Character growth for the masses

There's this whole debate-turned-slapfight over at Wordplayer about character arcs, and recently Mystery Man wrote his own post about the subject, so I was inspired to contemplate my own view of the situation.

First of all, I have a real resistance to anything that qualifies as a hard and fast rule. I don't particularly like authority so when it tells me there is only one way to do something and I must do it or else, I immediately try to find a way to prove authority wrong. And contrary to Mellicamp belief, authority does not alway win.

But that doesn't mean authority is always wrong either, because that would be equally short sighted. So I say, if your script calls for character arcs, knock yourself out. And if it doesn't, knock yourself out with that too.

Just to clarify for the purpose of this discussion and for the noobs out there, a character arc is when a character undergoes a significant change over the course of the story. Neo comes to find that he is THE ONE. Peter comes to realize that he wants to be a construction worker. Luke Skywalker has to realize that he can use the force.

A lot of great stories have character arcs. And personally I use them. Too much, it would seem. Zombie script has an ensemble cast so to build up the story I gave every character a specific motivation.

But then Ex-Boyfriend read my script and suggested that maybe EVERY character didn't need an arc. So I went back in and untied some ends because he was right. Shit was far too tidy. I even had one of those call back lines that are so cheesy, like when a character tells another character to have faith early on in the script and then in the last couple of minutes the character who used to not have faith tells the other one with a big smile, "You just gotta have faith," and I'm barfing all over my script.

But for the most part I like character arcs. I like stories where people change because I find the most interesting times in life the times when people go through big old crazy evolutions.

But that doesn't mean they always have to change. Look at Cyrano de Bergerac (SPOILERS) He starts out the story being a big old cranky badass poet with a big nose who's in love with his cousin but can't ever tell her. He ends up a big old cranky badass poet with a big nose who's in love with his cousin but can't ever tell her.

It happens in a lot of movies. But it's okay, because that's not what makes a story.

What makes a story is a character with a goal. And sometimes he makes his goal, and sometimes he doesn't. Cyrano wanted Roxanne. He didn't get her. So there's still a story there because sometimes the character's failure to get his goal IS the story. Not everybody has to learn something to have a plot work.

But sometimes it's better if they do.