Writing character profiles and brainstorming main characters’ arcs helps establish story direction. A good character arc template includes facts about your characters’ goals, high points and low points. Here are 5 steps to building a dynamic character journey:
Interesting first goals develop out of interesting initial situations. Your opening story situation could be:
A good starting point to use when you create a character arc template is a situation involving big unknowns. We are uncertain what characters’ next steps will be. This uncertainty creates narrative tension. This tension is what distinguishes a dull sequence of unremarkable events from a story.
A character’s first goal springs from desires and goals established early in your story. In the Grimm fairy tale ‘Cinderella’, for example, Cinderella’s desire is to escape the misery of her stepmother’s cruelty and tyranny. Her goal is to attend a ball soon to be held by the region’s prince.
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