How to Craft a Falling Character Arc
Negative character arcs are a type of character development in which a character's story ends in failure, defeat, or a morally compromised state, so there's no happily ever after here. You will not have a warm fuzzy feeling after reading or viewing one of these. These are your tragedies and cautionary tales, so naturally, their tone is more pessimistic.
There are three general types of negative arcs: Disillusionment, Falling, and Corruption.
In this blog post, we’ll look at the saddest of all character arcs: the falling arc.
The falling character arc is the truest of tragedies.
These characters pursue their external want, backed by their false belief (what they believe about the world or themselves that does not serve them), to insanity or death with rare exception. Think of the tragic alcoholic who continues to drink—often to their death—despite the copious evidence that booze has wreaked havoc on their lives and the lives of those they love. Ugh. Heavy stuff, yes? That’s the vibe of the falling arc.
It’s dark and painful to watch but powerful because it’s true. It happens. The lies we tell ourselves—as individuals, as a culture, and as a society—can be that destructive. I believe we need these stories to help us face our inner demons.
We’ve all got em.
The falling arc begins with a character deeply entrenched in their false belief.
The job of the setup is to show this belief in action, indicate its origin, and show us the character's physical and emotional starting point. When we look back, we’ll see how far they’ve fallen.
Remember, the reader needs to be invested and have empathy for this character, especially if they are going to watch them do terrible things. The Inciting incident causes a disruption in the status quo for this character and kicks off the central conflict of the plot. Often it’s seen as an opportunity to pursue an external want that they think will make them happy. All in service to their false belief.
As they pursue their external want, they’ll meet resistance but are deeply compelled by the promise of the lie inside their false belief. They’ll make a choice to go deeper into the darkness and dive into a new world or way of being in pursuit of their goal. This is the first plot point or the bridge into Act II. This choice often shows the character devaluing something truly good in their life, and it’s gonna bite them in the ass later.
The Midpoint is when the fall truly begins.
At the midpoint, there’s a realization accompanied by another choice, and once they make it, there’s no going back. They see the truth here. They know if they continue to move forward in pursuit of their external goal, they’ll pay for it—and so will others—but they consciously ignore this. They reach for the bottle on Christmas morning, even though their kids will be awake in less than an hour.
They justify, rationalize, and barrel toward their demise. You need to show them differently here than in the setup. If, in the setup, they were a binge drinker, now they are a daily drinker, needing a redeye first thing in the morning. If they struggled with self-loathing at the beginning, now they think of suicide or homicide. If they were a bit of a firebug, now they actually commit arson.
The point is to show the situation going from bad to way, way worse.
The Low Moment or All is Lost (what I consider the break into Act IV because I use a four-act structure, but for those that follow a three-act, this is Act III, and you can read about story structure and grab a PDF breakdown here)
This is the black moment of the soul for the character. They see what they’ve sacrificed, that they may have nothing left to lose, and they don’t care anymore. They’re desperate to get what they want. Their moral compass has long since left them. They will wallow at their perceived injustice of it all, but the false belief is so powerful that they won’t stay down for long. They’ll rise to fight for what they want, even if it means their complete destruction…
And it will.
The climax is where the character makes a last-ditch, desperate grab for their external desire. They fail, or they get it but it’s a hollow victory because the truth will pinch them. Many times, the thing that was truly good in their life—the thing they never appreciated—is sacrificed completely at the climax. That’s how you know how far they have fallen.
They kill their mentor, their lover, or their mother. They maim. They obliterate their soul, and sometimes they see it was all for nothing; sometimes they don’t (that’s insanity.)
The resolution wraps up pretty fast in these stories, with a parting shot to a future that holds no hope: The asylum. The homeless drunk who dies from exposure to the winter elements. The funeral that no one shows up for.
You get it.
A life wasted in pursuit of something that they didn’t really need if they would have woken up. Ick. I feel heavy just writing this.
Examples of a falling arc in literature and film:
Shakespeare's Hamlet
Jack Torrance in The Shining by Stephen King
Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix
Heathcliff in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.
Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson
Takeaways for the falling arc:
In a falling arc, the character will begin firmly invested in lies that their false beliefs afford them, will consciously ignore the truth, and manifest into the worst possible version of themselves.
There is no redemption. Only death, insanity, and isolation.
The character will often disregard or devalue something truly good in their lives, and ultimately, that thing will be sacrificed in the climax to show how low the character has fallen.
If the character ultimately gets what they wanted in the end, the victory will be hollow. Or they’ll realize that it was all for nothing.
Make sure to pop back in next week to learn more about the corruption arc!
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