How to Craft a Flat or Static Character Arc
So you may have heard the protagonist doesn't change in a flat arc. But this isn’t the whole truth; they can and often do, but the change differs from a positive or negative arc. Also, flat character arcs should not be confused with a flat or one-dimensional character.
How to Craft a Falling Character 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.
Breaking Down the Disillusionment Arc
While often portrayed in a negative light, the disillusionment character arc can serve as a powerful tool for delivering a message of caution and encouragement. By exploring the struggles and challenges characters face, these stories can ultimately provide readers a sense of hope and inspiration.
Negative Character Arcs: What you need to know!
I do love a good negative character arc. That's probably why I enjoy writing my antagonist or a wicked side character almost as much as—sometimes even more than—my hero.
Negative character arcs allow us to explore the darker side of humanity, and they don’t get much attention in the writing world.
What you need to know about positive character arcs and their subtypes
What you need to know about positive character arcs and their subtypes.
Stories featuring a protagonist with a positive character arc are usually about hope, inspiration, and overcoming. So, it's no surprise they are popular.
We love seeing people overcome difficult situations and uncover the error of their ways so they can change for the better.
How To Construct A Character Arc Your Readers Will Love
If you looked at the previous posts on story structure you can probably tell much of that content talked about how what happened at those major turning points in the story challenged the protagonist to change internally.
This is because PLOT/STRUCTURE and CHARACTER are intimately linked. You can’t have one without the other. So the structure isn’t a bunch of arbitrary plot points. The sequence of events has a specific mission: to affect an inner change within the character, their world, or both.
We refer to this internal change as a character arc. Here’s what you need to know to craft a character arc your readers will love!
How To Write An Emotionally Satisfying Resolution For Your Novel
The end of the story has one seemingly simple job–to satisfy the reader. Let them say, ah, now that was worth it.
The key to a great resolution is to allow for emotional resonance between the story, the main character or characters, and the reader.
So how do we do that?
First, let’s remember where we’ve been to better understand where we’re going. And keep in mind that a story is about one thing: showing an irreversible change in the main character, the situation, or both.
The story’s resolution begins right after the last climactic event and continues to the final page.
How To Write A Gripping Climax For Your Novel.
The climax is a series of connected scenes that take us to the last dramatic change (big moment), where the protagonist and the antagonist (bad guy, bad situation, bad internal flaw) go head-to-head. Someone wins, someone loses, and because of this, our character’s inner journey is completed. After that, there’s no more story to tell.
This is a big deal. It’s rubber meet the road time, and the story will live on in the reader’s mind as an epic success or a floppy failure based on this moment.
No pressure, right? Ha!
How To Write An Effective All Is Lost Moment And Dark Night Of The Soul
The All is Lost is an action beat played out in a single scene or chapter that lands right at the 75% mark of the novel. This event shatters all hope of the protagonist reaching their main external objective. It closes out Act III in Four-Act Story Structure. In Three Act Structure, it’s also called the Third Plot Point.
As the name suggests, the All is Lost moment is your main character’s rock bottom emotional low point. They were so close to getting what they wanted, but now, because of this event, there’s no chance in hell they’ll recover, or so it seems.
An Overview of Act III 50-75%
I like to think of Act III in the Four-Act story structure (from the midpoint to the all is lost) as the time when shit gets real and stays real, and the hero fights with proactive energy and new information.
Things that occur:
Progressive complications and higher stakes. After all, there is no turning back for the main character.
The second pinch point, where the antagonist gives the main character a smack down and foreshadows the All is Lost Moment (the Third Plot Point in a three-act structure) and the story’s climax.
All is Lost: represents the Moment in the story where all hope is lost in the main character reaching the external story goal.
How To Craft A Solid Midpoint For Your Novel
The Midpoint is all about shifts.
It’s a significant moment, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be loud or aggressive. It can be subtle.
But something opens the character’s eyes to the bigger picture. This event will make the character stop and take stock of their situation and circumstances, and the personal stakes increase yet again because of this new understanding.
The Midpoint will change the trajectory of the character’s life in much the same way the inciting incident did, and the decision they make here will shape the rest of the story.
How To Avoid The Saggy Middle When Writing a Novel: The Pinch Point Discussion
How to avoid writing a saggy middle for your novel!
The middle make up the vast major it of a novel. It’s a lot of ground cover, and my work with writers and my flailing has shown me that this is part of the story where things can get repetitive, drawn out, and bogged down. To put it simply: boring.
How can a writer prevent this?
Cue the Pinch Point discussion.
An Overview of Act II in Four-Act Story Structure
What happens in Act II:
Our protagonist struggles to come to grips with new information, possibly new relationships, or relationships that have taken on a new meaning. They are swimming upstream, and the water is choppy. There may or may not be sharks. There are probably sharks. Even though things are tough and a lot of internal processing is going on, they are still actively pursuing their goal, which is not pretty. They fail—a lot.
They continue acting from their false beliefs, flaws, and fears and don’t have the emotional or physical skills to conquer the main story problem yet. They may not even be completely aware of the main story problem, but they are learning, which is the point.
The Choice to Enter The Second Act
In the last blog article, we talked about the inciting incident, which is the first significant disruption to the character’s life linked to the plot. The character can resist or engage, but they are not fully committed. They could walk away and often try. However, if we let them, they can teeter here on a threshold because the stakes aren’t personal enough yet.
We need to make our character go all in.
This brings us to our next big story moment- what I like to call The Choice. As with all things in storytelling, it goes by many names: the First Plot Point, the Point of No Return, Crossing the Threshold for Campbell fans, and Break into Two via Save The Cat. I like The Choice because that is what the character needs to do to move forward. They must decide to enter the new world of act two, where they are swimming upstream in uncertain waters. And something very compelling needs to happen to make them willing to swim with the sharks.
How to Craft an Inciting Incident for Your Novel or How to Kick Your Protagonist Into the Plot
As with all things in writing, the inciting incident goes by many names: the catalyst, the call to adventure, the plot thrust, and the hook. That last one is super confusing and not helpful!
What you call it isn’t important, but it is vital to understand what it does and that your story must have it.
The inciting incident is an event that hits your protagonist alongside the head and says, “Dude, so everything you thought was true... yeah, it’s not. Here’s what you are up against. Have fun now. Bye Bye.”
What Is a Narrative Hook and How to Write One
It was the book that killed her. Dun. Dun. Dunn.
The narrative hook is a tool writers use to tease readers, to make them curious, nervous, anxious, or all of the above, plus more! The goal is to entice the reader to keep reading!
Have you ever heard the expression the first sentence makes a promise to the reader? That is what a good hook does. It promises that reading the book will be a rewarding experience.
Why Use Story Structure?
Story structure can make new writers nervous because they worry about following a formula. How can you be original if you are essentially following a recipe?
No need to worry, writer.
Story structure is in no way formulaic.
As Shawn Coyne, author of The Story Grid, puts it, story structure is form, not a formula.
How To Write Meaningful Conflict In Your Novel.
Let’s talk about conflict! Are you the sweat on the dynamite, or are you the explosion?
"You need to add conflict."
We writers hear this a lot, but it doesn’t mean we always blow stuff up. Instead, we need to learn how to craft meaningful conflict!
A story is about how going from Point A to Point B changes the character.
Conflict is the force that makes the character change for better or worse.
Narrative Distance and the Link Between Show vs. Tell
How to use narrative distance and point of view choice to show vs. tell.
Why Your Fiction Novel May or May Not Need a Prologue
Many writers I work with wonder if their fiction novel needs a prologue. It’s a good question, and often my answer is no. They need to weave that information into the main story's narrative, but there are some exceptions.
But first, what is a prologue?