Article length: 4900 words (preview 1000/wds)
I’ve written extensively on developing solid character arcs in fiction; a paramount narrative mechanic.
One issue that plagues writers of all experience levels and abilities, is when a character arc needs to span across multiple books or seasons, as is the case with a tv or anime series.
Specifically in comics, it’s pretty straight forward to push a standard character arc across a six-issue mini-series (give or take an issue), but when you blast past that, into a bigger maxi-series, or push into 24 issues and beyond on an ongoing series, that pesky arc issue rears its ugly head again.
As such, I decided to update my character arc roadmap previously posted to Story to Script, to remedy this specific problem.
You can use this updated format to get even greater depth and direction in a single volume arc, or use it to span any number of books/seasons.
But wait, there’s more!
It slices, it dices. It cuts through a tin can and still slices a tomato paper thin. How much would you pay for a knife like this? Don’t answer yet, because if you order now…
wait… wait… wait… that’s not right.
We’re talking character arcs… that’s right. But believe me there IS more!
When you put together your hero or villain, you probably just grab from the creative ether. What if a Character Arc Roadmap could actually help you build out a character, pushing the mechanics right to produce a really engaging hero, pushing them left to create a villain.
This Source Character Arc system does that. And, no joke, a lot more.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s start off with the problem at hand.
So what’s the fuss, Guss? Why is it so hard to have a character arc over a mess of issues, few books, or couple of seasons anyway?
Well, I’m not, Guss, but I’m glad you asked.
The character arc is a change in the character, from a flawed to corrected internal position, relative to the master theme.
This is a standard narrative arc (I’m not going to get into failed/tragic arcs that don’t correct or reverse arcs or anything like that right now).
So the problem is this, If your character goes from arrogant to humble, you can make that fit in just about any stand-alone container, a single graphic novel (or comperable sized mini-series), a 90 minute screenplay, or even a full-length 350 page novel.
But when you take that same narrative and try to stretch it significantly beyond that, it doesn’t have the depth to sustain itself. Stretched out across 6 novels for example. That means the character remains basically static in each book, basically each book delivering 1/6th an increment of the total change.
That ain’t much, Jack.
It’s barely noticeable and worst yet, the strongest aspect of a character arc is its ability to validate your Master Theme. If there’s no distinct change in the character, you can’t do this.
This breaks the core structure of each volume.
Now, the first thing someone might say, is well, just give your character 6 distinct flaws to overcome across the 6 books, each one transformative and reflective of each book’s individual Master Theme, and Bob’s your uncle…
While technically, this can work at some level…
6 distinct flaws is a character with a crazy amount of personal baggage. Like, literally, crazy amount. Like, Joker crazy. Or Tyler Durden crazy. It creates a literal pinwheel of flawed perspectives in one person.
And the reality is, if your character struggles with arrogance in the first book, then rage in the second, dishonesty in the third, pessimism in the fourth, selfishness in the fifth, and overcritical in the sixth, each book is going to feel like the reader is meeting the same character for the first time… and at some point they’re gonna say, “wait a second, why wasn’t this guy a total dishonest pessimistic rage filled asshat when I first met him? He feels… really inconsistent.
Inconsistent in fiction being… bad.
If only there was something to anchor all these flaws to, it would come across far less random and maybe even more coherent and reflective of the series Master Theme…
So this process lands naturally for you, I’m going to frame all this, under the context of disease.
Disease, symptom, clinical sign. A framework we’re all familiar with. And since it’s revolves around flaws and broken beliefs, a framework that happens to fit.
However, deep down, there is one small point where this isn’t actually a disease at all, but a healthy human response to unreasonable conditions. So don’t latch on to any stimga. When you’ve mastered everything in this article, come back to this small point and see if it doesn’t unlock an even deeper level of understanding character.
IDENTIFYING THE DISEASE
SOURCE
The character arc roadmap begins with five source elements; the deepest set, foundation level elements.
IMPRINTS – the Defining Experience(s)
In some writing circles this concept is referred to as “the wound.” But I says, a better term is Imprint, or really, just calling it out at face value as a “Defining Experience.”
So exactly what is a defining experience?
Simply put, it’s an early experience in the character’s life that damaged them, revealing their core flaw, misperception, and distorted belief of the world.
Often this experience is traumatic. This is easiest one to pull from. Betrayal. Humiliation. Cowardice. Abandonment. Guilt. Grief. Any of these are often and easily associated with a brutal or violent experience…
But here’s where it diverges and why I prefer Imprint or defining experience over wound.
The wound metaphor associates a negative. But plenty of times the defining experience can be a positive…
- A childhood of quiet comparison to a sibling.
- A culture or family that models around a distorted value, like “winning is everything,” or “money trumps happiness.”
- An overprotective family that shields the child from all negative experiences.
- A family that equates emotion with weakness.
I argue that positive defining experiences always boil down, somewhere at its core, to “Too much of a good thing.”
If you run a race at field day when you’re nine years old and take first place. You don’t run around the rest of your life, telling people you’re the best at everything and everyone else can suck it.
But if you keep losing race after race and your parents hit you with so much love and reinforce that trying is winning… then maybe, just maybe… you might run around with that over self confidence.
In contrast, if you run a race at nine years old, slip on a banana peel and knock your best friend under the wheels of a city bus… there’s a far greater chance that one negative moment is going to mess you up for life.
I don’t know why, that’s just how life works.
And while maybe somewhere, there’s an argument that only one massively positive moment can actually damage you, for the most part, it really is, “too much of a good thing.”
But the Defining Experience isn’t only about positive vs negative, there’s another option. Another reason why the wound metaphor doesn’t really hold up…
The experience that doesn’t come from a negative or positive at all, but simply from… an experience. Something for all intents and purposes that lands as neutral.
- Raised inside a strong ideology.
- Holding a specific class or social position.
- Raised in an institutional environment.
In these cases there’s no abuse, no nurture, there just is a type of existence, a unique or specific environment.
If you need to apply a character arc effectively across a large narrative, look no further. The Source Character Arc Roadmap I explain here traces a character's flaw all the way down to its invisible source, a tier most frameworks don't even know exists. You'll discover how a single defining experience cascades into a misperception invisible to the character, a distorted belief they'll defend to the death, and defensive symptoms that structurally determine how many volumes your series can sustain. I'll map out a well known movie character so you see the system working real time... Then the fun starts, when I flip the entire system upside down for something truly unexpected and profoundly useful.