How to Write Fantasy Character Arcs Better than 99% of Writers

I want you to think about the best fantasy characters that you've ever read what makes them so memorable relatable and interesting it's not the magic they wield it's not the worlds they explore it's the process of struggle and change and transformation we see them go through over the course of a story in other words it is their character Arc because without a compelling character Arc even the most Fantastical worlds feel flat and boring and that is because a well-written character Arc is a metaphor for life and how you and I are also forced to evolve and change as we go through our own Journeys and our own experiences so when you can write a captivating character AR in your own fantasy novel readers are going to have an insane amount of emotional investment in your story they're going to be laughing alongside your characters they're going to be crying alongside your characters they're not going to be able to stop reading about their adventures and when they are finally finished they'll be recommending your book to all of their friends because for them your characters no longer feel like characters they feel like real unique three-dimensional people now don't get me wrong that is a hard goal to hit I surveyed over 300 fantasy writers in preparation for this video and a lot of you told me that you struggle to write character arcs that feel believable show growth in a nuanced way and integrate cohesively with your plot theme and Other Side characters now I've built a lot of character arcs in my four published fantasy novels and in my video game as well and I've personally heard 23 fantasy writers develop their character arcs either when I was editing their books as a client or when I was helping them outline their books in my fantasy outlining boot camp and that's not to mention the 130 plus story coaching calls I've done at this point to help writers further refine their novels and from all this experience I've built a system for writing character arcs which I'm going to share with you in this video so I really suggest that you take notes as we go through this because a lot of the things I'm sharing with you here are lessons and approaches that I've shared with clients who have paid me thousands of dollars to learn this stuff this is not the only way to do it it is just the way that I do it after 12 years of practice as a writer and I've also seen it produce incredible results for my clients as well so I think if you go through this whole video and take notes along the way it will do the same for you as well and the place we need to begin is actually by looking at the common character Arc mistakes that new fantasy writers often make I've identified five of these in particular and the first one is just this lack of believability and realism so this comes across when a character changes in a way that feels too rapid and too fast or when the change doesn't feel realistic maybe you have someone who's sort of been a villain up until this point and then the character says one line of dialogue to them and they instantly flip around and now they're the good guy of course you can do that really well but you've got to make sure it feels like it isn't just out of the blue and then the other big thing that impacts the believability and realism of your character change is when it just feels like it was forced because the plot needed it rather than feeling like a organic result of a character's motivations and life experiences up into that point the second mistake is UNS subtle demonstrations of change so this usually comes across when you have characters saying very on the- noose pieces of dialogue like oh I used to be a horrible person but now I've realized that love and affection and kittens are the best thing ever so you really want to avoid doing this you want to be subtle and show characters changing preferably through their actions and not just through these very on the- noose pieces of dialogue the third common character Arc mistake is when you don't have any cohesion with your story's plot theme and other characters there is this huge misconception in writing that I see all the time which is that you either have a plot driven story or you have a character driven story and I think that distinction is utterly foolish and it's going to be really hindering to you if you want to write a great fantasy novel The reason for that is that plot is simply the actions that characters take in your novel and the only way we understand characters is by the actions they take I mean if you just think about it it's really hard to pick a Fantasy character from a book if you take any of the books on the bookshelf behind me here it's really hard for me to just extract a character from that book and explain that character without also explaining all the events and the context that surrounds them in other words you have to basically explain what they do in the story and what their role is in the story in order to get that character's personality and traits across and even if you aren't going to use the actual story itself to explain your character you're probably just going to explain what they did before the story their past their upbringing their childhood in other words their backstory which is essentially the same as plot but it's just plot that takes place before the pages of your novel so ultimately plot equals character and character equals plot and as we go through this video you're actually going to see this idea developed in much more detail and if you're not convinced right now I think by the end of the video you may have chck change to your mind because once you start to see the synthesis between these two things it hugely elevates the quality of your character arcs in your story the fourth common character AR mistake I see new writers making is making your characters too unlikable at the start so this is a tricky one here because often character arcs are about seeing people progress from one way of being to another way and if you're having a positive change Arc where a character goes from being a bad person to a better person you're probably going to show them in slightly unsympathetic ways at the beginning of your story for example maybe they're really selfish to begin or they're a bit arrogant at the start and over the course of the story they become you know more caring of others or they become more humble now it is important to have a big Divergence between who the character is at the start of the story and at the end of the story if you are wanting to tell that kind of big transformation but it is also important that you don't make the characters too off-putting at the beginning to the point where the reader actually just gives up on them and doesn't finish your story and doesn't see them eving into becoming a better person now don't worry though cuz later in this video I'm going to show you a very useful technique to avoid this mistake even if you are writing a character that maybe has some undesirable traits or flaws at the beginning of your story and then the final character Arc mistake that new fantasy writers often make is no sense of uniqueness and surprise to your character's journey in many cases readers have a very good intuitive understanding of where your character is going in the pages of your fantasy story they've read you know dozens or hundreds of fantasy books they've seen hundreds of movies at this point readers are very good at just picking up these patterns in all these stories and using that to predict where a character is going to end up so when readers come into your story and they see a character who is a whiny farm boy who is thinking he'll never develop his magical abilities and he's complaining about the fact that the Empire has control over his Nation we intuitively know that this Farm booy is probably going to master his magic he's probably going to fight against the empire and is probably going to win and bring freedom and peace to the Galaxy that is the kind of split-second you know intuitive sense of what readers will have of that story just based on the patterns that they have seen before and as a fantasy writer at the moment you really have two choices in this scenario so Choice number one is that you subvert the reader expectations so maybe this Farm Boy actually gets killed halfway through the story and the Empire wins so Choice number two is you fulfill the promise that this setup has made to your reader but you do it in a way that feels surprising yet inevitable and I would argue that most popular classic great fantasy stories out there they actually do the second option most of the time that is they fulfill the promise they made at the start but they do it in a surprising yet inevitable way we're not surprised when Harry Potter defeats Voldemort in the Harry Potter series I think everyone knew at the start of the series that this was going to happen however the journey that Harry takes to get to this point the sacrifices that are made along the way the struggles he goes through the change he experience he experiences and then of course the actual final way in which he resolves his last duel with Voldemort is done in a way that hopefully surprises us and delights us along the journey there but again that final dual makes total sense in hindsight once the rules of the world and the magic kind of Click into place generally speaking it's good to strike a balance between meeting the reader expectations on a macro Big Picture level yet surprising them with the little details along the journey to that point okay so now that you see the kind of five common character Arc mistakes that I often see new writers make whenever I'm editing a story or helping someone outline their book um let's move on to the three types of character arcs you can write because there are a lot of ways that you can structure a character Arc in your story and it's important that you understand all three of these in depth so that you can pick the correct one for your characters and for your book first of all we have the positive change Arc so this one is pretty straightforward the character becomes better over the course of the story it's a journey from incompleteness and suffering to a sense of completeness and fulfillment and wholeness for example Bilbo baggin in The Hobbit goes from being a sheltered home body who's fearful of Adventure to a free-spirited traveler who steals treasure from dragons and Journeys all the way across Middle Earth the next type of character Arc is the negative Arc so this one shows a character's downfall or descent and if you've read a tragedy for example or you've watched a tragic play this is the arc that most tragic characters tend to follow for example in best served cold by Joe abrum who I've actually had the pleasure of interviewing here on this YouTube channel um the character of Cole Shivers goes from being a optimistic somewhat naive immigrant who's coming to this new land of steria looking for a fresh start looking for fresh opportunity and then he over the course of the story he kind of allows himself to slip back into his violent ways and allow the violence of his past to bleed into his present and of course other characters like MC Beth and Walter White are also great examples of a negative Arc as well and then lastly we have the flat Arc which is something that can trip Riders up sometimes because because Arc tends to imply change but flat is sort of the antithesis of change so flat Arc is just one where the character doesn't actually change that much over the course of the story rather your focus is showing how they impact and change the world around them so this is something that's often done in serialized stories things like Sherlock Holmes for example Sherlock doesn't really change from story to story we come to those stories because it's interesting to see the way in which he changes the world around him and I would actually say Ned stck in a Game of Thrones is a fantastic example of a flat Arc and shows you that flat does not mean boring by any means Ned is a honorable man in a dishonorable world and when the immovable object of his honor encounters the Unstoppable force of corruption in King's Landing what will it mean for Westeros so over the course of the rest of the video I'm actually going to be going through in depth with billbo baggin's Arc Cole shiver's Arc and Ned star's Arc so there will be spoilers ahead for The Hobbit best served cold and a Game of Thrones respectively because I am going to be going into a lot of detail with all these different character arcs and showing you all the individual nuances of how they were constructed in such a brilliant and memorable manner okay so there's five core building blocks that you will be using to develop your character arcs whether you're writing a positive Arc a negative Arc or a flat Arc I'm going to go through them in brief detail and then I'm going to unpack them with a little bit more depth so the first component is the ghost so the ghost is a sort of traumatic event which has shaped your character's worldview made a major impact on their psyche and is influencing the things they are pursuing in your story as a result of this character's ghosts they have developed a lie this is a warped incorrect view of the world which is hurting them uh it is hurting the people around them as well and it's going to lead to them pursuing their want so this is an external thing that is outside of them that they believe will bring them happiness and completeness but in reality pursuing the want only strengthens the lie and gives more power to their ghost which is haunting them what they really need is to uncover their need which is our fourth component here the need is the thing that will actually make the character Feel Complete and happy and whole and the only way that they can get to the need is by rejecting their lie and embracing the truth which is a more accurate way of viewing the world and themselves and their role within it so those are the five core Arc components let's go through those in more detail with some examples uh and actually flesh out how you can develop these in your story so first of all looking at the ghosts so the ghosts like I said before is usually a traumatic event that created the lie and the want within your character it's typically something that either occurs before your story so for example maybe you're writing a fantasy book where your main character grew up in a war torn nation and this has left a indelible impact on her psyche your character's ghost might also occur at the start of the story for example maybe a parent is killed or maybe a character is forced to move away to a boarding home that she doesn't want to go to this could also be the foundation of your character's ghosts it is totally up to you if you want to reveal your character's ghost you've really kind of got three options you can blatantly put it out there on the page you can maybe hinted it and leave it up to the reader's imagination um as to the specifics of the ghost or you can kind of keep it completely hidden and just have it as something that you know as the author which strengthens your own psychological understanding of your characters but you don't necessarily need to express it to your reader and it's also worth while noting that in a series as you go through and we are going to be talking about structuring your character arcs over the course of a series later in this video but in a series The Ghost might actually suddenly change for each book so in book one your character might struggle with the ghost for most of the story and then resolve their relationship with this thing but the events of that book might lead to a new ghost being created in the next story so for example maybe in your first book your character kind of falls in love with someone else but then at the end of this book they break up or this other person dies and as a result of that there is a new ghost that is now being formed for them to struggle with in book two and it also is worthwhile noting that your ghost doesn't necessarily have to be a negative event I recently released a course titled 5 days to better fantasy characters uh it's a totally free email course I think we've had over 800 writers go through it so far which is awesome and I actually had a very interesting response from a writer called Joey who went through uh the course a few days ago she emailed me asking I was wondering whether it has to be a negative event at all can it be a positive event as well I'm working on a book about a young B who romanticizes Heroes and against the explicit wishes of his parents sets out into the world to find and sing about current day heroes only to figure out slowly over time the world isn't as pretty as he believes and the heroes he romanticizes are basically frauds his ghost if I can call it that isn't a negative experience but rather him just absolutely falling in love with heroic music and poetry at a young age when he experiences a live performance from one of the best poets in the world would this qualify as a proper ghost or will I have to introduce a negative event to give it more power Joey has had a really fantastic interpretation of the ghost here and I've actually going to be updating the course as a result of Joey's fantastic email so thank you Joey for sending in this question and for giving me permission to share it here cuz she is totally right you know your ghost doesn't necessarily have to be this big negative traumatic thing I think that um it just has to be something that has a big impact and it has this lingering presence in the back of your character's mind that really influences how they're moving through the world to give you some inspiration for your character's ghost here are 10 archetypes that your ghosts might decide to follow the first one is the loss of a protector like a parent a guardian a friend uh a sense of survivors guilt a be experience of being betrayed by an ally by someone who was close to a character but wasn't in reality a past failure that they're still struggling to move on from a dark secret that's sort of Haunting them inside the experience of being exil from a community whether that's you know a kind of family group a friend group or a professional group uh maybe they were a veteran of a great struggle like a war or even some political issue in the past maybe they grew up as an orphan which you know we see quite often in fantasy stories but you can still absolutely do this in a good way maybe they witnessed something really traumatic that kind of left a bit of a scar on their mind or perhaps they're living under some kind of curse okay so once you've got your character's ghost developed then it's time to look at the lie so the LIE is our second out of the five core components of a character Arc and it is essentially a misconception a character has formed about themselves or the world as a result of their ghost the LIE is hurting your character even if they don't know it and usually at the start of your fantasy book your character is ignorant of the lie in fact they might even think the LIE is a source of strength but in reality is is something that's hurting them and the people around them as well the LIE is the main reason for your character's flaws so it's making them incomplete and you can find it by kind of looking at these different symptoms of how lies tend to manifest which is the things characters are afraid of or extreme hurt inability to forgive other people guilt Dark Secrets shame all of these different things are typically manifestations of your character's lie so if you're not entirely certain what your character's lie is right now just look at these different things here and then Trace back the reason for why the character is behaving in that way it usually comes back to having a misconception about the world which again goes back to their ghost it's also really useful particularly when you're writing a fantasy novel to be asking yourself how does my world building affect and potentially reinforce my characters lie and you'll see with all three character examples I'm going through later in this video with billb waggons uh with Cole Shivers and with Ned Stark how the World building is used in a masterful way to actually uh develop and explore the lie in the character's lives so here are 10 lie archetypes that might give you some more inspiration as well the character might believe that they are inherently unworthy um or that to trust other people is a form of weakness maybe that power is the only way to get safety that happiness is something they will never be able to accomplish that they have to do things alone in their life that change of any type is dangerous that emotions are a weakness that they should avoid at all costs that self-sacrifice is noble and they should kind of you know keep giving themselves up for other people that they must uphold a particular tradition or that love is a trap and a dangerous thing they should steal away from so once you got your character's lie this is then going to inform their want so the want is what your character thinks will make them happy or complete it's usually something that is external and physical and kind of outside of the main character they think that by grabbing this thing that's outside of them it will solve whatever problem is actually up here in their head and it is again an attempt to solve their incompleteness they think they're going to be happy when they get it um and they will typically in most stories most positive stories be spending most of the time on the page trying to accomplish this thing the problem is that the more they pursue the want it strengthens their lie and when it comes to actually developing out the want I like to use this tool I Constructor called the axis of Desire so you can basically see here across the top of the axis sorry across the sort of vertical um axis here we've got all these different emotional things that a character could experience whether they're Revenge power love knowledge freedom Redemption survival Justice Adventure Etc and then across the top of the axis we have the different external ways in which the character could potentially accomplish this thing so they could get revenge against a person they could get revenge by developing a particular status or role in a society um they could get Love by finding a place for example or they could get Love by you know getting to a status or role that symbolizes uh love or maybe allows them to get love from a lot of other people out there and when you're using the AIS of Desire um which is something that I take my students through in my fantasy outlanding boot camp in quite some depth as well you basically want to be sort of locating the main thing your character is going for so in this example here let's say my character is trying to accomplish survival and the way that they're going to be doing that is by trying to find a place so in other words they're striving to reach or stay in a kind of Safe Haven or Sanctuary um this is the plot of my fantasy novel across the broken Stars my main character Leon is helping a fugitive try to reach this place that is sort of mythical that may or may not exist um in order to give them safety against the Inquisition that is pursuing them and once you have located your sort of main want on this axis of desire you can then actually spread out horizontally from that to find potential subplot ideas so my character in across broken Stars he's trying to reach or stay in a safe haven or sanctuary and there's a lot of different like subplots you could weave into that so maybe to accomplish this goal we then come across to the person column and they have to now rely on a person for survival in a tough circumstance or they have to find someone for for information that's then going to lead to this Safe Haven or Sanctuary maybe if you come across to the thing column they actually have to seek an item that gives them a clue to get to this location you get the idea it's a way that you can kind of um figure out the core want of your character and then kind of spread out with these different subplot ideas from here so now that you have those three first components of your character Arc those are all the things that are sort of setting flaws and and setting things for your character to overcome now we're going to start talking about the sort of more positive side of your character Arc so first of all this is begins with the need so the need is what the character actually requires to be complete your character has the want which they think will make them complete and then it has the need which will actually make them complete so you can think about the need as something that Prov provides a personalized antidote to your characters lie and usually unlike the want which is typically external it's outside of the character the need is usually a key realization a key internal Epiphany that a character experiences it's something that will typically challenge the status quo of the the world around them and maybe the people and the society around them as well and to think about some different ways you can sort of structure your needs here here are sort of 10 need archetypes I find useful first of all is a character accepts themselves maybe they learn to have trust in others maybe they recognize that vulnerability can actually be a form of strength maybe they learn how to embrace change they develop emotional honesty they find personal happiness they learn how to balance between themselves and others they challenge tradition that has uh kind of oppressed them up until this point maybe they develop a newfound openness to love or maybe they learn how to kind of achieve self validation without relying on other people around them you can see looking at these need archetypes how they really contrast quite a bit to the LIE archetypes that I explained earlier in this video because again the need is something that is providing a antidote or a response to a character's lie this brings us to the last part of a character Arc in terms of the five core art questions um so this is the character's truth again this is something that's providing an antidote to the LIE uh the character is going to be struggling to accept this over the most of the story and it's usually in a positive Arc Type of Story Only something your character will wrap their heads around towards the very end of the narrative in fact as I've sort of noted here um typically the climax occurs when character accepts their truth and is able to Vanquish the lie for good as a result the truth is something that makes your character feel more complete it's typically something that will relate to a core contradiction within a character as well so maybe they've been struggling the whole story to sort of balance their duty to their family with their own desires and their own um interests that they are pursuing and the truth is something that's actually going to allow them to potentially resolve and collapse that core contradiction with a new understanding that allows it to stop being a source of suffering within their life having said that the truth is not always an easy answer usually it's something that is quite hard one over the course of your narrative and it might even open up more difficult questions for your character to face in the next book in your series to give you some inspiration for potential character truths it might be this belief that worthiness is something they intrinsically have that trust in others is actually a sign of strength that power doesn't guarantee safety that happiness is within reach for them that strength can be found in community and not just being a lone wolf that change is a form of growth uh that emotions are totally human and fine to experience that self-care is necessary that tradition can evolve and can change and that love is strength and of course this is just a small sample of potential truths that your character could experience as with all of these sort of archetypical examples I've given so far there's really infinite possibility here so don't stress if the one you're writing doesn't fit into the the list of 10 I'm giving here I also want to give credit to C and wiland for a fantastic book titled creating character arcs this is where I actually found these sort of five core art components um and I've since sort of developed that and refined that through my own writing so it's a very good book and it's well worthwhile reading so now that we have these five core Arc components here's how you use them to structure a positive Arc in your fantasy novel at the beginning in a positive Arc your character is going to fully believe the lie as a result of the ghost they're ignorant of the truth at this stage in the story and so as a result they're pursuing their want however as they go through this pursuit of the want they real the LIE is hurting them and it's perhaps hurting the people around them as well so they begin to flirt with the truth they test it out a little bit they experiment using it but the truth is challenged it's not so easy to change their behavior in this way so they're very tempted at this point to return to the lie and at the climax they are forced to have this really difficult decision will they pick the new truth and allow their old self to die or will they allow their new self to die and will they revert back to believing the LIE and because it is a positive Arc the character is going to be picking the truth they're going to be rejecting and vanquishing the lie and they're going to be moving up in a state of completeness and development uh and potentially again if you're writing a series then this may sort of reset and it may change in the second book but I will again explain that a bit later in this video a great example of a positive character Arc is Bilbo bgins from The Hobbit he goes through this experience of going from a place of comfort to slowly developing courage and eventually becoming a hero over the course of the story his ghost is the fear of the unknown world that lies Beyond his comfortable little life in the sh and the lie that he tells himself as a result of this ghost is that Adventures are unnecessary and dangerous and I am meant to live a quiet little hobbit life without danger or disturbance and his want is simply I just want to maintain my peaceful uneventful life here in the Shire I don't want to travel however the need he actually has is to embrace this inner craving for adventure that his subconscious has to step out of his comfort zone and find the courage to grow and become a hero and actually become someone who goes off on these bold and daring quests so the truth he eventually learns throughout the course of The Hobbit is that courage and a sense of adventure are these qualities that actually does lie within him and that he can accomplish great Deeds now let's look at structuring a negative character Arc so in a negative character Arc you you alter things a little bit here at the beginning your character actually fully believes the truth they start by believing the truth notice this is the opposite to a positive character Arc the character also has their need met at the beginning of the story so they know the truth and they are living with the need you would think that they feel complete at this point and usually they do however then the lie comes along and the LIE is a bit of a Temptation for them you know it's something that uh maybe leads to them chasing their want and neglecting their need a little bit uh as a result the LIE begins to overtake the truth and the climax of a negative Arc story typically presents the character with the last chance to step back from the abyss to step back from the brink and to return to the truth however they can't do it the want is too tempting they fully embrace the lie and they reject their truth and again this is a typical Arc that most tragedies tend to follow so let's look at an example of a fantastic negative character Arc which is Cole Shivers from best served cold by Joe abomi again there's going to be spoilers ahead for context on best served cold this is essentially Kill Bill set in a fantasy world absolutely love this story um and it is about this mercenary called monzo makado who tries to get revenge on the people who attempted to kill her Shivers is I would say the second main character in this story he has almost as much uh point of view chapters as Mako um and he basically is this Northman who comes to the land of steria looking to put his violent past behind him looking to have a new and peaceful and happy life but he eventually kind of Falls in with Mado and begins to help her on her quest for Revenge um which leads to him you know sort of reverting to his old violent ways so his Arc is one of going from naive to courage to love to Despair and then lastly to anger uh and I didn't put it on here but you could maybe argue then he kind of goes back to acceptance after anger here as well so there's quite a few steps in his Arc it's a little bit longer than Bilbo here his ghost is his violent past as a warrior in the north his truth and you notice here that because this is a negative Arc I'm actually structuring things a little bit differently here so the truth that sh has is that I can build this new peaceful life if I just stop using violence to find purpose and I allow myself to just kind of be an ordinary person and I'm not you know going into my baser more more savage or angry ways his need is to let go of his anger and his ego and move on from his violent past and at the start of the story he displays both the truth and the need however he as he goes through his experience in steria and he realizes it's not the paradise he was promised um he starts to kind of begrudge the fact that people treat him with disrespect and they're rude towards him and so his want that he begins to develop is that I really want to regain Respect power and affection from the people around me which leads to his lie and I've actually expressed his lie here in a direct quotation from uh a scene in the final pages of best serve cold where Shiva says reckon I've learned just to stick at the place I'm at just to be the man I am Mado asks him what's that and he says a killer so usually when you're studying stories you can actually usually find Direct quotes um to support these five core components of a character's Arc lastly well let's look at structuring a flat Arc so at the beginning of a flat Arc your character is going to fully believe the truth and they likely already are living with their need remember with the flat Arc the character themselves is not really the focus of change instead you're looking more at how they impact the world around them so this is the thing while the character fully believes the truth and has the need the world around them or other characters around them believes the lie as a result this leads to conflict the world attempts to reinforce the LIE the character's truth is challenged and but the character of course remains steadfast because it is a flat Arc which doesn't mean that you can't necessarily have moments of doubt and uncertainty within them it just means that within a flat Arc typically the character's sort of moral code and moral compass remains you know relatively True North the whole time this leads to two options for your climax in the first option your character's truth triumphs they are able to bring the truth to the world and the world kind of conforms to your character's view of things with the second option the LIE is too strong it vanquishes the truth and the character is defeated this might be like a literal defeat where a character dies or it may be more of a kind of moral or psychological um or philosophical defeat it's also worthwhile here that I'm talking about the notion of truth and lie and that maybe makes you think that the character is having to persuade people to change their minds that could be the Avenue you take but usually the truth and the LIE is expressed in a more metaphorical sense of things so if we take the example of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Arc which is absolutely one of my favorite films I love that movie so much I've probably seen it like 20 times Indiana goes through a flat Arc at the beginning of the story he believes that these ancient artifacts belong in a museum and at the end of the story he believes that these ancient artifacts belong in a museum however the Nazis that he's fighting against they don't believe this they believe the lie that these ancient artifacts should be used um to create their own power and to help with further their own evil goals and so there's no point in which India Jones convinces the Nazis to accept his truth it's simply a case of his truth and the Nazis lie kind of butting heads against each other in the Physical Realm until eventually Indiana Jones manages to outlast and outwit them long enough um to get the Arc of the Covenant back into a museum or at least that's what he thinks ends up going into a government Warehouse instead so you know technically he doesn't really win either but the other form that your flat Arc could go through is actually your main character being in more of a mentor role and using their truth to help a you know different character learn to accept that truth for themselves so the character is the mentor in this case and they are allowing another character to go through a positive change Arc that's one way you could also structure this and a great example of a flat Arc that certainly doesn't feel as boring as the name flat tends to convey is Ned Stark from A Game of Thrones so he experiences a flat Arc through this his Arc could be described as honor conviction and death as the final stage here again the be spoilers for all these but I kind of assume you know that Ned star dies in Game of Thrones here um so Ned's ghost is kind of his loyalty to King Robert barathon uh and his truth is that we must do what is right no matter the cost he's a man of Honor he's a man of Oaths so his need that he has at the beginning of Game of Thrones is he has to remain true to his Oaths his lie or the lie that the world presents at him rather is that sometimes our Oaths should bend for the greater good and the want that is going to tempt Ned but never be something that he falls into which is kind of ironic is to stop Westeros from falling back into war so you can see here how the truth and the need are paired we must do what is right no matter the cost and the need is to remain true to his Oaths and the lie and the want are also paired as well in order to stop westros from falling back into war maybe sometimes we should allow our Oaths to bend that that lie and want combination is going to tempt Ned throughout the course of the story but as we kind of see over the duration of the narrative his truth and need win out he goes through this flat Journey uh and as a result he is later punished so we are going to discuss the nuances of that uh a bit later and in more detail later in this video now before we move on to discussing how theme fits into this whole picture of character arcs I want to share a quick bonus tip at this point no matter what type of character Arc you're writing in your fantasy novel I personally find it much easier when I outline my character arcs ahead of time to then write Great Character arcs in my first draft when I started out as a writer when I was 14 years old and working on my first book The a on Academy I did not do this I just started writing it by the seat of my pants and as a result the arcs in that story if you even want to call them arcs were just so messy and disjointed and they made all of those mistakes I mentioned earlier in the video realistically there probably probably wasn't even that much uh meaningful character change in that story and as a result it was never good enough that I felt even confident about trying to approach publication with that thing but then when I came around to writing my second fantasy novel across the broken Stars which you know spoilers was eventually later published um I did actually approach that with an outline and as a result of having that outline it just made it so much easier for me to get my character arcs right before I even began writing that first draft what's great about outlining for your character arcs is that you can work backwards from the end State or the end transformation that you're trying to get your character to create so if you know you want them to get to a point of being selfless and brave then you can work backwards and you can make them as selfish and cowardly as you possibly can at the start of your story which is you know kind of what across the broken stars is all about and right now you might thinking okay Jed I can see the benefits of that but I'm worried about spoiling the joy of Discovery and I worry that if I outline my character arcs it will rob a lot of my excitement as I go through the writing process I certainly had that worry as well I have not found that to be the case at all even with something like Kingdom of Dragons my most recent fantasy novel I wrote like a 30 page outline for this thing yet there was still so much room for my characters to surprise and Delight me with these little moments and sometimes these quite big moments um as I was going through the process of writing the first draft outlining is simply just something that makes sure you have the structural scaffold there so that your story is working on this Big Picture level and then actually gives you more creative freedom um to kind of paint in between those big picture structural moments that you have now if you're wan to write a really good fantasy character Arc it's critical to understand how theme integrates into your character's transformation so first of all I Define theme as a moral argument that is explored in different ways through your story it's not about you know preaching or trying to ram a particular political message Mage down the throat of your reader it's simply about presenting a complex question about how best to live and then having characters and your world and events in your plot explore that question and come up with different answers uh from all these different possible angles throughout your story so for example in The Hobbit I would say the theme of that story is that true happiness comes from embracing adventure and stepping outside your comfort zone and as we go through the character arcs later on you're going to see how this is made manifest in best served cold about Jo abomi I would say that the theme is the pursuit of vengeance is a corruptive force that takes you further away from peace and leaves only destruction in its wake so again theme is an argument and an argument means that you can kind of come in it from whatever angle you want so there are some characters who kind of their Arc demonstrates this theme it demonstrates that vengeance is a corruptive force but then there's also some characters where you kind of see Vengeance genuinely bringing them maybe some semblance of peace or or purpose or a a bit of happiness at least and so this is why the story feels morally complex and interesting to read and then lastly in a Game of Thrones I would say the theme is honor is a hindrance if you wish to have power again you will have characters come at this from lots of different angles now what you're probably noticing with this the these different themes here is that they align pretty closely with our character's truths and generally speaking when you have synthesis between your story's theme and the truth of a character's Arc that is how you tie your character AR to your theme in a way that creates a really resonant and emotionally and morally rich and interesting story to tell let's unpack the theme of A Game of Thrones in a little bit more detail so we have some different quotes from various characters here we have little finger saying you wear your honor like a suit of armor stock you think it keeps you safe but all it does is weigh you down so little finger is kind of demonstrating the theme that honor is a hindrance when it comes to searching for power we have Cersei say a true man does what he will not what he must so again she's sort of taking a different interpret and a different angle on this theme revolving around these ideas of Honor we have Lord ver saying you're an honest and honorable man Lord added often times I forget that I have met so few of them in my life he glanced around the cell when I see what honesty and honor have won you I understand why so again all these different people with various perspectives on what honor is and what role it kind of has um in this world and then lastly from Jamie Lannister give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones and I'll sleep more easily by night so earlier I promised to talk a little bit more about how you can structure character arcs in a series and broadly speaking there's a couple of different ways you can go about this you might have your character go through a flat Arc in the first book and then they also go in a flat Arc in the second book and all future books on after this again stories where they're quite serialized in nature where you're trying to write something where a reader could come into book three or they could come into book five or they could come into book one and they're still going to have a good experience tend to use this kind of format another format you can use is you have a positive Arc your main character in the first book and then from that point on they sort of have flat arcs in the future books so they learn important lessons in the first book and then in future books it's them kind of just using the truth they have learned from that first book um and you know with the need they have from that first book as well using that to just sort of structure their arcs for the rest of the series now again just because this says flat Arc here doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a boring second book quite often the positive Arc your character is going through in the first book here will create new new challenges for them to solve in the second book for example if you look at a story like the way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson in the first book kaladan goes from being this sort of haplous depressed slave to eventually becoming the leader of this uh sort of crew of soldiers and so he goes through a positive Arc in the first book um but it doesn't mean that his transformation stops there and his challenges stop there rather because now he has added responsibilities that have come from the transformation and change he went through in the first book another Arc you can do do which is a little bit more difficult but can be really interesting when it's pulled off well is you have a positive Arc for your character in the first book and then a negative Arc in the second one this is tricky because you want to avoid the feeling that progress has been undone and you don't want to feel like the character has just reverted or reversed all of the growth that we spend so much time watching them go through having said that there are stories that do this really really well I would say the first two June books in particular do this amazingly well the first book is about polar treaties become the Messiah becoming the Emperor of this universe but then in the second book we kind of see the terrible ways in which that is destroying his life and destroying the lives of the people around him and the ending of of June Messiah the second book in the series just had me emotionally flawed because of this descent that we see Paul go through in that story and then another Arc shape you can do here is you have a positive Arc in the first book and that leads to a different type of positive Arc in the second one you do need to pay attention to make sure that they don't feel you know too repetitive you want to make sure that the type of challenge the main character is facing has evolved or it's leveled up or it's more difficult now or there's more at stake or there's just a different angle of conflict that's going to attack your character you may also have your character go through a negative Arc in the first book only to redeem themselves with a bit more of a positive Arc in the second and of course there's lots of other ways that you can play around with this as well okay so those are the big picture principles behind your character arcs but at this point you're probably wondering how do I actually integrate my character arcs cohesively with my plot and to do this we need to look at story structure there are a ton of different ways you can structure your story right now after 12 years of writing and having published four books at this point and done a bunch of other projects the approach that I like to use personally and that works for me the best is what I call 9-point story structure this is a slight modification on Dan's uh seven-point plot structure although I have made a few little tweaks along the way to kind of customize this more to my own preferences and if you want me to personally help you outline the character arcs and plot structure in your own fantasy novel then you should apply for my fantasy outlining boot camp this is a 7we group program where you'll work alongside me and a small group of other writers to refine your character arcs your plot Your World building and all the other important aspects that go into writing a fantastic fantasy novel if you think that this video has gone in depth on character arcs just wait the boot camp is on a whole another level this is like a fraction of the stuff that we go through in that program which is why it's so much fun to run plus you'll also be joining this great community of dedic ated and committed fantasy writers uh to be getting support and feedback and accountability as you go through your writing process here's what one of my students said about the program I cannot recommend it enough it has been immensely helpful in in ways that I couldn't have even imagined not only did I learn how to outline I learned how to outline for myself with different tools that I can mix and match so immensely helpful to have uh like-minded people to work with and bounce ideas off with and and sending in our stuff every week to to to meet the assignments and getting feedback from everybody thank you so much Jed it it was an absolute blast the next cohort of this fantasy outlining boot camp is closing up pretty soon and spots are very limited I keep the cohort sizes small so that you get lots of personal feedback uh and attention from me so you can apply using the link in the description down below or by scanning this QR code up here and if you are watching this video in the future and the current cohort that I'm talking about here has already closed then you can always apply for the weit list to potentially join future cohorts down the line okay so let's go through ninepoint story structure in some more detail here and as we go through this I'm going to be showing you the character arcs for bbo bagin Cole Shivers and Ned Stark and how they intersect with each of these nine points in this particular way of structuring your story so first of all we have the hook which is where you introduce your protagonist and especially his flaws and Desires in a compelling way the most important thing to get across in your hook is to show the characteristic moment so this is basically the moment where readers understand what makes your character tick where you get to see their flaws you get to see their unique ways of approaching the world an approach I always like to use and i' I've recommended this to a lot of my clients and I've seen them take on the advice with great results here is that somewhere in the opening 10 to 20 pages of your story ideally you want your main character to make a decision that 95% of other characters wouldn't be making in that situation when you can do this effectively it makes readers sit up and pay attention because hopefully you're giving them through that unique decision a character they haven't necessarily seen before and so you're promising to them that they're going to get a new and interesting and novel experience as they go through your book with your hook you're also going to be showing your character living the lie so at this point if you're writing a positive Arc they're probably not too aware of the lie or its corrosive impacts on their existence if on the other hand you're writing a negative Arc you might be showing them living the truth at this point here because the LIE hasn't come along to tempt them yet you might also be hinting at the ghosts that is the sort of main event which is lingering in the character's mind uh and influencing the way they are behaving and in this part of the story your character is typically aware of their want and they might be making some moves towards chasing that want it's also critical it's so so critical here I cannot emphasize this next Point enough that you establish rooting interests so what do I mean by rooting interests well rooting interest is simply just your way to answer the reader's question which is always in the back of their mind when they are starting to read a new story and that question is why should I care why should I give a damn about these characters that I've just met and broadly speaking I've found that there's five main ways that you can establish rooting interests to pass the why should I care test for readers the first one is to show sympathy so demonstrate that your character has been unjustly punished by the world as a result we feel like they're a massive Underdog and so we begin to root for them to get out of this negative situation a classic example here is Harry Potter Harry starts the story as this unloved orphan who's living with an abusive aunt and uncle and cousin and so we feel a great degree of sympathy towards him and so that hook gives us a reason to care about Harry and so then when he starts to experience all these amazing things later in the story we celebrate that so much more because of where he started from the next character hook you can use is skill so perhaps you show a character who happens to be the master of their craft maybe they're an expert assassin or they're a really strong magician or there's something else that they're really really good at we find it so vicariously exciting to watch them excel in their field a great example of skill as a hook for a character here is Gavin guile in the black prison by Bren weeks so Gavin is the most powerful magician uh in the lands of this fantasy world and he can basically craft solid structures from light because he's so powerful and so skilled at his craft he does things that no one else can even attempt or even fathom there's a great scene Earl on in the book where he builds this kind of skimmer device that goes across a sea and when it builds up enough speed it can sort of fly um over this ocean and it's this incredibly inventive feat and it's just a one of the the many things he actually does throughout that book which demonstrates his sort of unique capabilities around the magic here the third hook you could use is a personality hook so maybe your character has a unique voice a cutting sense of wit or some special way of seeing or perceiving or just moving through the world in general a great example of this is lamura in the the lies of L lamura by Scott Lynch he's this very devious and charming and witty and sneaky thief and the story really enhances this with this sort of swashbuckling sense of Whimsy in its tone and well building let me read you a description from the prologue here that kind of perfectly expresses this I've got kids that enjoy stealing I've got kids that don't think about stealing one way or another and I've got kids that just tolerate stealing because they know they've got nothing else to do but nobody and I mean nobody has ever been hungry for it like this boy if he had a bloody gash across his throat and a physa was trying to sew it up lamora would steal the needle and thread and die laughing he steals too much doesn't that just make you want to read on about this guy who is crazy even by the standards of Thieves and conmen the next character Hook is progression the promise that this character is going to improve generally this takes one of two forms form number one is skill progression so we see the character not being particularly talented with their magic or something else and we get the promise that they are going to improve and get better at this craft over the course of the story the second type of progression is a moral progression we see the character behaving in a flawed or sort of incomplete way and we get the promise that they're going to become a better person over the course of the narrative or vice versa they're going to go down into some kind of tragic descent into madness instead and of course you can combine both of those here a great example here is Po from Kung Fu Panda he begins the story is this very chubby unfit out of shape person who doesn't really know anything about Kung Fu and when he is thrust into the role of being the Dragon Warrior he will have to learn to overcome these limitations uh and to become a truly great martial artist and then the last main character hook you can use here is a worthy cause so you have your character striving for a hard to- reach ideal uh particularly in a society where that ideal is maybe difficult to achieve and against pressure and conflict and resentment from maybe family friends loved ones and other influences around them usually the more opposition your character faces to achieve this worth cause the more compelling your character will feel a great example here is Viv the orc main character from Legends and lates by Travis bdry who I've actually interviewed on this channel as well so Viv is an orc who kind of retires from a life as a barbarian adventure to try to set up a coffee shop in this sort of fantasy city that has never heard of coffee before and so the town's people there have immense skepticism towards her but this Quest that she has this worthy cause she has to bring this coffee to this people and to create this new sort of community spirit in this town is something that creates a tremendous amount of sympathy for her and of course you can mix and match as many of these hooks as you like for example with lock lamora he has a terrible upbringing as an orphan so that's hook number one sympathy which led to him becoming a skilled Thief that's hook number two skill with a cheeky witty yet Charming sense of humor so that's hook number three who becomes an apprentice to an older wiser thief and con man who teaches him uh the way of the con which is uh hook number four progression and then he has to use these skills to get revenge against an even worse criminal after a job gone wrong which is hook number five so you can see here that Scott Lynch has basically used all five of these hooks here to make L lamura A really compelling character so let's see how the hook is manifested for Bilbo baggin's Arc In The Hobbit so we begin with Bilbo living a very comfortable life in his cozy Hobbit Hall um and we have this quote here from the story that demonstrates this well the Baggins never had any Adventure or did anything unexpected you could tell what a baggin would say on any question without the bother of asking him however this is a story of how a baggin had an adventure and found himself doing and saying things allog together unexpected how's that for a hook so we're seeing here hook number four progression right now the character is comfortable he's this home body he doesn't want to Adventure but we're going to see him go off on quite the adventure indeed if we look at best served cold and Co Shivers here we have Co Shivers arriving in steria hoping to start a new life in this country that he was promised would be kind of a bit of a paradise compared to the cold and bitter North where he grew up but it's not quite what he hoped for here's a quote from the book first things Shivers noticed as the boat wallowed in towards the wars it was nothing like as warm as he'd been expecting there's a spelling error I've said there life should be lives um it was nothing like as warm as he'd been expecting he'd heard the sun always sha in stor he was done with with war done with leading men to death he was set on being a better man I should mention both those quotes don't necessarily happen right after each other but they do happen in the opening couple of pages of shiver's chapter so you can see here we've actually got three hooks for Shivers operating we've got hook number one sympathy so you know he's coming to a place and it's not quite what he hoped for we've got hook number four progression that he's trying to become a better man and then we have hook number five worthy cause you know the worthy cause of trying to give up on his violent life and becoming a better person and then next looking at Ned starkk from A Game of Thrones we have him personally executing a traitor in the north he has this great quote that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword if you would take a man's life you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words so note here as with all the characters I've just gone through how these opening hooks are immediately establishing where their arcs are starting at so here for Ned we've got hook number three personality and that might be an interesting one to say because he's not necessarily someone who's coming out with these super witty lines of dialogue or he's not particularly flamboyant but I would say his personality is interesting because in comparison to the corruption and the decadence of some of the other Lords in westos he just has this iron sense of honor to him that he will not break no matter what circumstance and as a result that personality makes him interesting to explore in this Cutthroat world and then we also have hook number five a worthy cause which is he is trying to live the best kind of honorable life he can even though this world around him is pretty Twisted in a lot of ways okay so this brings us to our Second Story point the inciting incident this is when your ordinary world that your characters usually exist in is disrupted by some kind of event that begins to set the story in motion so here the character is typically presented with a new challenge often the character refuses it at first so a character might be called to go to a particular Adventure or to take on a particular Mission and usually the character is saying no I don't want to be involved in that the reason for this is that the character is still stuck in their lie at this point in a positive Arc in a negative Arc of course the incident is actually going to be the thing that is introducing the lie and bringing this new source of Temptation in for your main character and in a flat Arc by comparison the incident is something that's going to be challenging the truth again in a flat Arc your main character is not really evolving that much in their beliefs it's much more focused on how the world is changing around them however what's important here with all of these arcs is that the incident the inciting uh event here is going to be subtly changing her awareness in some shape even if she doesn't necessarily admit that truth to herself at the very beginning so if we look at Bilbo wagons in The Hobbit Gandalf brings 13 dwarves to Feast at Bilbo's house to quote from the book as the saying The Hobbit felt something tukish woke up inside him and he wished to go and see the great mountains and hear the pine trees in the waterful so these dwarves are kind of stoking in Bilbo a little bit of a desire or curiosity around Adventure uring outside of his safe hobbit hole but then he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling It All To Flames he shuttered and very quickly he was playing Mr baggin of Bag End Underhill again so once more the character's lie is being challenged here by the introduction of the truth but he's quickly rejecting him he is not willing to accept the truth that he wants to go out and be an adventurer he wants to cling to this lie that he needs to stay at home and just live this very sheltered life so what he actually does does here is he goes to sleep uh planning to refuse the adventure when he wakes up in the morning oh and I think I should mention here cuz I haven't said it already is that the dwarves are coming in trying to recruit Bilbo to go and help them steal treasure from a dragon essentially if we look at best served cold we have Shivers getting recruited by monzo makado for her sort of quest for revenge against the people who killed her brother initially he's very cautious because he doesn't want to go back to this violent life and he has these reservations that he asks with Monza take this dialog exchange here where he asks this man we're going to kill what did he do Monza said he got me to pay 50 scales for his corpse isn't that enough not for me says Shivers so you're one of them eh one of what one of those men that like reasons that need excuses you're a dangerous crowd you lot hard to predict so keep that in mind because at this point in the story Shivers is reluctant to go back towards a life of violence you're going to see that change as this story continues if we look at Ned Stark from A Game of Thrones we have the king and his re coming to Ned's home in Winterfell the king here reveals to Ned that his former hand of the king uh has died in perhaps suspicious circumstances who can tell uh and the King basically asks Ned to be the new hand of the king to quote from the story Robert was offering him a responsibility as large as the realm itself it was the last thing in the world he wanted he Being Ned in this case so this brings us to our story Point number three entering the new realm this is where your protagonist is taken from the Ordinary World and kind of thrust into the extraordinary world of your story it's important to note here that this uh departure from The Ordinary World to the extraordinary World it could be as literal as Harry Potter coming to Platform 9 and 3/4s and getting on the Hogwarts Express and going into the magical world or it could be more of a internal sense so for example in a detective story The Ordinary World of your detective would be solving rou crimes and homicides but the extraordinary world could come along where there's a crime that is just beyond their comprehension and they don't understand how it could have been committed there's no location change necessarily for that detective but it is undeniable that they they have now transitioned from the regular rules of their usual life into this situation where the rules are all different and everything's been turned Topsy Turvy so if we look at some examples from our characters here this occurs when Bilbo starts adventuring with the dwarves when shiv starts working with Mado to get revenge but he still has some moral reservations about violence at this point and then this also occurs when Ned goes south to King's Landing it's important to mention that with all of the sort of story structure moments I'm going through here even though I do give percentage markers to help guide you as you go through this process you do not need to adhere directly to these percentage markers it's far more about just the general shape and the general pattern of characters being challenged in particular ways and the the five questions of a character's Arc um being integrated through this particular pattern but you don't necessarily need to make sure that at the 12.5% Mark of your story The inciting incident is there if you look at something like The Hobbit for example the inciting incident kicks off much much sooner towards the start of the story and it kind of goes in a much more immediate fashion so with all of these story structure things it is useful to know where the rough sign posts are but when you're actually coming to writing the story you can adapt and mold these things as feels appropriate to your narrative so this brings us to the fourth story plot point the antagonist threatening your main character so this is where pressure is applied to the main character usually through some kind of introduction or key action from the antagonist again you may have introduced your antagonist way earlier in your story or this may actually be the moment where you are genuinely coming along to introduce the antagonist what's important here is that it's the first time we really feel the pinch and we really feel the threat so for example here with we've got Bilbo finding the one ring and playing Golem in a game of riddles just after sort of encountering a bunch of trolls it's a moment where you know he realizes like this is quite dangerous what I'm getting into here and maybe I'm a little bit over my head we have uh for best serve cold after an assassination attempt by makato leads to a very chaotic Slaughter at AB Brothel cardo's House of Entertainment from memory with Shivers accidentally killing a ton of innocent bystanders he begins to question his role in mado's Revenge Quest and then for Ned this occurs for him when his investigation into the death of the previous hand of the king starts to put him at odds with the Lannisters and he begins to suspect that there's something unto W that's happening down in King's Landing this brings us to the midpoint Revelation so in a moment of personal Insight usually around the middle of your story your main character is finally beginning to understand the truth of their Ark however they don't fully let go of the lie so the reason I call this the midpoint Revelation is because this is kind of a a moment of epiphany that is going to hit your main character where they question the type of person they are the type of person they were in the past and the type of person they are potentially becoming in the future um in his fantastic book write your novel from the middle James Scott Bell talks about this as a mirror moment and there are many sort of movies and stories in particular where a character will literally be looking into a mirror at this point in the story just trying to figure out like who am I at this point it's often something where your character also shifts from being quite reactive to the events of the plot so up until this point they've just been buffered around by your antagonist or they're just been buffered from spot to spot but it's at this point in the midpoint where they resolve okay I actually need to take charge of my destiny I'm going to be way more proactive from here going forward and often when I'm plotting my story using these nine points here I will go in the order of working for my climax first to my inciting incident and then to my midpoint Revelation as the Third Kind of really big scene to nail from the beginning of my outlining process and again I go over this in more detail in my fantasy outlining boot camp if you want to check that out so if we look at The Hobbit here for example the midpoint moment in this story occurs when Bilbo is all alone by himself in the merkwood forest um he's kind of gotten lost from the dwarves and he has to kill a giant spider all by himself in this moment he sees the truth he sees that he is indeed brave enough to do great Deeds to quote from the book somehow the killing of the giant spider all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the Wizard or the dwarves or anyone else made a great difference to Mr baggin he felt a different person and much fiercer and Bolder in spite of an empty stomach and you can see by the page count here this takes place pretty much smack bang around the 50% Mark of The Hobbit um or at least in my addition of it and it's exactly what I'm talking about here where you see this is a moment of epiphany where he realizes that he is potentially becoming someone else and that he actually can become this other person if we look at best served cold the midpoint moment here is particularly brutal in this story so after Shivers gets his eye burned out during uh torture he kind of reverts back to being very brutally animalistic and violent uh in his behavior to quote from the book Shivers weren't himself or maybe he finally was the pain had turned him mad and he liked it again look at that page count there this is pretty much right in the middle of this story he might have had one eye less than before but he saw things clearer the pain swept away all his doubts his fears his questions his choices his axe had all the answers he needed so at the beginning of the story and remember this is a negative character Arc the character is kind of going through this tragic downfall he wasn't really sure who he was he was trying to be this man of Peace he was trying to come to this new country and start over now in the midpoint he has had this flash of insight and Clarity and he has realized that he is a killer at his core and so his descent into darkness is well under away at this point if we look at a Game of Thrones the midpoint happens where Ned discovers that Joffrey isn't really Robert's son after listening to an argument between his daughters it strengthens his resolve to act against the Lannisters he tries to send his children home um with mixed results and it really makes him realize the true extent of the corruption and uh depravity that he's facing this brings us to story. 6 so more antagonist pressure I really should come up with a catch a name for this one it's the one where the name is is maybe not the strongest um but this is a moment where the protagonist's new understanding of the truth that they developed in the midpoint of your story is challenged by the antagonist really stepping out the intensity of their lie so if we look at The Hobbit this is where Frodo sneaks into the Lonely Mountain to steal treasure from SM the dragon and there's a really interesting moment right before he goes in which I want to read to you from the book so his truth is really tested remember in the midpoint he learned that he can be brave enough to do great Deeds like killing a giant spider but in this moment before he goes in to potentially confront a dragon here's what he thinks in the story at this point Bilbo stopped going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did he fought the real battle in the tunnel alone before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in weight moving on to best serve cold we see this manifested when Shivers keeps continuing to descend into a real amount of bitterness and anger um in his character the in particular there's a scene where he's at this great feast in this grand hall This Magnificent space and he reflects on how this man-made Wonder was the kind of thing he was promised uh and one of the reasons why he was motivated to go to steria in the first place but at this point he just doesn't care he just hates everyone there and he's just grunting and scowling and swearing at all the people around him to quote from the story he jerked his knife from the split wood the knife Monza had given him the first day they met back when he had it in mind to leave killing behind him and be a good man he could hardly remember what that had felt like so he's deep into the LIE now he's just ENT into the tragic Arc that he's going through is even more complete if we look at this moment in a Game of Thrones here it's when the king is lying on his deathbed and Ned is grappling with telling him the truth about his son Joffrey and Joffrey's true parentage to quote from the book Robert Joffrey is not your son he wanted to say but the words would not come the agony was written too plainly across Robert's face he could not hurt him more take care of my children for me Robert said the words twisted in Ned's belly Like a Knife I shall guard your children as if they were my own he said slowly so here we see the immense power of the lie and that a power of the LIE is that you know in a dishonorable World sometimes you kind of need to be bending your Oaths if you want to achieve power so if Ned is breaking his Oaths in this moment and rejecting his truth his commitment to the Oaths that he sworn he could save the realm but he's not willing to do it still we are seeing immense pressure piled upon him um by the lie in this moment this brings us to story moment seven the darkest low at this point this is the most suffering your main character has faced so far and the lie if you're telling a positive change AR has never looked so strong we really worry that the LIE May triumph over your character and to give some examples of this in The Hobbit this is when smug goes on to attack Lake town uh and Bilbo really questions the consequences of Adventure and what he has done here in best serve cold there's a really brilliantly written sex scene between Shivers uh and carlot and it's an interesting scene because you initially think that Shivers and Mado are getting together right after this extremely bloody battle that they've both been through and they're kind of both like very horny after this thing uh it's a really well-written battle scene but what's interesting with this moment here is that it's actually a Twist and what we think is a encounter between Shivers and Mado is actually between Shivers and carlot and then Mado and Juke Rogan so these two totally different scenes that are sort of told in a really parallel um point of view shift back and forth between each other way and what's interesting here is it kind of cements shiver's extreme sort of violence his animalism and it's in this moment where he plans to basically betray makato after spending a lot a lot of the story you know initially sort of falling in love with her in many ways it's in this moment where he is becoming fully uh wrapped up within the lie if we look at a Game of Thrones here this is another good example of this sort of darkest low moment here we have Joffrey on the throne and Little Finger betay PR Ned um Ned is arrested as a traitor he's imprisoned in the Dungeons and so at about the 77% Mark of the story we have this quote the King dies Ned's dark thought and the hand is buried and quite often when you're actually writing this darkest low moment in your own fantasy novel this is like the time when most mentors are going to get killed in a fantasy book this is the moment where you know Obi-Wan dies and he's killed by Darth Vader I think if you are watching through Star Wars and you literally pause it at like the 75% Mark that's an hour 30 into the 2hour movie pretty sure that's around the same time when Obi-Wan is getting killed um so this is typically the moment where if you're a mentor character you want to be careful so this brings us to plot Point number eight the climax so this one's pretty self-explanatory It's the final confrontation between your protagonist and your antagonist what's important here is that either the lie or the truth will die at this point only one of these can survive at this moment so for example in The Hobbit we have Bilbo surviving the Battle of the Five Armies uh in best served Co we had this bloody Siege sequence where Shivers is cheerfully embracing his role as a brutal Savage then attempts to kill Mado and there's a great quote here from the story that expresses this Shivers stood there grinning his metal eyes shining in the halflight his smile widened scars twisting and he stretched his neck out one way then the other you can just see this full monstrous descent that he has gone through here and in a Game of Thrones this is the sequence where Ned confesses to treason in public he's doing this to try to protect his daughters but he ends up having Joffrey order his execution instead and Ned Stark is killed and then lastly this brings us to the final Point uh in this sort of nine-point plot structure here the closing image this is where we see your protagonists living with their new truth and need if they went through a positive change Arc obviously if you're writing a negative Arc you flip it around here and we see them kind of living fully in the throws of the lie and Ty typically a good closing image will merror the opening image of your story as a way to show change and transformation within your character so for The Hobbit for example we have Bilbo returning to the Shire but he was no longer quite respectable to quote from the book he took to writing poetry and visiting the elves and though many shook their heads and touched their foreheads and said poor old baggin and though few believed any of his tales he remained very happy to the end of his days so you can see him here living with his new Truth uh and his new need in best serve cold we have Shivers leaving steria and returning to the north he's basically embra embraced a life of violence and nihilism at this point now which is the LIE um and there's a great exchange between him and Mado towards the end of the story you lost yourself Shivers says M no I found myself might be he lost an eye down here in steria but he was a better man of that Shivers had no doubt a wiser man used to be he was his Own Worst Enemy now he was everyone else's so again he has gained a lot of clarity even as he has gone through this process of kind of losing his soul in a Game of Thrones the closing image here we have Ned Stark's death basically kicking off the war of the five Kings the realm is thrown into chaos and the LIE has quite clearly defeated the truth in this scenario so that was a really detailed look at how to write a great character Arc I hope you find it useful for your own fantasy stories again if you would like to apply to work with me to help on your character arcs directly check out my fantasy outlining boot camp and I will see you in the next video

Channel: Jed Herne

Views: 79,943

Keywords: writing, writing advice, writing craft, story, fantasy, author, jed herne, authortube, booktube, wizards warriors words, self-publish, indie, publishing

Id: wfoV-e7RMRo

Length: 72min 3sec (4323 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2024