Character Arc – The Art of the Curve

Photo Credit: Pixabay

There are plenty of ways to screw up a perfectly good story. One of the easiest and most common is to fail to develop or simply rush a character arc. For anyone unfamiliar with or new to writing, one of the most important ingredients to a good story is the character arc. A character starts off one way and over the course of the story, changes. This change provides much of the heart of a tale. Think about Andy Dufresne’s journey from helpless, hopeless, self-absorbed convict to dedicated friend, inspiring inmate leader, and hopeful escape artist in The Shawshank Redemption or naïve but well-meaning Evey in V for Vendetta who grows into a badass revolutionary to help bring down a dictator.

A well-written story takes the time to show the audience how the character evolves. Significant change tends to take time and the audience believes in this change because they see it happen in understandable stages. Michael Corleone doesn’t become The Godfather overnight. He spends decades learning about the violence and manipulation it takes to run the family business before he takes it over from his father.

One of my favorite (least favorite?) examples of a character arc gone wrong is Anakin Skywalker’s journey from innocent droid tinkerer to Sith Lord, Darth Vader. George Lucas is a master at world building but Good God his dialogue lands with a thud. He took three films to show us that arc and I didn’t believe a single minute of it despite going in knowing how it had to turn out thanks to it being a prequel. The events that lead to Anakin’s turn to the dark side are debatably adequate, but the filmmaker, script, and actors just never do them justice.

The latest bad example of character arc that reared its ugly head at me and inspired the writing of this post is most of Season 3 of the Netflix show, Ozark. I loved the first two seasons – intriguing set-up, three dimensional characters, merciless cutting of those characters when the story demanded it... great storytelling. Then I watched Season 3 last week. Multiple main characters were suddenly dramatically different with little to no explanation. Those changes were clearly made in order to tell a new chapter of the story instead of the story driving those characters to change. It’s taken me out of the imaginary world the show created despite the same great premise and acting.

Season 3 improved in the last few episodes but I hope Season 4 (yes, Netflix, make a Season 4!) takes more care in how and why the characters continue to evolve. Ozark is one of the best shows on television right now, but even the greatest stories go awry if writers cut corners on character arc.