A Practical Guide to Character Creation and Development
by Jennie Jarvis
Published 2014 by Beating Windward Press LLC
For contact information, please visit:
http://www.BeatingWindward.com
Text Copyright © Jennie Jarvis, 2014
All Rights Reserved
Book & Cover Design: Copyright © KP Creative, 2014
Cover & Interior Illustrations by KP Creative
Author Photo by Tracy Reinhard
First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-940761-13-8
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
Part One: Understanding Character
Chapter 1: Why Another Book on Character?
Chapter 2: Understanding Character
Chapter 3: The Personality of Character
Part Two: The Major Dramatic Curve
Chapter 4: What is the Major Dramatic Curve?
Chapter 5: Resting Period
Chapter 6: Inciting Incident
Chapter 7: Rising Action
Chapter 8: Crisis Point
Chapter 9: Climax
Chapter 10: The Rest Is Silence
Part Three: Using the Character Arc
Chapter 11: Using the Major Dramatic Curve: A Practical Guide
Chapter 12: The Exceptions to the Rule
Chapter 13: Your Inciting Incident
Appendixes
Appendix A: Studying Character
Appendix B: What Was That Word Again?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
Many writers think that, just because they have their basic structure in place, their stories are destined to succeed. The problem with many narratives, however, can often come in those places between the plot points. Ensuring the story is moving forward in every scene often comes in the shape of a character arc. While many books on the craft of writing state that characters need to be three dimensional and change, a beginning writer isn’t always sure how to turn these rather conceptual ideas into something a bit more concrete.
Based on her acclaimed workshop, author Jennie Jarvis has penned Crafting The Arc. This essential guide for writers takes the conceptual idea of the character arc and creates a step-by-step, practical guide for beginning writers to use in order to ensure they create characters both dynamic and engaging. Using narrative examples from multiple platforms, including novels, films, plays and games, this is the essential guide for helping writers create an active and well-defined character arc.
Crafting The Character Arc is structured in three main parts. Part One will consist of a more traditional approach to creating character, including personalities, depth, secrets, goals versus emotional needs, active versus reactive protagonists, and dramatic functions. All of these more traditional ideas about discussing character will set the reader up for the new information and approach they will be introduced to in Part Two.
Part Two will introduce the reader to the Major Dramatic Curve, a detailed pictorial representation of a character arc. The rest of this section will dedicate one chapter to each element of the Major Dramatic Curve, using the narrative examples introduced in Part One to provide detailed demonstrations of how each element works in a larger narrative.
Part Three will focus on practical applications of the Major Dramatic Curve and some variations in its use. First, the writer will be given step-by-step guidance on using the Curve to help him/her in the creation of their narrative work. Then, as any writer can attest, there are always exceptions to any rule, and this section will address several of those exceptions. Part Three will end with a call to action for the reader.
The appendix of this textbook provides reference information for the narrative examples used throughout the text to demonstrate the concepts discussed. These narrative examples will come from multiple platforms (novels, films, games, plays and web series) in order to show the versatility of the concepts discussed. Finally, a glossary is included for a quick and user friendly review of all the terms defined throughout this textbook.
This textbook will be intended for the beginning or intermediate writer aspiring to work in any narrative driven forms of storytelling. With its step-by-step guide to creating a character arc, it could serve as a useful textbook in any high school, community college, University or community/adult education program that teaches narrative creative writing, including traditional Creative Writing, Game Design, Playwriting programs or Film Schools.
This textbook will also serve as a unique and refreshing approach to the veteran writer looking for a new take on an old concept. Since the primary approach of creating a character arc in this book is based on the well-known paradigm of Freytag’s triangle, it will also provide interest to any author who has studied this outdated concept and give them a new and modern approach to its use.
Part 1
Understanding Character
Whether a character in your novel is full of choler,
bile, phlegm, blood or plain old buffalo chips,
the fire of life is in there, too,
as long as that character lives.
—James Alexander Thom
Chapter 1
Why Another Book On Character?
If you are anything like me, you are most likely a bit annoyed at the large number of craft books on creating character. I have at least a dozen of them, sitting on my shelf gathering dust or burning up space in my eReaders. I read through each of them once and then never felt the need to go back to them again.
Whether you write novels, short stories, film screenplays, television or games, the character books all read the same way. They explore how you can build a personality by looking at the character’s past. They ask you develop character bibles or bios, indicating the name of the uncle who molested them when they were seven or diagnosing their PTSD or ADHD or some other mental health ailment. They remind you to make sure your character is “fully developed” and “well rounded” and other vague terms that we understand but aren’t completely sure how to execute in our own works.
Most of all, however, these books talk about how a character should “change” and “grow.” Who they are at the end needs to be someone different than who they were at the beginning. This seems to make sense. After all, if a character hasn’t changed, then why did we bother to go on a journey with them to begin with?
But… how do you get from point A to point B? How do you take the weakling child and turn her or him into the conquering hero? How do we take the character and pull them through their Arc?
This gap is where I get the most frustrated with my character craft books. I know where to begin, and I know where I want to end, but I don’t always know the road in between. And those books do very little to help me along the way.
My frustration mostly comes from the fact that I was spoiled rotten when it came to learning plot development. My formal training came from screenwriting. Most non-film school students don’t realize that writing for the movies is a very detailed and structured process. Screenwriters are given very defined guidelines for how their stories must be written. For years, the guidelines came from American screenwriting guru Syd Field. His book Screenplay (1979) pioneered the use of the “Three Act Structure” in American screenwriting. Basically just an updated version of the beginning-middle-end structure Aristotle discussed in The Poetics, Field’s “Three Act Structure” breaks down the proportions of a film’s plot into four sections.
The first thirty pages of a screenplay were considered “Act One.” Also known as “The Setup” or “Exposition”, this section introduces the main characters and conf
lict of the story. Here, we meet the protagonist and see him/her begin his/her quest for the goal. This is also where we learn what the genre of the film will be. At the end of this Act, a major Plot Point (called “Plot Point One”) occurs which heightens the stakes for the protagonist and really kicks off the main storyline.
The most famous Act One to Act Two change of all time can be seen in the classic film The Wizard of Oz. In Act One of the film, we meet Dorothy Gale, a bored teenager anxiously awaiting the start her life away from the farm on which she grew up. After a mean woman tries to put her precious dog Toto to sleep due to an off-screen incident of aggression, Dorothy and her dog run away from home. On the road, she meets a fortune teller who prophesizes her aunt is sick and might be dying. Dorothy turns around and runs home, but a powerful tornado hits the farm, transporting her and her dog to another world. Plot Point One is when Dorothy opens her front door and discovers she has arrived in a new world. This Act break is extremely famous because the film changes from black and white to vibrant color.
The next sixty pages of the script are called “Act Two,” but it is divided into two smaller sections by the “Midpoint.” The Midpoint is a major event that occurs exactly halfway through the story. This major event usually divides Act Two into two smaller quests that act as segments of the protagonist’s main quest. For example, in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s overall goal is to get home to Kansas. In part one of Act Two, her quest is to go and see the Wizard. She meets him at the midpoint, and he tells her he will take her home only if she brings him the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West. This launches her into her second quest – to get the Witch’s broom. She still wants to get home, but she has two different mini-quests that help her fight for her main goal. Since Act Two houses the majority of the main conflict of the story, Syd Field referred to this act as the “Conflict.”
Act Two also ends with a Plot Point: “Plot Point Two.” Plot Point Two is often referred to as the Point of No Return. Once the protagonist encounters this major plot point, she or he can never go back to the person she or he was at the beginning of the story. For Dorothy Gale, Plot Point Two is the moment she kills the Wicked Witch of the West. She is no longer the innocent girl she was at the beginning – running away and hiding. With the broomstick in her hand, she has grown from a child to a woman. She will never take her home for granted again, as she did in the opening of the film.
Syd Field called Act Three the “Resolution” of any screenplay, but this is often a very misleading term. While the third act contains the final scenes of the film, it’s more than just the resolution. With an entire thirty pages of screenplay (or thirty minutes of film time), there has to be more than just “the ending” to fill up those pages. Often, this is the time when the protagonist must gather his or her resources and wits to overcome the main antagonist or villain. It’s also where all subplots are resolved, and all themes are paid off. Good conquers evil. The girl gets the boy. And hey, is that a set-up for a sequel?
Looking at Act There of The Wizard of Oz, there is still quite a bit of plot left to finish the film. Dorothy and her friends return to the Emerald City, only to discover the Wizard is a fraud. While he can’t magically transport her home, he agrees to take her in his hot air balloon. He gives gifts to each of Dorothy’s friends, and then gets ready to take off. Toto runs off at the last moment, and Dorothy chases after him, the hot air balloon taking off without her. Finally, Glinda tells her she had the power all along to transport herself home. She clicks her heels together, and with a “there’s no place like home”, she returns to her aunt and uncle in the black and white world of Kansas, now a woman who appreciates what she has. The end.
This very strict 30-60-30 approach to screenplay writing evolved in 2005 when American screenwriter Blake Snyder released his own guide to screenplay structure entitled Save the Cat: The Last Book On Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need. In this book, Snyder provided an extremely detailed page specific breakdown of how a plot should develop over time.
Save The Cat “Beat Sheet”
Opening Image (1)
Theme Stated (5)
Set-up (1-10)
Catalyst (12)
Debate (12-25)
Break Into Two (25)
B –Story (30)
Fun and Games (30-55)
Midpoint (55)
Bad Guys Close In (55-75)
All Is Lost (75)
Dark Night of the Soul (75-85)
Break Into Three (85)
Finale (85-110)
This “write by numbers” method became so popular in Hollywood, it was commonplace for a producer to open a screenplay to a specific page specifically to see if the screenwriter “knew what he was doing.” While it was a great guidepost for beginning writers to learn structure, this constrictive formula is now criticized for making all major Hollywood films “feel” the same, regardless of genre.
I’ve never been a big fan of this overly constrictive plot structure in my writing, but I have to admit – when I was first learning how to write screenplays, I loved how the Three Act Structure gave me a very practical guide to follow when plotting out my story. Then, after I had been working in the film industry for a while, I marveled at how the Save the Cat Beat Sheet could help even the most aimless writer get back on track.
With such practical and definitive guidelines, I am frustrated by the very conceptual and intangible “let your character grow and change” I encountered in my craft books on creating character. It felt too conceptual and not practical enough to guide me through the development of my characters. I needed something more substantial to direct my writing.
In order to find a more hands on guide to creating character, I jumped into how narratives are studied in various formats. What I discovered was much more user-friendly and concrete than anything I experienced in the past, and I hope the information contained within this guide gives you the same clarity it gave me.
I’ve divided this book into three parts to help you create your own characters, whether you are writing novels, films, short stories, television shows, web series or even narrative-based video games. First, I explore the most basic ideas of character creation. We will define the term, exploring how a character can function within a text, and will look at some of those more conceptual approaches to character creation in case this happens to be your first character crafting book.
Next, I walk you through the practical guide I share with my students when it comes to character creation, namely The Major Dramatic Curve. As the Three Act Structure and the Save the Cat Beat Sheet provides screenwriters with step-by-step assistance in plot creation, the Major Dramatic Curve gives you step-by-step assistance in creating a fully developed Character Arc that will not only guide your characters through the narrative but will also allow for them to grow and change in a believable and identifiable process. Fortunately, however, where Save the Cat almost strangled the creativity out of some Hollywood films, the Major Dramatic Curve will act as a guide to enhance the character creation and development process instead of hindering it.
The final section of this text guides you, the writer, on your next step after reviewing this work. I give you instructions on how to practically apply the Major Dramatic Curve to your original creative works and address any variations to the Curve as it applies to non-traditional narrative structures.
Finally, the appendix is intended to be a practical and useful guide for you to use as you explore the pages of this textbook. I provide a short synopsis of a number of different narratives I use as examples. Even if you haven’t read or seen these narratives, my hope is that the brief synopsis will give you enough information to make these examples useful to you. You may want to flip through these titles before you read this book so you are aware what we will be covering. If there is a narrative you have not yet read, seen or played, and you would like to explore it on your own before reading any plot points in this text (including potential spoilers), then I invite you to do that.
I also provide you with a glossary you can use to look up any terms which might help you understand the materials discussed.
This text introduces some concepts and ideas you will initially feel a bit resistant to follow. After all, how can creativity be confined by such practical and specific guidelines? At the end of the day, your story is ultimately your story, and you will use whatever process works best for you. That being said, having taught the information and concepts in this text for over fifteen years, I have yet to encounter a single person who hasn’t, in some way, benefited from studying the concepts detailed in this book. Even those who feel this process isn’t for them have still taken away a new viewpoint that deepened their understanding of character as a whole.
Approach this text with an open mind and at least experiment with the suggestions in this book. Who knows? You may discover more about your characters than you ever thought possible.
Chapter 2
Understanding Character
Before we dive into the intricacies of building a character arc, it’s important we take a step back and make sure we are on the same page when it comes to defining the word character. “Character” is one of those words whose definition becomes much more complex than the initial concept itself. It’s like trying to define the word “creativity.” Everyone thinks they know what it means, but if you asked a person to define it, he or she would stutter a bit. We all have a sense of what it is, but when you try to put it into words, you feel a bit lost. So let’s walk through the process of defining character for our discussion in this book.
For writers, character is just a combination of traits, morals, personality and attitudes that make up the individuals who exist within our stories. These attributes are revealed by how the individual overcomes the barriers and surprises placed in his or her way. Character is a means to relate our plot to the reader or viewer, allowing them to experience the world of the story in a way that provides them with some kind of experience they wouldn’t normally encounter in real life.
Crafting the Character Arc Page 1
