lie, misbelief or inner obstacle), and the plot pushes them to unlearn that view. In a heroic story, the arc is ‘positive’. In a tragedy, the arc is ‘negative’.

At your story’s climax, your character’s proof of change (or failure to change), and the consequences of that decision, make your story’s overall ‘point’. But your characters can’t change overnight. They must continually struggle against their lie throughout the story—in every scene.

Character arcs are formed from scene decisions.

Action is the proof of change. For example, a character who’s struggled against a lie that ‘power is more important than friendship’ throughout a story, may believe they’ve learned otherwise near the end, but it’s not until they’re forced into a corner and have to make a really hard choice between power or friendship, that they prove it.

Your character must be given a choice between upholding their lie or challenging it in every scene. At the beginning, they will always choose their lie, but as the consequences of their decisions get worse, they’ll start to see the error of their ways and begin making different choices.

This post was published as a guest post on Well-Storied.com!

To keep reading the rest of the post, head over to Well-Storied.com. You don’t want to miss it! We break down scene choices in every act of An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir to show you how Laia of Serra’s choices in every scene tie to her overall character arc.