Author diary: On figuring out a character arc

This isn't a craft post where I pretend to know what I'm talking about. I don't. But if you don't either, it might be helpful.

I think by writing, so I thought it might be helpful for me (and perhaps you, my writing friend) if I share the messy process of figuring out a character arc I’ve been working on. When you read this, it’ll seem like I did it in 5 mins. I didn’t.

(If you’d prefer to watch a video of this post, I’ve popped one up on my YouTube channel here.)

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Dear Author Diary…

This week I planned to start outlining the third book in my Rescue Quest middle grade adventure series. I’ve got a rough idea of the plot, at least the concept for the plot, but I’ve been struggling to get started because my main character is dead.

Not literally dead, but not really alive enough for me to get inside her head.

Now, that’s not to say I don’t know anything about her. In each book in the series, one of three pre-teen friends takes centre stage - Tom in book one, Lev in book two and now Aarna in book three. Having been a side-kick in the other two books, I feel like I have a handle on Aarna’s personality, but that isn’t enough.

I need to understand more about Aarna’s inner world, what she’s scared of, why she’s even bothering to show up and walk about on the page.

Meet Aarna, Lev and Tom

So I’ve decided to step back from the (self-imposed) pressure to work on the plot, and focus instead on Aarna's background and internal conflict.

I figure the plot will have a role to play in her resolving that conflict, plus as the job of the antagonist (Harrizor the potion student) is to motivate Aarna’s character arc and push her towards change, it should also help me to build out his role in the story.

Aarna’s background story

Here’s what I know so far: Aarna is an 11-year old British Asian girl, she has a younger brother, she joined St Fortis School at the same time as Tom and Lev where they became firm friends; united in their love of Minecraft and hatred of school bully Hunter Graham. She loves building beautiful structures in Minecraft, art, architecture and history.

Aarna's much older cousin is a surgeon, her father is a doctor, her mother is a scientist of some sort related to medicine (her parents met at a conference with a shared health interest).

The family expects Aarna to follow in their footsteps (or at least Aarna believes this to be true at the beginning of the story). Her parents openly reference her cousin's success, and this puts pressure on Aarna. Because she is quite logical, and a type A personality, they expect her to do well in science and maths subjects, but she doesn't enjoy them, preferring art and history.

This leads her to get lower grades in maths and science, and her parents send her to a tutor after school to improve them. Aarna has to work so hard to keep up with all the extra work that she is often tired and irritable. She tells her parents she's going to Tom's house to study when she really wants to lose herself in Minecraft builds to satisfy her love for art and architecture and to forget about the pressure she's feeling.

So far so groovy.

Let’s dig a bit deeper…

Why, I wonder, does Aarna love art so much?

Perhaps an art teacher at school saw something in her work and took an interest, encouraging and praising her for her artistic talent in a way her parents never had. Perhaps she looks up to this teacher as a role model? In this way, art is a symbol of her true self.

What event might show this in action?

Perhaps at a parents’ evening at school, Aarna's parents only have time to see a few teachers and focus on the maths and science ones. Aarna tries to introduce them to her art teacher, who is standing waiting, beaming, looking forward to meeting the parents of her star pupil, but they turn away towards the line for the science teacher, leaving the art teacher looking disappointed. This event leaves Aarna feeling she is disappointing both her parents and her art teacher.

What else is coming into play?

Perhaps she is also scared of blood after witnessing her brother have an accident at home (when he was little) that caused him to bleed on her favourite jumper/dress/blanket. He was fine but cried a lot and it affected her nevertheless. She sees this as another reason why she isn’t destined for medicine.

From school corridors to Minecraft adventures

Clearly, I don’t want to include all this background in the book, but it helps me to understand where she’s coming from and I can create a scene or two based on this information to give her some depth.

Aarna’s inner world

Right, my next step is to work on Aarna’s inner world - her emotional wound, fear and the lie she believes. (I highly recommend The Emotional Wound Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglish for more on this.) And most importantly, how all this might affect her behaviour in the story.

Aarna’s emotional wound could stem from feeling torn between what she loves (art/architecture) and her family's expectations. This wound was brought to the surface in the painful parents' evening moment where she was forced to literally turn her back on her art teacher, a mentor who sees and validates her true self, in favour of meeting her parent’s expectations. Could this represent a deeper pattern of having to hide or diminish parts of herself?

Aarna’s fear (beyond her specific fear of blood) is disappointing her family. She worries embracing her artistic side will mean losing her family's approval and stopping their ‘medical legacy’. This is what motivates her to keep her grades up, even though it makes her unhappy, and to hide her artistic talents.

Aarna’s lie that she believes could be…

"I can only be valuable if I do well in the ways others expect me to. My love of art is self-indulgent and disappointing to my family. I must choose between being who I truly am and who I should be - I cannot be both."

So, in her character arc Aarna needs to learn to find acceptance for who she truly is beyond others’ expectations, to prove to herself (or have proven to her) that creativity and the arts have value and meaning and to reconcile her analytical and artistic sides without having to choose between them.

This feels like a lot for an 11-year-old! But I do feel like I know Aarna a lot better now.

Aarna’s behaviour in the story

I still need to understand how all this could affect Aarna’s behaviour in the story…

• She could overcompensate, becoming a perfectionist in her studies, something her friends notice

• She uses Minecraft as a secret outlet for creative expression so we see her building beautiful structures or admiring them (we’ve already seen her do this in book two)

• She struggles to speak up about her true feelings and desires at home, this could make her melancholy, particularly if there is a specific event in the story that triggers a flashback to the parents’ evening

• She often takes on the role of "problem solver" in the friends’ adventures together as it fits her logical mind and is something she can control

• She exhausts herself trying to maintain multiple external faces, but can be herself with her friends, perhaps we see her being those two different people in the story?

Next steps

So that’s where I am now. My next steps are to look at how Harrizor (the antagonist) or something in the story might kick off Aarna’s need to change, and start outlining some fun adventuring plot points.

I have NO IDEA if rambling this all out on the page has been helpful to you! But I’d love to know how you work out your character arcs and what you’re noodling on right now. Let me know in the comments.

Michelle 💙

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