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#ROW80 and a lesson about character arc

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Last week was really crazy. My daughter broke her arm on Wednesday. And it was one of those things where it was a very small break and we didn’t find it out was broken until we saw a specialist on Friday. So from Wednesday to Friday she was in a lot pain basically every time the wind blew. And besides the general suck of your kid being hurt, it’s also that that thing where you can’t actually DO anything, which is frustrating, and just have to grit your teeth and keep being soothing and nice over the repeated requests for you to do something. For those of you who don’t have kids, trust me, this is harder than it sounds. But anyway, since getting the cast on it on Friday, she’s been much better. Three weeks in that. It’s bright pink. She was so excited that she wanted to go back to school after the doctor’s appointment to get all her friends to sign it.

So that long introduction was basically to explain why I’m pulling up a re-run post for you today. But unless you’ve been combing my blog for my brilliance, it’s probably not one you’ve seen before as I wrote this right before I started writing Hush Money, back when no one really read my blog. I was talking over this stuff with Andrew a few weeks ago, looked this up, and remembered that I liked this post.

Another Post on Character Arc

…rethinking the terms: goal, motivation, and conflict.

This post comes about as a result of plea in my inbox this morning from my crit partner, Kait Nolan. Kait’s writing strengths are legion, but character arc can be Kryptonite. Fortunately, playing with the brain dolls is one of my favoite things.

We’re both fans of the book, Goal, Movtivation, & Conflict, by Debra Dixon. It’s really a fabulous teaching book, and in the email waiting in my inbox this morning, Kait told me that she broke it out, refreshed her memory, and got to work on her charts. Briefly, External GMC is sort of the action part of your story. Your character must have a goal. She must be motivated to achieve that goal. There must be a conflict that gets in the way of the goal. (It sounds simple. It is. But the book takes it farther than that and is wholly worth buying. Also note that the book discusses the use of a charts with GMC down the side and External/Internal across the top. So when I start talking about boxes later, that’s what I mean.) GMC makes up the heart of your story concept.

I’ll take a stab at Edward in Pretty Woman.

Goal: To use hired female companionship to get through the week while making the big deal.

Motivation: To avoid complication and relationship drama.

Conflict: The diamond in the rough charm of the companion takes his mind off his work and draws him into an impossible relationship.

That might be enough for a zany comedy if you can get by on the likes of flying escargot. But what elevates any story are the changes made and lessons learned by the characters. Edward and Vivian can’t be together at the beginning of the story. They must go through the events of the story and be changed by them. That what Character Arc or Internal GMC is.

Now reading through Kait’s email, I started to get the feeling that the words “goal”, “motivation”, and “conflict” were giving her problems because she was trying to apply them to her story in the same way for the Internal as the External.

In the above example, having seen the movie about a million times, we know that what Edward had to come to understand was that he wanted and needed more out of his life than success in business. Ultimately, he finally wanted to make something, build something–a life. Before that, he wasn’t capable of having a long-term relationship with anyone. So we know that Edward’s lesson to learn was that there is more to life than monetary and social success and that he wants more.

Do you see where “goal” becomes a confusing term here? It’s not Edward’s goal to learn this. He doesn’t say, “I want to go out and find what’s missing in my life.”  Some characters might, but for a lot of characters that thing they learn over the course of the story that changes everything–it’s kind serendipitous.  But it’s not for the writer. The writer puts that lack in the character in the first scenes and works, over the course of the story, to teach the lesson. It’s not Edward’s goal, but the writer’s goal. I like to think of it as the Lesson or Change.

What allows him to make that change? Yes, it is just Vivian herself because she’s his perfect match, but a reader wants more than One True Pairing as a reason. Because Vivian needs so much tutelage to be an acceptable companion in his circle, he has to put business aside for periods of time to work with her. Because they’re so different, he’s exposed to parts of life he hasn’t experienced and perhaps just things he’s forgotten. And he likes it. He starts to laugh. He takes a day off!

So, looking at it this way, “motivation” doesn’t work really well either. Where the G question in the Internal column was What lesson does your character learn or what change does he make over the course of the story?, the M question might be: What allows the character’s lesson to be learned, or makes the change possible? This is not so much a question of what things in the story bring about the change. It’s more…global than that, I guess, more abstract. What circumstance will facilitate the change? But I guess my current favorite way to think about it is: What’s the crack that allows the mind to be opened?

During the course of the story, we watch this build. With these ideas firmly in our heads, that Edward will change as a result of spending time with Vivian and being exposed to new things, we can go through and pick out one scene after another showing the differences between them, his revelations, his growth as a character, and, indeed, his struggle not to grow–to avoid change.

So then we come to “conflict”. If you think in terms of the word “conflict” you might just write a line like, Edward wants to stay focused on business and resists Vivian’s attempts to get him to live a little. Which might do the job. I like to think of my C as a series of teaching moments. In this box think of some of the story moments you probably already have in mind, scenes that are going to be turning points for your character in terms of their inner journey. In doing this, you’ll begin to see if your story really teaches this lesson and develops this character.

You might write:

Goal: Edward must see that there’s more to life than business,

Motivation: and Vivian’s just the girl to do it

Conflict: but Edward is resistant and wants to stay focused.

And if you’re the kind of writer who “gets” that and can run with it, that’s good enough. If you’re not, then you’ll want to force yourself to think more deeply about your character arc and perhaps write something more like…

Lesson: Edward must see that there’s more to life than financial and social success.

Facilitation: The differences between them force Edward to spend time on Vivian and non-business activities, and open him up to new experiences.

Moments: Edward and Vivian in the tub, Edward takes Vivian shopping,  fun at the polo match, lunch in the park, etc.

When you go beyond your GMC chart and into plotting your story, you’ll be able to elaborate on those moments to talk about what happens to affect change, how the character reacts, etc, to add more points, and to make sure that you provide resistance and setbacks to pace your character’s growth.

The terms goal, motivation, and conflict probably work fine for a lot of people. And then, what I’ve put here may be more confusing still for some. Kait said that showing it in these terms was helpful for her, so I’m hoping it might be click for someone else. YMMV.

ROW80

Today begins Round 4 of A Round of Words in 80 Days. My goals lately have been much more about myself and the way that I do things than the kinds of things most people like to list as goals for this challenge. My main goal right now is to get consistent work habits into my weekday routine. Meaning to work, in some way, on my series every day, and to not kid myself about what should count as work. By the end of the challenge I hope to have a well-fleshed outline and at least be well into Act 1 of the draft for Heroes Under Siege.



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