Welcome to the first in a series of videos/blog posts I hope to make, answering questions submitted to me from young writers, aspiring writers, and/or my former writing students!
Each time I answer one of these questions, I plan to post both a YouTube video and a blog post, so you can get the answers in whichever format you prefer (or both!)
Both will have the exact same content (though adapted for video or for the blog), and I'll embed the video here in the blog so you can also watch/listen while you read along, if you wish!
Alright, let's get started...
How This "Questions from Growing Writers" Post Series Came About
Hi everybody!
So, after a long break from writing-related blog posts and videos, I'm back!
As I said above, I'm going to be tackling some questions that were submitted to me by young writers, beginning writers, and/or some of my former writing students.
The individuals have agreed to let me use their questions anonymously and answer them in video and blog format, so that others can also benefit from the answers... and I hope you will!
Today's question:
How do you write character arcs in a series?
The exact question I received on this was as follows:
How do you write character arcs in a series? I would like my protagonist to continue to grow over the course of multiple books—how does that affect the normal pacing of character arcs?
This is a great question!
When I first started writing in series, I had to put a lot of thought into this question, as well.
There are different types of character arcs, but no matter which type of arc you're choosing, your character will need to progress along that arc through the course of the series.
Today, I'm going to talk specifically about a growth arc, because that's the most common. In a growth arc, the character grows as a result of the series, and as a direct result of their experiences throughout the story. By the end of the series, your character will be a different person on some level than they were at the beginning. That's a growth arc, and we're usually dealing with positive change when we're talking about this: the character grows in a positive way as a result of what they've been through in the story.
There are three main things to consider as you're planning out a growth arc across a series with multiple books.
Consideration #1: Number of books matters.
First of all, it helps to decide upfront how many books you're aiming for in your series.
The pacing of a character's growth over a seven-book arc is going to look different than the pacing of the character's growth if you're dealing with a trilogy.
Consideration #2: Characters should grow at both the series level and the book level.
Even when your character is growing throughout a series, you still need to have character growth and a character arc at a book-by-book level.
When you're planning the overall character arc for the series, that should be a big-scale thing. That should be a massive struggle the character has, or for example, a massive lie they believe that they need to uncover and work through that is going to take an entire series to address. But on the smaller scale, each book also needs to have some kind of movement toward that larger goal.
Sometimes this can look like a sub-issue that's indicative of the larger issue. Sometimes it can be that the events of this particular situation for this particular book are challenging the character in a very specific way they need to grow in, as a piece of the larger issue.
I know I'm talking in really general terms here, and we'll look at a couple of examples in just a minute. But before we move to some specifics...
Consideration #3: Character arcs work best and feel most natural when they are intricately connected with the external arc of the story.
In other words, the character arc and the external arc (the plot) shouldn't be arbitrary and disconnected. The plot of the story should directly challenge your character's flaw, weakness, or misbelief. It should directly challenge the area in which your character is needing to grow, and create (or exacerbate) the need for that growth.
The events of the story should be constructed to directly challenge your character's flaw or issue... or the events should be an outgrowth directly from that issue with the character. This can really go in either direction, depending on whether the character created the problems they're facing due to their existing character issue... or whether they had some weakness or flaw or fear that now the external situation in their life is pushing them to confront in a way they haven't needed to previously.
Let's look at some concrete, practical applications for what I'm talking about here...
We'll do two examples: One that analyzes and existing, well-known series' character arc, and one that plots out a sample (theoretical) character arc for a brand-new story based on the principles we've learned.
Example #1: An analysis of the Harry Potter series
I'm going to start with a very well-known example that I'm quite familiar with, and that is Harry Potter.
This is a seven-book series, and there could be some debate over what the character's deepest issues or lies or misbeliefs are in this particular series, but I'm just going to address one thing you can definitely see Harry Potter (the character) grow in from the beginning of the series to the end: his understanding of his place in the world, and a sense of purpose.
(Yes, that's technically two, but they're closely related.)
If you look at his character at the beginning of Book 1, he feels like he doesn't belong anywhere. He is being raised by people who don't really want him; he's been told a false story about who his parents were and how they died; he's been told a false narrative about himself and the peculiarities and the history of his family.
When we first encounter him, his magical powers are just beginning to emerge, but he has no idea that the wizarding world even exists, and no idea what a pivotal part of it his family is, and what a pivotal part he, in particular, plays in that world.
If you follow this self understanding or sense of purpose through the course of the series, you'll see that in each book, there's sort of a repeating theme or a mantra of found family, of a sense of belonging.
At the very end of the first book, he says something when everyone is boarding the train and they're getting ready to go home. And even if you watch the movies, you can see this in the movie...
At the very end of that first movie, everyone's getting on the train, and they're talking about going home for the summer.
In the movie, he says something like, "I'm not going home, not really," because he's come to view Hogwarts as his true home.
(In the book, that exact exchange doesn't happen, but you see the same sentiment: They disembark the train back at the regular station, and he has a very mother-son type of interaction with Mrs. Weasley. On the heels of that, Uncle Vernon arrives to retrieve Harry, and Mrs. Weasley says, "You must be Harry's family," to which Vernon replies, "In a manner of speaking.")
In this scene right at the end of Book 1, Harry is returning to a house with family who doesn't want him, who refuses to acknowledge who he really is, who refuses to acknowledge who his parents were, who want nothing to do with this important part of his life.
In Harry's mind, that isn't his true home, Hogwarts is.
So, already by the end of Book 1, we've progressed from Harry feeling like he belongs nowhere... to finding a place where he feels like he belongs.
If you follow that same theme through the seven-book series, you see him growing and deepening in that belief with each book.
But...
Right around the midpoint of the series (it's a seven-book series, so the midpoint would be right around Book 4), we see that his belief in this belonging is thrust into a deep gauntlet of challenges, starting when he's put into the Goblet of Fire without wanting to be.
(For those of you who haven't read the series, I don't want to give too many spoilers, but in order to give examples, I have to give some details.)
Right there at Book 4, there's kind of a crisis of identity, because:
He's thrust into this competition he didn't ask to be put in.
He has placed his trust in this mentor who proves to be untrustworthy.
And at the end of that book, there's this whole debate over whether he whether what happened in that competition actually happened.
When we see him in the next book (Book 5), he's in a place of isolation again where he hasn't heard from his so-called friends from Hogwarts all summer. And he reverts back to this place of insecurity about his belonging.
He thought Hogwarts was his home. He thought these people were his new his true family. And now none of them are getting back to him. None of them are contacting him... and he has a whole crisis about this.
There are reasons for that that he learns later in the book, but it's interesting that this theme of his character growth (about a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose) emerges right there at the middle-mark of the series arc.
From there, the rest of Book 5 functions as the pivotal point where he's crossed the midpoint threshold of the series arc, and now the sense of purpose he thought he had, this identity he thought he had found as "the chosen one" for this fantasy world, is being thrown into challenge. There's a whole camp of people who claim he's a liar and accuse him of all sorts of things and refuse to acknowledge what's really happening. He's suddenly an outcast in the very world he had come to view himself as the hero in. And so it challenges his identity in a new way.
Now, it's been challenged prior to this. Right? There were always people who didn't like him. There were always opponents. There were always people who had issues with him or who were a challenge to him.
But at this point in Book 5 (just after the midpoint), the very existence of his identity is called back into question.
Over the course of those final three books (Books 5, 6, and 7), you can see Harry's progression into a deeper acknowledgment of his sense of purpose, of his sense of belonging. He grows to understand his role in this prophecy and his place in this wizarding world in a new and different way to where, by Book 7, he's willing to stand alone to face the evil. His community of support rises up around him, but in the end he goes to face the enemy alone. (But this time by choice and an acceptance of his purpose, rather than a lack of belonging.)
So this is a really interesting look at how this growth arc progressed from the beginning of the series to the end.
In every book, that growth is challenged on some level. In every book, he deepens his relationships, he deepens his sense of belonging, he deepens his understanding of his own role as he learns more and more and more about what he's facing, and what his role in all of this actually is.
If you step back and you look at the arc over the course of the entire series, you can really see how that step by step growth plays out year by year.
This series in particular is interesting because he's also aging year by year in each book. Book by book, his maturity level is growing, his understanding of himself is growing, his understanding of his purpose and his role is growing, and even his understanding of how to use his magic is growing.
You can track all of those throughout the books from the beginning of the series to the end, and if you compare who Harry Potter is at the end of Book 7 to who he was at the beginning of Book 1, there's a vast difference.
Now, on the book level...
Even from the beginning of the book to the end of each book, Harry undergoes a little mini-growth arc on that same theme.
Like I mentioned, in Book 1, he starts off the book with no clue about his magical abilities, no clue that he's a hero of this other whole world (a world he's not even aware of).
By the end of the book, he's stepped into that identity... on a very basic level. He still doesn't have the full understanding of what it means. He still doesn't have the maturity (partly because he's 11 and partly because he just hasn't had that much time to learn what it really means to be "the boy who lived"). You can see the growth from the beginning of Book 1 to the end of Book 1, but it's a fraction of what you see in his growth over the entire series.
If you look at the beginning of each book in the series to the end of that same book, you'll see this incremental character growth, book by book, as Harry deepens his understanding of his magic, his ability to use it, his understanding of the world, and his understanding of himself in every book, and as he strengthens his sense of belonging and community with the people that he's found--his newfound family.
This isn't exclusive to Harry Potter.
You could take the same principle and apply it to pretty much any series that shows a positive character-growth arc.
Once you identify a core theme of what the character struggles with, you can track it through the series. In all of the series that feel like they're well paced, you should be able to track this growth throughout.
But you can also reverse-engineer it.
Example #2: Building a layered series/book character arc from scratch
Once you know that you're wanting to write a a three-book series, a seven-book series, or whatever... you can launch right into planning your character arc by identifying your starting point and your ending point.
What is it that your character struggles with? What is their big flaw you're wanting them to grow in through the course of the series? It could be a lie they believe. It could be fear. Whatever it is... that's where you start.
And then... Where do you want them to be at the end of the series?
Once you know that, then you can work backward from there and plot a rough midpoint of that arc, where they will encounter some sort of pivotal change in understanding right in the middle of the series.
In a three-book series that's should be happening roughly halfway through Book 2. In a seven-book series, that's would be happening somewhere around Book 4.
Once you've broken down roughly where the character is starting, where you want them to go, and what that middle point would look like, then from there you can deal with that character arc on a book-by-book level.
Let's use a very simple example... Let's say you're writing a trilogy (three books), and over the course of that series, you need your character to grow out of a massive fear of spiders.
If you want your character to grow through this massive fear from Book 1 to Book 3, then around the middle of Book 2, you'll need a pivotal moment where the character is forced to see spiders in a new way---where their view of spiders starts to change. Maybe their fear isn't completely gone yet, but it starts to change how the character views spiders, and from there, you can build toward your end result of the character not being afraid of spiders at all. Simple, right?
Now, if you take that down into the book-by-book level, you have all of Book 1 and part of Book 2 that you're building toward that midpoint change.
So now you can figure out what do you need to have your character face in Book 1 that is going to push them along that path enough that they're on pace to hit that major change by the time they get to that midpoint of the series.
Once you've decided on a large scale what you're going to have the character face in the first book, in the second book, and in the third book... then you can break down that same arc within each book and make sure that whatever distance of that character arc they need to cover within that particular book, you've given that book its own midpoint, as well.
Let's walk through an example using this fear-of-spiders concept, to see what this would look like on a book-by-book level.
So, we have a trilogy, and we know that we want the midpoint of our character arc over the whole series to include the character coming to see spiders in a new and different way.
That's very generic, and there's lots of ways that we could achieve that, but for the sake of this example, let's say we've decided that at the midpoint of the series, a spider is going to save the character's life.
Just off the top of my head, some possibilities for how to pull this off:
The spider scares off something more threatening to the character, OR
The spider draws attention to something that the character didn't realize was there, like some sort of other venomous creature, OR
There's a rare medicine in your world that is created from spider venom and it saves the character's life or saves the life of someone he loves.
Any of those could work, but for this example, let's just say that at that midpoint of the series (roughly the middle of Book 2), the spider is going to save the character's life or the life of someone very important to him.
Building up to that, we have all of Book 1 and part of Book 2 in which we need to:
establish the character's fear of spiders, AND
establish why this fear of spiders is a problem, AND
build the character to the point that the midpoint realization is going to feel realistic for the character.
It's essential that the character be in some sort of situation or world where he needs to deal with spiders regularly or that spiders are going to be a pivotal part of his life... because if it's not a challenge, then his fear of spiders doesn't really matter to the story.
We also don't want it to feel like we flipped too abrupt of a switch from "deathly afraid of spiders" to "maybe spiders are alright." Remember that, at the midpoint, he's not all the way to not being afraid of spiders yet, but it still needs to be realistic for him to at least rethink how he view spiders.
So then, in Book 1, you would need to put in the events that will highlight the character's fear of spiders.
You'll need events or interactions that highlight why the character needs not to be afraid of spiders in this particular world or situation.
And you'll need to place the character into some situations that challenge his fear and make him step into that fear a little bit, even if he hasn't yet gotten over it.
One possible scenario (from personal example!):
One way of accomplishing all three of these would be if the character took some kind of a job he really wanted or needed, but that involved him dealing with spiders.
For example... I used to volunteer at a zoo where I assisted in a birds-of-prey show. The building where all the birds stayed overnight was a cement building, and because of birds' sensitivities to pesticides and chemicals, the zoo could not treat the building for bugs.
This was my dream volunteer gig. I got to handle hawks, owls, eagles, and all sorts of cool things. I got to learn about animal training.
But if I was deathly afraid of spiders... it would also have been a horrific challenge, because due to the fact that they couldn't use pesticides around the birds, every time we would open cabinets in that building, wolf spiders would jump out at us. This was a zoo, it was an outdoor environment, and there were spiders in every cabinet in this building.
That's just one example of how you could manufacture a situation where the character is forced into a conflict between something he really wants and this fear.
Following that same example, if you built on that situation in the entire first book, where the exposure to the spiders is there even though the fear still persists, then by the time you get to the end of Book 1, you can kind of have edged that character toward growth a little bit. Maybe he doesn't panic anymore, but he still really dislikes spiders. By the time you get to that midpoint of Book 2, the character would naturally feel more open to considering a different perspective on spiders than he had at the start of the story, so that whenever a spider saves the character's life (or the life of a loved one), the character is willing to accept that maybe spiders aren't all bad.
See how that works?
An important point to discuss about pacing with the character arc:
(because that is a big part of the question that was sent to me....)
If you have a big event at the midpoint of the series arc (like what I just described about a spider saving the character's life or someone he cares about)... that's a pretty climactic experience to have regarding his fear, but we're not even yet to the end of the series.
If you're going to do something very dramatic at the midpoint, you need to have something even more dramatic planned for the finale.
The pacing needs to make sense. For example, if the midpoint really was that spider venom creates a medicine that saves someone else's life, and the character finds out about it... or it saves his life and he finds out about it (maybe he wakes up in the hospital, and he's told spider venom was what saved his life)...
From there, the next book would likely include him kind of wrestling with that knowledge while he still persists in his dislike of spiders.
So he would return to this job at the zoo, he would see the spiders, he would grumble and complain about them, but maybe he's not going to try to smash them now because, well, one did save his life.
But again, you have to be building towards something that will feel more climactic than what you faced at the midpoint... so you're building toward an even bigger conflict with spiders. You'll need to put the character in a whole room of them or something, in order to balance the midpoint with the extreme challenge and growth that needs to happen at the end of the story.
If your planned midpoint realization is the biggest incident you can think of, then the entire thing needs to shift to where that becomes your character's final growth point in the climax of the last book... and the entire character arc needs to build more gradually leading up to that finale.
Whichever way you go (whether you're you're having a big thing right in the middle, and an even bigger thing at the end... or a more gradual growth for your character issue), the pacing needs to feel natural.
You'll need to plan what happens in each book to gently nudge your character along that path, until they reach the destination that you've decided for them in the conclusion of the final book.
***
If you've been wondering about the pacing of a character arc over a series, I hope that this post was helpful to you, and that it helps you wrap your mind around how to break down those arcs, not only on the series level, but on a book-by-book level.
Questions?
If you have specific questions or anything you want me to explain further, feel free to drop those in the comments, and I'd be happy to answer them!
If you enjoyed this post, please be sure to click the Like button!
If you check out the YouTube video as well, I'd be so grateful if you also Like the video, Subscribe to my channel, and click that little notification bell so you'll get notified whenever I post a new one. <3
Comments