Need help with Story arcs

Here's a good starting point. Be sure to follow the links throughout and at the bottom.

Story Arc

Are you familiar with Freytag's pyramid? The story arc (or plot arc) is basically the journey through one plot, from initial incident through rising action, climax, and resolution. And yes on the small level it is made of scenes and sequels, they're like the cars of the train or pop-beads making up the strand.

I usually think of a character arc instead of a story arc (but character = story, so they're not necessarily two things).

The protagonist should be different in some way at the end of the book. She grows and learns and changes. At the Black Moment, she will be a different person than she was in the first scene. In some classic structures, the crisis she faces at the Black Moment runs parallel to the initial crisis she faces in the opening scene, and because she's grown in the interim, she can triumph at the end, whereas if she were still the same person she was on page one, she'd have failed at the end.

Which is all very complicated and profound, and I can't always apply that to my stories, but if you keep in mind that the protagonist has to have changed (internally) by the end of the book, and it should be gradual, not a deus ex machina sort of fairy godmother bops her on the head and says "now you're wise," and you'll have the basics in place.

As a concrete example, in a number of romances, the character arc involves either the hero or heroine (or both) starting at a point of being unable to love without reservation, and in the end, he/she has overcome that character flaw and is fully in love and committed to someone who loves him/her in return.

Or look at the Hero's Journey (which I don't begin to understand, but a lot of folks find it helpful), which goes through all the various stages of change, and those would be the steps in the arc.

JD

Diviner said:

I'm not sure what a story arc is. Is it the scene-sequel thing? Or it it something that happens over the whole book? And if it is, how do you go about planning it? And how do you decide about pacing?

All these seem like arcane mysteries to me. Up until now, I have just told a story, but I am beginning to think more about how I tell it.

Any help is appreciated.

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I'm not an expert, so hopefully the experts do chime in, but from what I gather from my shelf of ego-regulating how-2s, story arc sounds more like the storyline over a series of books involving the same character(s), much like episodic TV. The character arc is what I usually hear in regards to one, stand-alone novel, and as mentioned before in this thread, involves the character's journey (God, how I've grown to hate that term). I'm sure the authors on our board will correct me if I'm wrong.

The blueprint for the "journey" is for the character to change for the better (Scrooge) or the worse (Anikin Skywalker) on his own merits after dealing with the rocks that you throw at him over the course of the novel. Sometimes the story is more about the ride than the journey, meaning a character changes little if at all by the end, meaning the plot was paramount. And if the character is dashing or entertaining enough (James Bond), we admire that despite all the trouble he went through, all the threats to make him do wrong, he remains the same person at the end of the story. I don't know of cases where the MC starts out as a baddy, and despite all the rocks, remains a baddy. This "unchanging" character is usually a blueprint reserved for heroic characters like in action/adventure far as I can see (again, think James Bond). But most commonly in other genres (and sometimes in action/adv), the MC reveals a life change in minor or major ways.

The scene/sequel thing, to my knowledge, is more of a pacing strategy, where you provide natural lulls in the action (not forced) for the characters to dwell on what just happened, plan their next move, focus on subplots, and allow them to reveal more of themselves to the reader while the reader catches his breath from all the action; of course, the way the character handles himself during the action is the best way to reveal character, but these lulls allow to reinforce it.

Hope this has helped.

There is no formula. In some ways "story arc" is a buzzword label. The best way I can think of to comprehend how a good "story arc" happens is to read great short stories, a lot of them. Read both carefully and enthusiastically, and you'll begin to catch it in your subconscious, which is probably the place it should reside. Some recommendations from my own experience:

"The Lottery", Shirley Jackson
"The Dwarf", Ray Bradbury (or any of about fifty others)
"A Touch of Nutmeg Makes It", John Collier
"The Wall", Jean-Paul Sartre
"The Open Window", Saki
"Afterward", Edith Wharton
"Flowers for Algernon", Daniel Keyes (the original short story, not the expanded later novelization)
"Wine in the Desert", Max Brand
"Noon Wine", Katherine Anne Porter (a novella, but the story arc concept really applies to it)
"The Nine Billion Names of God", Arthur C. Clarke
"Everything that Rises Must Converge", Flannery O'Connor
"The Man Who Would Be King", Rudyard Kipling
"Silent Snow, Secret Snow", Conrad Aiken
"The Rocking Horse Winner", D. H. Lawrence
"A Rose for Emily", William Faulkner
"The Lagoon", Joseph Conrad
"The Country of the Blind", H. G. Wells

Plus, you'll have a hell of a good time reading.

There will be a test on Thursday.

caw.

blacbird said:

There is no formula. In some ways "story arc" is a buzzword label. The best way I can think of to comprehend how a good "story arc" happens is to read great short stories, a lot of them. Read both carefully and enthusiastically, and you'll begin to catch it in your subconscious, which is probably the place it should reside.

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Agreed. But you have to know what you're looking for. Otherwise, by your definition, every avid reader would automatically translate into a great writer. We all know that's not necessarily true. I think that's why most of us need to read some good how-2s, or listen to the advice of some of our pubbed members on AW. Then, we can read some fine stories and know what to look for. And don't limit it to short stories if you intend on producing a novel. Would you study baseball if you wanted to be a basketball player? They're both sports, and both spew the doctrine of team-play and excellence of position, etc; but obviously, very different sports with very different needs and very different (though sometimes similar) talents.

Sometimes, a "label" or simplistic "formula" is a necessary evil for us to grasp what's going on, and eventually catch on with our own sensibilities. As long as you don't stick strictly to "rules" or "labels" you should be able to write a piece that works but isn't cookie-cutter or cliche.

gp101 said:

And don't limit it to short stories if you intend on producing a novel

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Sorry, I'd been browsing the Short Fiction forum and screwed up in posting here, thinking I was still in it (it's late, etc.). But the principle part of my post still applies, I think. The main point I was trying to make is that it's an error, in my view, to search for a cookbook. An important part of the process is osmosis, absorption without analysis. I think you have to feel how a story works. No amount of analysis or formula will work if you don't do that. And I could make a list of plenty of novels to read, too, but so could most people here.

caw.

Diviner said:

Somehow, I thought a story arc had something to do with pacing, how you decide when to go fast and when to slow things down, and maybe where the climaxes come.

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In a way, it does. You can have small story arcs within larger arcs, and even larger ones throughout a series.

Let's see if I can illustrate this using Lord of the Rings.

Small story arcs: Bilbo's birthday and longing for adventure; the layover with Tom Bombadil; Eowyn's attraction to Aragorn; Gandalf's death and resurrection; Faramir and Boromir's relationship with their nutjob dad.

Large story arcs: getting safely from Hobbiton to Rivendell; Sam and Frodo head into Mordor alone; the battle at Helm's Deep; the battle for Minas Tirith.j

Overall arc: Destroying the One Ring.


The various arcs are things I usually associate with TV and films, because they are easier to see. Look at a series like Buffy, Angel, or The West Wing, and you can see how each episode is a small arc, groups of episodes form large arcs, and by the season finale, one overall arc has been created.

Edited to add what I originally intended to say:

Screenwriting uses a 3-act formula, and that may be what you are thinking of. It's like a Bell curve with a steep drop. At the smallest, left point is the beginning. Then things slope upward. You hit the first inciting incident. Then the mid-point. Climb even higher to the next inciting incident that pushes your protag toward the climax. The actual climax is the highest point on the curve. Once you reach it, there is a steep drop to the denoument and end.

Diviner said:

Let's see if I got this right: Story arcs are a more meaningful description of series writing, like television episodes. Stand alone dramas follow a bell curve.

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When you write it down like that, it sounds a bit silly. But that's how I interpret things.

Diviner said:

Novels may have arcs within them (subplots?) as well as an over all movement, but it doesn't do to get too analytical about this, or put another way, an intuitive approach is best. So why to people talk about them?

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Why?

Because there will always be literary critics. And critics need something to talk about. They need a reason why something didn't work for them, a way to explain it beyond, "It didn't work for me."

Because many beginning writers need a guidebook. Few writers ever picked up a pen and wrote a masterpiece without any instruction. And not just high school-level English. How-To books sell because they break down novel writing into bite-sized chunks, and try to tell us how and why stories work.

But you know what I love and hate the most about writing? Writers will always disagree. People will disagree with what I've said, I'll disagree with what they've said, and someone else will write a How-To book that claims to solve "the Great Mystery of Writing a Bestseller."

Writing is a subjective thing. What works for one writer doesn't work for another. We see it all the time in debates about outlines, structure, pacing, POV, theme, story arcs, subplots, and description.

Sooner or later, you'll figure out what works for you. Good luck.

Some writers approach structure and arcs intuitively, but other writers do them intentionally. And some do a mixture of both -- intuitively in the rough draft and then intentionally in revisions.

JD