How It Begins…
It always starts with a character arc.
No, I suppose all my novels start with a death, plot-wise.
Within the first one or two chapters:
One of the POV characters’ father figure dies under suspicious circumstances in The Acolyte’s Heresy.
One of the POV characters discovers the other POV character killed in Forbidden Ember.
An unlucky lady-in-waiting is killed during an assassination attempt against the princess, triggering the events of Rissa Must Die.
It always starts with a death, plot-wise, and always the character arc, plotting-wise.
Before any other plot element, I need to know how the POV characters are transforming. Because the plot is how the character is forced to transform. Once I hone in on that arc of transformation, really, the climax scene, then I build the rest of the story around getting my POV characters to that point.*
I don’t write the climax scene first, though it is one of the scenes that gets revised the most. The Acolyte’s Heresy was the least plotted out when I started writing, and I was jumping around between scenes; I wrote the climax scene midway through so I wouldn’t lose sight of where Serena and Kara needed to end up. I plotted Rissa Must Die more, but similarly, I wrote the first draft of the climax scene midway through to remind myself where Rissa and Rhenise’s arcs end. Forbidden Ember was very thoroughly plotted out, and I only wrote the climax scene when I was close to the end of the first draft, when I needed to figure out the logistics of how to get Therise and Anisha where they needed to be for the final chapters.
Once I have the climax scene, then I know where* my POV characters must be at the start the story: somewhere sufficiently far away from that end point* that the journey will be exciting and challenging. (*Not a physical location in my fantasy world, but their worldview.)
The funny thing is I never intended to write dual POV novels. It’s just that to make a satisfying character arc where the character ends up with a positive quality, they have to start with a dramatic lack of that positive quality or a negative version of that quality… As the author, I love all my characters, and I have so much empathy for where they start (and preemptive admiration of how much they will change), but this made my POV character difficult to like in the beginning. I started to worry about people putting down my novels because of that. So, I introduced another character who would be easier to root for. They still have a character arc, a transformation, but their original lack of positive traits or negative traits is more subtle. Can you tell which of the POV characters is which in each novel?
I also work very hard to incorporate a twist in my character arc, especially because I read more and more, I realize they start to become quite predictable. Of course, it is about the journey; as a reader, you want to come along on the ride with my characters even if you know where they end up because the journey is so enjoyable. But I also want to surprise you. I try to do what Brandon Sanderson describes in his writing lecture series (for the life of me, I could not find it, so I will butcher it): if you promise your child socks for Christmas, and give them a toy car, then even though they thought they wanted socks, but now that they have the car, they are like “Yeah! That is what I always really wanted!” I try to do that with my character arcs where I can. But it’s a tough challenge, and some of my POV characters have a more “predictable” character arc, though it does not make me love them any less. But the journey is still, hopefully, an unforgettable one.
What is the best character arc that you have read (or watched) and what did you like about it? Fruitsbasket blows my mind with how incredibly well Natsuki Takaya handled taking so many characters on such different and transformative journeys. I also love Lelouch and Suzuka’s arcs from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. Drop your answers in the comments!
