Can we talk character arcs in a broad way (with examples?)

[Heliotrope]

Ok, I'm an examples person.

And I need help with characters arcs.

So basically, can I have some examples, in broad terms?

Like, for example:

Character A does not like Character B because they are so different. Character A is forced to spend time with character B in order to achieve a goal. Character A learns to love the difference in Character B, thus learning acceptance of those traits within himself.

(Examples of this arc, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Fool's Gold)

Or

Character A does not like doing a certain thing. He MUST learn to do that thing in order to achieve a goal. Through the process he learns to love that thing that he hated, thus making him a better person.

(Examples Hook)

Can you guys please help me with more broad examples of these sorts of emotional arcs or conflicts?

 

[FifthView]

The Hero's Journey might be the most famous type of character arc: Monomyth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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(Edit: Changed link. Didn't realize it went to a site trying to sell software.)

 

[MiguelDHorcrux]

Hermione Granger hates fools. She learned to love two. I love the series. I hate Harry Potter. I have to endure him for seven effing books.

 

[Miskatonic]

Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone?

From a little brat that only misbehaves to a self-sufficient kid that cares about others.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

One of my favorites (Difficult to do well):

The Negative Character Arc (Also known as "The Fall")

Good character justifies the need to do bad things (for good reasons). That character slowly turns bad and embraces the change.

Example: Walter White (Breaking Bad), Tyler Durden (Fight Club), Darth Vader, Magneto (Marvel Universe)

For some reason, these arcs are infinitely more interesting to me. They raise many questions and pique my curiosity continually throughout a well-executed story.

 

[FifthView]

The "Gaining Maturity" Character Arc

Irresponsible, self-interested adolescent/YA learns maturity and how to take responsibility.

Examples: Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took


The Old , Cynical Curmudgeon Learns to Love and Be Gracious

Example: Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets


The Old, Living-in-the-Past Curmudgeon Learns to Live for the Present and Future

Example: Carl Fredricksen in Up


Note: Came close to including the last one into the second one. Also, I think that without "old" in the last one, and without "curmudgeon," I could possibly include Harry Potter in that?

 

[Devor]

We could do something like a Commitment Arc.

You have a character who's in a committed relationship, or has made a commitment to, say a job or a king, something that can also keep changing a little as things progress.

The arc is how that commitment progresses as both the character and the needs of the commitment change. The idea is that a change in one triggers a change in the other, which keeps triggering more changes until they finally hit a rest.

Maybe the character starts off naive, and the commitment starts off grand and vague. As the MC begins to learn the nitty gritty details, they have to decide whether or not to pursue the commitment. Maybe they shirk it off, and as a result something bad happens. Now the MC has to respond to that bad thing that just happened.

The commitment arc goes back and forth like that until the MC and the commitment stop changing. Maybe the MC gets dumped by the date and that's the end of it, or maybe the MC comes to terms with the job, or else the MC goes off on a rampage and kills the king they once swore fealty to.

That feels a little rambly.

The best example I can think of is Jon Snow at the Night's Watch. Jon keeps changing, and as a result the job changes, and then the job changes him. He goes through a half dozen changes to get where he is at the end of the last book, and each time he grew, his growth changed the job.

 

[Heliotrope]

These are awesome! Thank you so much guys! It is so helpful for me to see these things put concisely. I tend to be a very big picture sort of person, so narrowing down details is challenging for me.

I was watching Vacation last nights, and the other night Can't Hardly Wait, and I guess Christmas Vacation over the holidays and I noticed another one which sort of goes:

Idealist believes in fate, or family or whatever, then has that idealism shaken, loses faith in their belief, only to have that belief confirmed in the end.

Thoughts on this one? I've noticed with this one it seems to be the people around the MC that do most of the changing as a result of their persistence and idealism...

Like in Vacation it is the dad's bizarre idealism and going to great lengths to achieve his goal of the perfect family vacation that he realizes that perfection will never be achieved... But his attempt changes his wife's view of him for the better, and brings his kids closer together, so in the end he does achieve the relationship with his family he was looking for...

I also like these concise descriptions because for my particular story, which is for kids, I want to keep things relatively black and white.

 

[Heliotrope]

My scenario that I've having trouble with goes something along the lines of:

One of the fiercest pirates of all time has accidentally time travelled off course and wound up in the year 2015. He is WAY out of his element, obviously, and needs to steal a treasure from the museum in order to get home. But none of his usual tricks will work. He can't cannon-ball the museum. He knows nothing about modern day security systems. He can't intimidate anyone with his usual methods because no one can understand his accent, and he is not used to modern day police systems or pepper spray. Cars, technology, cell phones, all this is magic and terrifying to him. Basically, he has gone from the most feared man in his world, to the most useless man in this world. He needs help.

Cue girl. THIS is what I'm struggling with. She also needs the treasure in order to ? I'm not sure yet but the treasure is cursed and stealing people right off the streets of New York. She get's involved in some way, but however this work will depend on what I decide her arc is. But at any rate I'm sticking them together. They need to work together. I need my girl to have an arc. She needs to learn something from this pirate. Something only a time travelling pirate can teach her. And she needs to teach him something along the way. I see him being something like Carl in up… driven a lot by fear despite his gruff exterior. And I see her struggling with fear as well… as most teenage girls do…

So… please keep the arc's coming

 

[Heliotrope]

Ok, so with UP… correct me if I'm wrong…

The last thing Carl wants is a friend. He just wants to be left alone to be miserable forever. But what Carl really needs is a friend. And he finds that in Doug and Russell. So his want is different then his need, which he has to come to understand in order to be truly happy?

 

[FifthView]

My feeling about Carl is simply that nothing in the present and nothing imaginable for the future compares with what he lost in the past, and that's why he values nothing in the here-and-now that doesn't tie into his past. In fact, the only future he can imagine wanting is actually the past; so, these are incompatible things.

That's why a friend now, or other people in general, are irritations. They distract him from the past.

But yes, his need and want are two different things—if, that is, we apply our own values to him. Are we right in assigning to him his need? Let's suppose he's the one who comes into contact with your pirate, who tells him that time travel is possible and just requires an artifact. It's easy to imagine he'd join with the pirate in order to find a way to travel back to his own past. His self-defined need would be that past; and, by extension, the pirate who could help him get there could be a "need." I.e., not a friend in the here-and-now, but only a means to travel back.

I'd wondered a bit whether the "gaining maturity" arc I mentioned above would be good for your MC...however...

Cue girl. THIS is what I'm struggling with. She also needs the treasure in order to ? I'm not sure yet. But at any rate I'm sticking them together. They need to work together. I need my girl to have an arc. She needs to learn something from this pirate. Something only a time travelling pirate can teach her. And she needs to teach him something along the way. I see him being something like Carl in up… driven a lot by fear despite his gruff exterior. And I see her struggling with fear as well… as most teenage girls do…

What does a pirate have to teach? Well, what are pirates? Here's a possible character arc:

By-the-book, Rule- and Law-Loving Character Learns to Relax and Break a Few Rules

Hermione Granger could almost be said to fit into that type of arc, even though her actual arc, or primary arc, is different? In any case, this type of character might be the sort of authority-loving character that raps everyone else over the head—they are hopeless rapscallions—who needs that belief in the status quo, or the stability that comes from being on the side of the status quo...in other words, who's uptight, a conformist, etc.

So two characters of this type who failed to change and suffered as a consequence: Javert from Les Misérables and Shylock from The Merchant of Venice. The former is more the classic case; the latter might not have been a natural example but came to be one as a result of adopting the values of an antagonistic force (the society in which he had to live.)

Now, maybe this wouldn't work for you. But what else is a pirate singularly capable of teaching? Could be courage, daring-do, and so forth, maybe. But I think that being a rebel, making one's way outside the status quo and law, and so forth are possibly good lessons.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes, I like that, and I had considered that, especially since she is getting involved in a heist. I had thought playing off of that law-abiding-citizen-rule-follower character, and forcing her to partake in something so illegal might be really interesting…

She could learn that sometimes following the rules takes great courage, but sometimes so does breaking them.

And since you know the back story, I did want to tie it into dreams, or hope. So I can work in there somehow that maybe at the beginning she is scared of achieving a dream she has, because it might be against the status-quo… and through her time with the pirate she learns to embrace her dream and don't let rules take away what makes her her.

That might be really interesting.

 

[FifthView]

You've changed your story a bit, so I might be confusing your different ideas? Weren't you going to make your MC's father a cop? That would tie into the authority-loving, status-quo-loving theme also.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes, I was changing my story around and trying different angles until I could settle on a decent character arc. Different arcs were leading to different plot lines.

So yes, I will have to think about that a bit more. I think I can still have her be a Hermione Granger type with an eccentric father who isn't a cop… but I will have to play with it. The cop part works for sure, depending on who I want her father to be… If he is also a pirate, which was my original plan… or if she was just lost as an infant in the storm and was adopted or something when she landed on earth. I'll have to play around some more and see what I come up with.

I like this arc though. It works. I will give her some sort of dream or ambition that is against the status-quo. Maybe something happening in her community or school that she doesn't agree with, or maybe she is an aspiring artist or something and wants to break out of the mold put in place by her traditional art teacher… who knows. At any rate some deep inner conflict about her wants. And through working with the Pirate she learns about breaking rules and embracing that rebel side of herself in order to make great change in her community…

The details of how that all plays out will probably change a few more times before I'm satisfied with it Lol.

 

[arboriad]

Another consideration I'm so my mind is the difference between individualism and the need to belong. I'm assuming one of the big reasons why the power it needs to get back home it's because that's where he is mates are, his friends, and everything familiar. Where is she, as a modern individual has been raised on a hearty diet of individualism, and thinking of oneself separate a community. If this is about him teaching her something, then you could share a simple, and fundamental lesson like ' who are you if you don't have friends, if you don't belong, if you aren't part of a community?'

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