Take Off Your Pants!

Who wants the same external goal, but can reveal an opposite or cautionary aspect to the protagonist and to the reader? Whose different approach to attaining the same goal will serve as an “alternate reality” to your main character and to the reader?

In order for a flaw to feel compelling, it has to provide an obvious obstacle to your character’s growth. It has to hold him back in some meaningful way, keeping him trapped in an uncomfortable state.

Story itself is a particular thing—a very specific something that we recognize by instinct.

Therefore, the way to create an arc—the way to invest a reader in your book—is to start with a character that needs some improvement.

Still others found that it sapped their enthusiasm for the book—once they knew all the particulars of the plot, they lost interest in actually writing it.

In the overall story, your character has his external goal. In this chapter, he has a more immediate, less motivating, but still important goal. He believes (and maybe he’s right) that by achieving his in-chapter goal, he’ll get one step closer to achieving his external goal. In each scene within each chapter, he has an even more immediate, but sti

Simply put, a story is a character arc—a personality making a progression from an emotional or psychological Point A to an emotional or psychological Point B. Story is all about internal growth, not external events. It’s a character’s struggle to shed old behaviors or beliefs that have held him back from becoming his “true self”—the person he was a

When you start with a badly flawed character, the arc will be all about correcting that flaw—about your character growing into a better person, the kind of mythic hero archetype he was “meant to be” but couldn’t become until this adventure—the events of your plot—pushed him to change himself for the better.

The very best yardstick for determining a main character is the presence of a serious flaw. Does this character have an inner problem that’s impacting his life or the lives of the people he loves? Then he’s in need of a hero’s journey: let’s give him an outline!