Probably the most fascinating challenges of writing a sequence is determining easy methods to create completely different character arcs for a similar character, with out it feeling repetitive or pressured. Whether or not you’re writing a progressive arc that unfolds over a number of books otherwise you’re exploring fully completely different arcs in every installment, the aim is all the time to maintain the character’s journey recent and significant.

Final month I shared a put up about growing completely different character arcs utilizing the Enneagram persona system. Nonetheless, after writing that put up (and its follow-up about easy methods to unite the Enneagram with the archetypal Life Cycle for even deeper character arcs), I spotted I hadn’t fairly bought to the guts of the query that impressed that unique put up, from Zoe Dawson:

What’s your tackle utilizing the Enneagram 9 persona sorts and establishing their Lies in order that it’s not repetitious for every story?

Though Zoe’s query was particularly concerning the Enneagram, the deeper underlying dilemma is one any creator writing a couple of story will finally face: How will you be sure you’re writing diverse and fascinating character arcs—somewhat than simply repeating your self?

This quandary could ring true in quite a lot of completely different eventualities:

• You’re writing a sequence through which every e-book options progressive character arcs that every one tie into a bigger overarching arc.
• You’re writing a sequence that encompasses a thematically new and impartial character arc for every story.
• You’re writing a number of unrelated books and need each to be recent and completely different.

Right now, I need to dig deeper into the massive image of easy methods to assemble Lies the Character Believes, character arcs, and themes that don’t repeat from story to story. This week, we’ll dig into some particular instruments and frameworks that may show you how to form diverse arcs; subsequent week, we’ll discover some common ideas to bear in mind.

To get us began, right here’s an thought I’ve all the time discovered resonant and that may be useful to maintain inmind when looking for to differ your writing:

All of us have one story to inform and we simply go on telling it in numerous methods.

Now, is that explicitly true?

Actually not.

I, for one, have written one novel after one other that’s fully completely different from each other. And but, I do really feel that each story in an creator’s physique of labor should finally level to the deeper truths and themes of the foundational story that’s the creator’s personal life. Regardless of how a lot you might (or could not) change the outer trappings in your story (style, setting, plot focus, and so on.), the underlying thrust and focus will all the time be you.

I don’t see this as a disadvantage. I see it as essentially the most compelling providing each creator brings to their readers. In actual fact, I might counsel you may be most profitable in various your character arcs throughout books as soon as you may understand the thrust of your individual underlying curiosity and intention. For instance, no creator was maybe extra well-known for writing a legion of staggeringly quirky and distinctive characters than Charles Dickens, but even a cursory familiarity along with his tales reveals the underlying cohesion of the creator’s concentrate on social points, notably the plight of town’s poor. As you brainstorm new and completely different character arcs to your tales, it may be worthwhile to begin by first figuring out what really makes them the similar.

In This Article:

6 Progressive Persona and Growth Techniques to Write Completely different Character Arcs for the Similar Character

Let’s begin the place this query is trickiest: How you can write completely different character arcs for a similar character?

One highly effective technique to write completely different character arcs for a similar character is to floor the character’s progress in a bigger developmental framework. Similar to actual folks, characters evolve by recognizable levels—emotionally, psychologically, and even spiritually. Mapping your characters’ journeys to a progressive system can provide a shortcut for creating arcs that really feel each recent and cohesive throughout a sequence.

The next fashions can provide helpful blueprints for monitoring your characters’ interior evolution and persevering with to shift the lens by which they expertise the world.

1. The 5 Foundational Character Arcs

The fundamental “form” of foundational character arcs can, in themselves, information you to resonant variations. These foundational arcs (which I discuss in-depth in my e-book Creating Character Arcs and elsewhere) are:

Heroic Arcs

1. Constructive Change Arc
2. Flat Arc

>>Click on right here to learn extra concerning the Heroic Arcs.

Detrimental Change Arcs

1. Disillusionment
2. Fall
3. Corruption

>>Click on right here to learn extra concerning the Detrimental Arcs.

You possibly can combine and match these arcs from story to story to create vastly diverse experiences. The best method is to watch the pure connections amongst them, particularly between the 2 Heroic Arcs and the three Detrimental Change Arcs, respectively.

The Constructive Change Arc—through which the character overcomes a restricted Lie-based perspective and features a broader Fact-based perspective—leads naturally right into a subsequent Flat Arc—through which the character can stand upon this newly gained Fact to encourage change in others.

Likewise, the Detrimental Arcs will be crafted as half of a bigger cycle. The character would possibly endure a Disillusionment Arc—through which a troublesome new Fact creates a vulnerability which will result in resistance or resentment. This may then simply lead right into a Fall Arc, through which the character bolsters resistance to the Fact by investing in better and better Lies. This simply leads into the nonetheless worse Corruption Arc, through which a personality who as soon as had the chance and benefit of recognizing the Fact as a substitute opts to reject it completely.

2. The Life Cycle of Archetypal Character Arcs

In my e-book Writing Archetypal Character Arcs, I fleshed out the mythic lens of storytelling past simply the Hero’s Journey to discover the total gamut of the human Life Cycle. Every of those six foundational archetypal character arcs naturally leads one into the opposite, making them excellent for a sequence through which you want to discover an ever-maturing character.

These six foundational archetypes are:

1. The Maiden (Individuation)
2. The Hero (Service)
3. The Queen (Management)
4. The King (Sacrifice)
5. The Crone (Give up)
6. The Mage (Transcendence)

Yow will discover much more prospects for variation—whereas adhering to a stable thematic throughline—by additionally exploring the six Flat archetypes and the twelve shadow archetypes that accompany every of the first archetypes.

3. Enneagram Map of Well being

Final month, I provided fairly a couple of new instruments and views for utilizing the Enneagram persona system to develop your character arcs. One notably helpful side I didn’t contact on was the levels of progress inherent to every kind. Of their e-book Persona Sorts, Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson map 9 levels for every kind, starting from wholesome to common to unhealthy. Every of those levels might be fleshed out right into a full character arc with the levels superior in both course, relying on whether or not you needed to finally inform a narrative of a personality who adjustments positively or negatively.

For instance, the 9 levels of Sort Eight (the Challenger) are listed like this (from wholesome to unhealthy):

1. The Magnanimous Coronary heart
2. The Self-Assured Individual
3. The Constructive Chief
4. The Enterprising Adventurer
5. The Dominating Energy Dealer
6. The Confrontational Adversary
7. The Ruthless Outlaw
8. The All-powerful Megalomaniac
9. The Violent Destroyer

4. Spiral Dynamics

Created by Don Beck and Chris Cowan, Spiral Dynamics is a mannequin of human growth that maps how people and societies evolve by more and more advanced worth techniques. Every stage—represented by a colour—displays a selected worldview, from primary survival to tribal loyalty to achievement and past. In character growth, Spiral Dynamics will help you discover how a personality’s core motivations and beliefs shift over time. As they transfer up (or regress down) the spiral, they might undertake new values, query outdated assumptions, or conflict with characters working from completely different levels, all of which may provide wealthy materials for various arcs throughout a sequence.

The presently acknowledged levels or “memes” of the spiral are:

1. Beige (SurvivalSense): Primary survival priorities (e.g., meals, water, shelter, security).
2. Purple (KinSpirits): Tribal loyalty, superstition, custom.
3. Purple (PowerGods): Dominance, ego, energy, and asserting management over others (additionally referred to as the Warlord meme).
4. Blue (TruthForce): Order, guidelines, morality, and obedience to the next goal or authority.
5. Orange (StriveDrive): Achievement, success, science, and rational progress.
6. Inexperienced (HumanBond): Equality, empathy, neighborhood, and consensus-driven values.
7. Yellow (FlexFlow): Integration, techniques pondering, flexibility, and private duty.
8. Turquoise (GlobalView): Holistic consciousness, unity, and religious consciousness.

5. The 4 Levels of Alchemy

Initially developed within the Center Ages as a supposed technique of turning lead into gold, the levels of alchemy are actually acknowledged as a symbolic illustration of … you guessed it, character arcs! (Aka, psychological growth. Potato. Potahto.) A couple of years in the past, I shared a put up exhibiting how the 4 levels of alchemy map completely onto the 4 quarters of story construction and, subsequently, character arc. Nonetheless, you too can select to symbolize every stage as a complete arc of its personal, permitting a four-story cycle to disclose the ultimate alchemy. For that matter, many explorations of alchemy posit many extra levels than simply 4, which may will let you each lengthen and deepen your story arc.

The 4 primary levels of alchemy are:

1. The Nigredo (The Blackening): Descent into darkness, confusion, breakdown, ego loss of life.
2. The Albedo (The Whitening): Purification and readability, recognizing fact, separating from phantasm.
3. The Citrinitas (The Yellowing): Perception, illumination, integration, rising knowledge.
4. The Rubedo (The Reddening): Wholeness, rebirth, remaining transformation into the true self.

6. 4 Levels of Figuring out

Earlier this 12 months, I equally explored how the favored “4 levels of understanding” additionally map neatly onto the 4 quadrants of a narrative’s growth. Simply as with the alchemical course of, you too can stretch these levels to discover every side of the transformation extra deeply in a number of evolving character arcs.

The 4 Levels of Figuring out are:

1. Not Figuring out That You Don’t Know: Unconscious ignorance.
2. Figuring out That You Don’t Know: Aware ignorance.
3. Not Figuring out That You Know: Unconscious competence.
4. Figuring out That You Know: Aware competence.

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All of those frameworks—whether or not psychological, mythic, philosophical, or symbolic—can provide highly effective scaffolding for exploring completely different character arcs for a similar character with out shedding cohesion or authenticity. Not solely can they show you how to keep away from repetition, they’ll additionally assist you in uncovering the deeper throughline of which means that connects your tales to one another—and to you!

Half 2: Subsequent week, we’ll zoom out for a big-picture take a look at some guiding ideas and narrative methods you should utilize to differ your character arcs throughout a number of books or sequence. We’ll discover easy methods to make your arcs really feel intentional and recent with out straying too removed from the guts of what makes your storytelling uniquely yours. Keep tuned!

In Abstract

When writing a number of tales—whether or not inside a sequence or throughout a physique of labor—probably the most highly effective methods to make sure recent and significant character arcs is to root them within the pure evolution of human growth. By drawing on progressive fashions just like the 5 foundational arcs, archetypal Life Cycle, Enneagram progress levels, Spiral Dynamics, and different techniques, you may create nuanced journeys that construct upon each other somewhat than repeat. Recognizing your individual thematic throughline as an creator solely deepens the authenticity of those arcs. Subsequent week, we’ll take a look at broader storytelling ideas that may show you how to differ arcs throughout books, even exterior of progressive techniques.

Key Takeaways

• Repetition in character arcs is a typical problem for writers of sequence or a number of books, however it may be overcome with intention and construction.
• Developmental fashions just like the 5 foundational character arcs or the archetypal Life Cycle can provide a roadmap for evolving your character’s journey meaningfully throughout books.
• The Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics can provide deep persona and value-system frameworks that naturally lend themselves to transformation over time.
• Alchemy and symbolic techniques can add depth and metaphorical resonance to character development.
• Discovering your individual thematic signature as an creator generally is a compass for creating distinctive but unified arcs throughout your physique of labor.

Need Extra?

In case you’re trying to deepen your understanding of character growth and guarantee your solid evolves in significant, thematically resonant methods, my e-book Writing Archetypal Character Arcs gives a robust framework. It explores six foundational arcs—Maiden, Hero, Queen, King, Crone, and Mage—that mirror common patterns of progress and transformation. Whether or not you’re crafting a protagonist’s journey or exploring contrasting arcs for supporting characters, this useful resource will help you weave wealthy, symbolic layers into your storytelling. It’s excellent for anybody wanting to write down dynamic character arcs for various characters throughout a standalone novel or a complete sequence. It’s accessible in paperback, e-book, and audiobook.

Wordplayers, inform me your opinions! How do you method writing completely different character arcs for a similar character in a sequence or throughout a number of books? Inform me within the feedback!

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