A Kernel on Character Arc
and managing growth with authenticity
Confession: the craft element I am most self-conscious about in my writing is characterization. I am cool as a cucumber when it comes to imagery, dialogue, line-level writing, and plot points. It’s not that I believe I’ve mastered those other things (I don’t think we can ever master writing, we just further develop our relationship to it), but I am confident that with close attention and revision I can execute most elements in ways that best serve a story. But not characterization. It’s common for my editing to turn into hours of listing the ways I feel my characters are inconsistent or inauthentic, then long tortuous days of trying to fix what’s broken without understanding how it’s broken.
I know where this comes from. In my mind, character consistency often feels diametrically opposed to character growth. Maybe this is a sticking point for me because I feel that I myself have a constantly changing emotional landscape, maybe it’s because I’ve never taken a psychology class, maybe it’s because my mind likes formulas yet people are not immutable, but my inkling is that this is not actually a me problem, but a more universal insecurity—how could it not be in a literary environment where books are often lauded for their “character-driven narratives!”
In the past several years, I have attended many seminars and conferences, read a plethora of craft books, and spent a lot of workshops asking my most trusted readers what is wrong with my characters. While I haven’t found an exact formula for creating believable characters, I have developed a system that works for me.
Root events and emotional consistency
In August, I attended a webinar with the literary agent Cece Lyra on writing emotion. Unlike me, Cece loves psychology and one of the many concepts she introduced me to is root events. These are the things that happen to a character, usually in their youth, that have life-long effects on the way they emotionally react. Superhero origin stories tend to have very clear root events. Batman witnessing his parents’ murder leads to his distaste for injustice, his fear of bats and the dark, and his desire for vengeance. But in works of literature, root events are often not seen or are only hinted at (think about the common advice to reduce backstory and flashbacks). Still, understanding root events can give you a clear framework for how your character will feel when things happen.
Since Cece’s webinar, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how root events can help with authenticity in characterization. For my own writing practice, I have established two pre-writing activities based off of root events. As I consider the characters that will exist in a story, I try to understand at least one root event that led to their emotional and psychological make up. That pre-writing activity is a cut-and-dry extrapolation from the webinar.
The second pre-writing activity I complete is “comparing” my character’s emotions when experiencing a situation with other characters and people I know. If we continue on with my Batman example, we know that when Batman witnesses injustice he feels anger, distaste, and condescension (all directly related to his feelings around his parents’ death). Someone else witnessing a crime might feel fear or stupor or delight or any other emotion. This emotional reaction becomes a framework that can be applied across a character’s arc to maintain consistency. When character X is in situation Y, they feel Z.
I think it’s important to note that this emotional reaction can and should be unique to a character. While two characters might have experienced the same root event, they should have different emotional reactions which will continue to affect their emotional landscape throughout their time on the page. But the key is consistency. A character will continue to feel the same feelings when placed in related situations.
Growth and action
Feelings are, in my opinion, out of the control of the person experiencing them. That is to say, a person cannot stop an immediate emotional reaction. This has become one of my editing tools. As I reread a story, I try to pinpoint each event that will induce an emotional reaction from my character and make sure that the character feels the same way they have in the past. But, while my theory holds that a character will experience consistent emotions in similar situations, it does not preclude character growth.
People can control their actions, and the same should be true of characters. For example, Batman became a vigilante, but someone else who witnessed their parents murder, who also feels anger, distaste, and condescension in the face of injustice, might act timid. Batman’s response to injustice is retribution. Someone else might respond to the same feeling with avoidance. This creates a scale on which a character can slide and thus change. Here, my Batman example falls short (or perhaps just my Batman knowledge), but hopefully you can see where I am going. If a ruthless character begins to take mercy on those around them while still feeling the same emotions that trigger their ruthlessness, I’d say that character is growing.
This leads to the piece of character arc that I am most confident in (finally!). And that is this: the events of a story, the plot points, should force a character to make different choices. And those different choices, when coupled with recurrent emotions, signal character growth.
My kernel of advice: Develop a consistent emotional framework, but let your character learn different reactions.
Inspiration, Information, & Insight
Neidy is doing her best to write through a season of change. Since the last Kernel, Neidy has been promoted at work and has begun the process of moving to a new house. As is her tradition, she put up her Christmas tree on November 1st (also known as “Christmas 1st”), and she knows the twinkling lights will inspire her to push through the current draft of her novel-in-progress.
Sarah enjoyed reading How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu for her speculative fiction workshop and was impressed by how he managed to make a collection of linked short stories read almost like a novel. Meanwhile, she’s been drafting and workshopping parts of her own speculative novella, as well as a new short story. She also attended an incredible craft talk by noir novelist William Boyle about writing desperate characters, and enjoyed hearing from her MFA program’s visiting guest author Marian Crotty, whose new collection Near Strangers focuses on queer life in America.
Shelby has been working on two new novel ideas, with one taking primary focus over the other. At first, it was weird for her acclimating to a new story with new characters that were similar yet different from her first novel. But with time, the salve for everything, Shelby got into the groove of writing, of exploration, of digging deep into the protagonist’s emotional heart. She also attended a virtual author chat with Mike Fu for his debut novel, Masquerade, and is excited to read it.
Natalia is out of office.