{"id":308,"date":"2011-07-09T13:23:36","date_gmt":"2011-07-09T13:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/?p=308"},"modified":"2024-12-09T18:13:44","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T18:13:44","slug":"character-arcs-are-the-foundation-of-an-engaging-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/character-arcs-are-the-foundation-of-an-engaging-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Character Arcs are the Foundation of an Engaging Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

So what is a character arc, you ask?\u00a0 Sounds complicated.\u00a0 Well, it doesn\u2019t have to be, although a complicated character arc may be just what your screenplay<\/a> needs. A character arc could also be described as a journey that a person goes on during the course of your movie, or the development in their personality they experience or the evolution of an aspect of their persona \u2013 such as emotional, physical or psychological.\u00a0 All of the above are valid character arcs that could help to engage an audience.<\/p>\n

Why does a character need an arc?\u00a0 Well, it may be intentional that your protagonist (hero or heroine) doesn\u2019t, and if so, that\u2019s fine, so long as it is clear that is the case and that the rest of the story and theme support this choice.\u00a0 But more often than not a film will lose an audience if the lead character does not go on some kind of transformational journey.<\/p>\n

Think of Luke Skywalker<\/em> in the first Star Wars<\/em> movie and also in the complete franchise.\u00a0 He starts off as a naive farm boy with foolish hopes of exploring the solar system. He struggles with authority and even the notion of responsibility and \u201cThe Force\u201d. But as the story progresses, obstacles are thrown in his way which he must summon up an inner strength he did not know he had in order to overcome, and by the end of the movie he is living his dream, fighting villains and saving a Princess.\u00a0 That\u2019s his arc.\u00a0 That\u2019s his journey.\u00a0 Without it the movie wouldn\u2019t have been so engaging.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s more, he\u2019s not the only one in the story with an arc \u2013 and that\u2019s a key point.\u00a0 When writing a script<\/a>, don\u2019t make the mistake of focusing all of your attention on the hero\u2019s arc.\u00a0 Sometimes it is equally as important to plan an arc for the antagonist (villain) and supporting characters so that they too read as three-dimensional, real-life characters that have their own lives outside of the movie we see and that they are not simply there to support the hero in his quest.<\/p>\n

To sum up: if you want your audience to truly identify with your protagonist then create a complex journey for them to take. Everybody has hopes, fears, dreams and flaws.\u00a0 Make sure your central character has too.\u00a0 What is their goal?\u00a0 Is it emotional or physical?\u00a0 What do they really want? How will they change throughout the story?\u00a0 What obstacles force them to change?\u00a0 Ask yourself these important questions as the narrative progresses so that each key event of the story not only serves the plot but is intrinsically linked to the overall \u201ctheme\u201d and your central character arc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So what is a character arc, you ask?\u00a0 Sounds complicated.\u00a0 Well, it doesn\u2019t have to be, although a complicated character arc may be just what your screenplay needs. A character arc could also be described as a journey that a person goes on during the course of your movie, or the development in their personality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[120,111,110,116,117,115,121,119,34,12,114,97,118,113,112],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dan-bronzites-script-tips","tag-antagonist","tag-character-arc","tag-characters","tag-darth-vader","tag-hero","tag-luke-skywalker","tag-narrative","tag-protagonist","tag-screenplay","tag-screenplay-writing","tag-star-wars","tag-story","tag-villain","tag-writing-a-script","tag-writing-characters"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}