CREATING

C--- RACTER

The Masterful Author's Guide

to Uniting Story Structure, Plot,
and Character Development

I<.M. WEILAND
 lntroduction
CAN You STRUCTUR E
CHARACTERS?

W
H AT IF T HER E were a sure-fire seeret to
ereating stunning eharaeter ares? Would you be
interested in diseovering it? 1f you eare about
eonneeting with readers, grabbing their emotions, and ere-
ating stories that will resonate on a level deeper than mere
entertainment, then the answer has to be a resoundingyes/
But here's the thing about eharaeter ares: they're way too
easy to take for granted. On the surfaee, eharaeter ares seem
to boil down to nothing more than a simple three-step pro-
eess:
1. The protagonist starts one way.
2. The protagonist learns sorne lessons throughout the
story.
3. The protagonist ends in a (probably) better place.
That's eharaeter are in a nutshell. Easy-peasy, lemon
squeezy. What's to learn? Turns out: a iot.

THE LINK BETWEEN CHARACT ER ARCS ANO

5TORY 5TRUCTURE

Too often, eharaeter and plot are viewed as separate entities-

to the point that we often· pit them against eac.h other, trying
16 K.M . WE ILAND
to determine which is more irnportant. But nothing could be
further from the truth. Elot and character are integral to one.
anóti{er. Remove either one from the equation (or even just
try to approach them as if they were independent of one an-
o ther), and you risk creating a story that may have awesome
parts, but which will not be an awesome whole.
We often think of plot as being about structure, but our
notions of character and character are tend toward the more
airy-fairy. Surely, character are is something that must evolve
o rganically from the characters themselves. Surely, we can't
strueture our character ares without making them farmulaic or
robbing them of life and spontaneity.
Surely, right?
Wrong, accually. When we say plot and character are integral
to o ne another, what we're really saying is that plot strueture and
character are are integral to one another. In his classic guide
Story, Robert McKee says:
We cannot ask which is mure impo rtant, structure or character,
because strucrure is character; character is structure. They're the
sam e thing, and therefore o ne cannot be mo re impo rtant than
the other.
lf yo u're familiar with the basics o f story structure (such as
l talk about in my book Strueturing Your N ove~, then you can
probably already see sorne of this structuring o f character are
in action. The Majar Plot Points all revolve around the char-
acte r's actions and reactions. As Michael Hauge says in Writing
Screenplqys That Sel/:
The three acts o f the lstory] correspond to the three stages of
thc hero's o uter mo tivatio n. Each change in the hero's motivation
signals the arrival o f the_next act.
The character drives the plot, and the plot molds the charac-
ter's are. They cannot work independently.
THE LINK B ETWEE N CHARACTER AND THEME
But it gets better! Not only <loes character are directly influence sto-
ry structure, it is also a direct influence on theme. In sorne respects,
CREA1 IN G C HARAC1 ER ARCS I 17
we might even go so far as to say that eharaeter are = theme.
On even the surface leve!, the discovery of the integrality
of these three most important of all story elements is thrilling.
None o f them lives in a vacuum. They are ali symbiotic.
This makes the creation of all three both a lfrtle more com-
plicated and, at the same time, a whole lot easier. lt's more
complicated far the obvious reason that we have three times as
many story elements to keep track o f at once. But it simplifies
the overall process by rolling all three into a cohesive whole.
Once you understand how plot, character, and theme all work
together, chances are good that, if you get one of them right,
you'll get all three right.
THE THREE BASIC CHA RACTE R ARCS
Although the possibilities far character development are
as endless as the vagaries of human nature, we can narrow
character ares clown to three basic types, with a few primary
variations upon each:
The Positive Cha0.9 e Are
This is the most popular and often the most resonant character
are. The protagonist will start out with varying levels of per-
sonal unfulfillment and denial. Over the course of the story,
he will be farced to challenge his beliefs about himself and
the world, unti1 finally he conquers his inner demons (and, as a
result, probably his outer antagonists as well) and ends his are
having changed in a positive way.
The..Flat A re
Many popular stories feature characters who are already es-
sentially complete unto themselves. They're already heroes
and don't require any noticeable personal growth to gain the
inner strength to defeat the externa! antagonists. These char-
acters experience little to no change over the course of the
story, making their ares static or "flat." These characters are the
 18 1 K .M . W EIL A ND
cataf)'SIJ for ehange in the story world around them, sparking
prominenc growth ares in the minar characters.

The Neg,ativ..e.. .Change_Arc

Negarive Change Ares offer, arguably, more variarions than ei-
ther of the other ares. However, at their most basic leve!, the
Negarive Change Are is just a Posirive Change Are flipped on
its head. Instead of a charaecer who grows out of his faults
inca a better person, the Negarive Change Are presents a char-
aecer who ends in a worse state than that in which he began
the story.
Because the Posirive Change Are is both the most compli-
cated of the chree ares and the most integral to understanding
the o ther two ares, we'll be spending the largest secrion of the
book discussing the intricacies of how to evolve your character
in a posirive way.
How sho uld yo u create your characters' ares? Where do you
find their fo undarion? How do the impo rtant moments in story
strueture affeet (and are affected by) the impo rtant moments
in charaeter are? In short, how does character are work? And
how can you crack the code and creare a srunning character are
in every single story? Read on to find o ut!