Designing Effective Character Growth and Change in Audio Drama
All stories are about change. Time in stories can be linear or circular, but change is a given. Inevitably we think about change in terms of character and there are a variety of ways we deal with character change.
Aristotle
Aristotle argued that there were two main forms of change in stories. A character rises (from shame to honor) or falls (from honor to shame). For a long time, in Western culture, this was considered the model for all drama.
Linear Arcs
In recent centuries the idea of the character arc has come into vogue – a literary description of human growth towards maturity.
Two ideas seem to be essential to the growth and tragedy arcs. Firstly, there must be a mismatch between what a character wants and what they ultimately need. Secondly, this mismatch must be created by a significant flaw (or wound) in the character – something that they don’t realize consciously, but which results in a bunch of self-protective behaviors that inhibit growth.
For example, Character A “wants” stability and so seeks to control his/her environment in dysfunctional ways, but “needs” to learn to live in a messy and unpredictable world. In many ways tragedy occurs where the character is so focused on what they want that they never discover and pursue what they need – losing even what they have and coming to ruin in the process. The growth arc is expressed through the discovery (recognition) of what they need and their actions to redirect their desires away from what they “want” to that thing that they “need”.
The typical growth arc is as follows.
- Life before change – a demonstration of the character’s dysfunction in daily life.
- Call to change – an event that demands the character makes a change.
- Resisting change – the character’s initial attempts to avoid making a change.
- Embracing change – the realisation that a change is needed and a refocusing upon that change.
- Testing change – the character’s attempt to be different is given a significant trial.
- Demonstrating change – the character demonstrates they are different through a costly choice.
- Life after change – a demonstration of what the character’s life looks like after the change has been negotiated.
A tragic arc is similar but has some key differences. The first three stages (Life before change, Call to change, and Resisting change) remain more or less the same, but then comes…
- Rejecting change/making a choice – the character makes a conscious choice to not merely resist, but to reject change.
- Testing choice – this choice is tested significantly with negative results.
- Confirmation of choice – the refusal to change comes to a head resulting in a disaster in which everything the character has been struggling to protect is lost.
- Aftermath – a demonstration of the ruin into which the character’s life has fallen after failing to successfully negotiate the needed change.
Circles
Both of these are linear ways of thinking about character change. Western culture has focused on these kinds of stories, primarily, throughout its history. Asian cultures (and most mythologies) tend to think in circular rather than linear terms.
Characters will often cycle from success to failure and back to success or vice versa (shame to honor and back to shame) often repeatedly in a spiral. The much-discussed hero’s journey is a circular pattern of story telling in which “there and back again” is a deliberate choice. I recently completed Liu Cixin’s “Rememberance of Earth’s Past” (Three Body Problem) trilogy and it is, perhaps, one of the clearest examples of the circular/spiral approach that I have seen.
Non-Arcs
Strictly speaking, however, depicting a protagonist who successfully or unsuccessfully navigates change ( or experiences a circle of growth) is not the only way to tell a satisfying story. There is a third type of character arc – better known as the non-arc. In this type of story the character doesn’t change at all. Instead, they impact the characters around them and prove to be a catalyst for change in others. The story of Jesus is one of the most easily recognized. But it exists also in the Paddington films and, as a negative example, the evil Mr. Ripley (and the disaster inflicted on the people who encounter him) springs to mind.
As writers we have a lot of options available to us with respect to the growth and change of our characters. Change is inevitable and these patterns can help us to think through and make the changes that our characters experience feel authentic.
Serials
Serials provide a unique challenge. The characters in a serial “tend” to remain fairly static. Change occurs very slowly, if at all. This is also a legitimate pattern – though, even in serial fiction, character change tends, when used judiciously, to enhance the story telling. Long form storytelling (such as Breaking Bad) tends to pay more attention to character growth and change than episodic shows (such as MacGuyver). The current fashion (of long form story-telling) trends away from static characters in serials, but a static character is still a perfectly legitimate choice for a writer to make.
Mistakes
It’s a commonplace to say that “there are no rules” in storytelling, but some approaches are more effective than others. One approach to character growth that doesn’t work for me is to employ regular character resets. A reset occurs where a character changes and grows through a character arc and then resets so that we watch the character experience the same or a similar change again in the next episode, series, etc. Resetting to negotiate a new character arc based on a new flaw, also tends to feel unsatisfying (unless it grows organically out of the last one). Where they are used at all, character arcs need to feel authentic and grow out of the lived experience of the characters. A character arc for its own sake will feel artificial and unsatisfying to an audience. In a soap opera, characters might make random choices that maximise drama (unsatisfying as this tends to be), but in a more grounded script, character change is a result of good character design.
Character design
Central to the design of a character capable of experiencing growth is a set of five features.
- Desires/goals
- Flaws/wounds
- Traits
- Strategies
- Emotions
A character wants a particular thing but the character’s flaws prevent them from achieving it, or causes them to seek the goal in a dysfunctional and counterproductive way. The character is defined by a series of traits that are expressed in the strategies they pursue to achieve their goals. The character is further revealed by their emotional responses to the events they experience.
For example; Millicent Westenra has inherited a houseboat on the Thames and, because she can’t afford its maintenance, wants to sell it (goal) – unfortunately it is a rust-bucket. She’s a practical, impatient sort (traits), and something of a bully and control freak (flaws). She often attempts to manipulate others (strategies). Her anxieties are expressed in anger and frustration at others (emotions) when she can’t get her own way. This character clearly provides the writer with lots of potential for change, growth, and failure to grow.
The interaction between plot and character
Note that change is a function of conflict and character change is a function, more especially, of internal conflict. The external events that provide obstacles to the achievement of the character’s goals become far more interesting when they trigger or mirror internal conflicts (in which the character is forced to combat their own desires). Internal conflicts arise where the character becomes aware that they want two simultaneously incompatible things. Change occurs as the character gives up one thing in order to embrace something else (sacrificing their sense of safety and control in order to take a risk that allows them to achieve a greater good). The best conflicts are those that challenge the character’s comfortable patterns of life. What we want to design are plot events which force the character to depart from the path of least resistance onto a road of struggle.
Every character has a habitual approach to solving problems. A highly dependent character will, for example, turn to others to solve their problems for them (perhaps a parent). So, as authors, we kill the parent and force them to seek another path. The first instinct of the character may then be to find a replacement for the missing parent figure (the path of least resistance is the path that allows the character to apply their most familiar strategies). So, we close these options off. People refuse to help and turn their backs on the character’s attempts to shift responsibility or find a rescuer. Now the character is forced to decide how badly they want the things they get from the solving of their problems. If the desired “good” is desirable enough the conflict will become internal – they must defeat their desire to shift responsibility to others and take responsibility for themselves. In this way the events of the plot interact with the character’s personality to add extra layers of conflict that improve our experience of stories.
Conclusion
Stories are about change. Events can drive change and so, plot is a significant driver of change and interest within our stories. But change, driven by a character’s internal needs and conflicts, gives us the ability to increase the complexity and satisfaction that our stories create for our audiences. Change arcs are a proven way to accomplish this.
Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2022
