Growth

I’m finally at the end of a draft 2 rewrite of one of my books, and something that’s come up a lot has been growth. My main character is a supervillain who’s slowly going to reform over the course of several books, so the little signs of her growth arc at the end of book 1 has been fun to poke at. Coupled with a book that has a lot of really good character arcs, and a few shows that also show interesting change in characters, this is something I want to spend a bit more time thinking about.

Read more: Growth

“Growth” in a character can mean a lot of different things, and it’s not always a positive. Sometimes characters grow by learning to be worse versions of themselves. I personally like a positive change arc, but villain arcs are also a lot of fun. Watching the villain steadily give in to their worse impulses more and more can be really compelling.

From what I’ve seen recently, in my own work and elsewhere, one of the most important parts of a growth arc is the ending. You can sprinkle in a lot of details rather piecemeal, have things progress slowly or quickly, and generally get away with a lot of variation. Not that you want to be disjointed or write a character’s arc at anything less than your best, but there’s a lot of leeway in there.

The ending needs more care. Everything has to culminate or all the attention the reader spent was wasted. Everything that’s been hinted at and used thematically has to come together in the final moments or it’s lame. More accurately, it’s pointless. If nothing happens, you come away from the story feeling dissatisfied. Having a character arc come to fruition is fantastic, even if the results are not what you wanted or entirely expected.

This brings the book Oathbringer (by Brandon Sanderson) to mind. One of the characters in that book has an arc that’s wonderful to read even as he ultimately fails in his journey. The whole book sets up for him to finally take a specific step, and then in the clutch moment, with everything riding on it, he just can’t. But it works, for two reasons. First, his failing is set up throughout. Emotionally he’s not ready yet and the reader knows this. Fortunately, it’s a series and we know he can figure it out in the future, but in this moment he’s not there yet. Second, someone else’s arc is set up to have a major breakthrough at the same time, so the day is still saved and we still get that satisfying moment. It all comes together feeling natural and epic without everyone winning all the time.

I…somewhat lost the plot about this blog post and forgot how I wanted it to go. Which seems directly counter to what I was trying to say, and I find that amusing, so this is how I’m going to end the post.