Building a Theme through Character Arcs
![Chalkboard with text: Theme: What Lesson Have You Learned?](https://jamigold.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Chalkboard2.jpg)
Several interesting conversations grew out of my post on themes and how they relate to our worldview. So many of us have struggled with themes on some level that I wanted to share more about how we can develop them through our characters.
Last time we discussed how it’s difficult for us to write stories with themes opposite our core beliefs. We’re more likely to create stories where the point—the theme—is in line with our worldview.
On the other hand, our characters often hold opposite beliefs. That’s not surprising when it comes to our villains. After all, we call them the “bad guy” for a reason.
However, our protagonists might have beliefs opposite to ours as well. At least at the start. And their story journey is often where our theme lies.
(Note: I hope I can keep this blog post quick. This weekend, I’m going to my first in-person writing conference in almost two years, and I need to allow time for my inevitable panic attack. Wish me luck—on both counts. *grin*)
A Character’s Journey Starts with a False Belief
I’ve written before about how our characters’ inner journeys take them from (as Michael Hauge says) “living in fear to living courageously.” That emotional journey—where they overcome the false belief behind their fear—is their character arc.
As I stated in that post:
“Readers will pick up on these false beliefs primarily through characters’ point of view/worldview…”
Did you catch that? Our characters’ worldviews often include what we would consider false beliefs.
Maybe they believe all women are cheaters or all men are liars. Maybe they believe love isn’t possible. Maybe they believe an ethnic group is inferior. Obviously if we, as the author, label that as a false belief, that strongly implies our worldview is opposite.
A Character’s Journey includes a Lesson
The characters’ arc is about them learning their belief isn’t true. (In other words, they learn that their author is right. *smile*) By the story’s climax, they reject their former belief, often stating how much they now know better.
In some stories, this lesson might be minor or very specific. (“This person is good, but I still don’t trust anyone else.”) But in other stories, the characters learn something major enough that their worldview changes. When that happens, unless we’re the type who can write themes opposite our worldview, the characters’ worldview will align closer to ours.
For example, in my stories, characters who don’t believe in the potential of love will likely change to believe in love by the end of the story (sometimes this even happens with the villains). That’s where our theme lies.
The Lesson Is a Theme
The emotional journey—specifically where a character’s arc ends—affects story themes. What characters learn is often one of the main things (if not the main thing) we want readers to take away from our story.
Our theme is essentially trying to convince readers to consider another view of the world: what to value, what to believe, what to aim for, etc. And we make our case by presenting a character who learns the lesson for them.
So if we’re ever not sure what themes our story includes, we can usually find at least one of them by asking ourselves:
What does the character learn by the end of the story?
If we show a character who’s miserable when they believe people are awful and they learn that others can help them become happy and fulfilled, the reader learns right along with the character. The theme would be the lesson: Humanity has the potential to be helpful (and good).
Tip: Strengthen the Theme by Strengthening the Lesson
This technique for discovering our story’s theme through the lesson also hints at two ways we can strengthen that theme.
- We can use the antagonist to create more “evidence” related to the new belief. Sometimes the antagonist is the antagonist simply because they don’t learn the lesson, and their failure can demonstrate the perils of the false belief. Other times the villain can find redemption by learning the lesson too, which bolsters the protagonist’s experience. Either possibility reinforces the theme.
- We can be clear about our characters’ motivations at the end of the story to show how they’ve changed after learning the lesson.
To expand on that second bullet point, we could have our character do abc because they’ve learned xyz (something that ties in to the theme). That “because” is the trick.
“Because” ties the actions of their new self to the lessons of the theme with a clear motivation. We’ll often see this motivation in the character’s conscious thoughts or words spoken aloud (many times as they’re disputing the antagonist’s point of view). Those character thoughts and words show that the character learned their lesson, and they directly express the theme.
Whether we’re using the antagonist or stating the protagonist’s motivations clearly, we can emphasize the lesson of the theme. These techniques strengthen the sense of the character arc and give additional “evidence” for the new belief. Ta-da! A stronger theme inserted into the mind of the reader. *smile*
Do your characters sometimes start with beliefs opposite to yours? If so, do they end up closer to your worldview? Do you agree with this “the lesson equals the theme” idea? Can you think of exceptions? Can you think of other ways to strengthen theme by focusing on what the characters learn?
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There are a fair number of things I’m, well, ambivalent on—or, at least, that I can see how/why people believe different from what I do. And I therefore willingly write characters who disagree with me and always will. (It’s the Crime and Punishment approach—toss everything in without bias, insofar as you’re able to do so, and let the reader decide for themselves.)
For example, if you perceive marriage as a legal institution, it’ll look quite different from if you perceive it as a religious institution—and it’ll look different from either if you conflate the two, as well.
My Chronicles of Marsdenfel in particular has all sorts of relationships, including a slave concubine who willingly sold herself to her master. That’s something I disagree with, for multiple reasons, but that character pretty much can’t agree with me. Her world’s too different. (Religion’s another factor.)
Unfortunately, I’m a microeditor, not a macroeditor. I don’t really think in terms of themes, so I don’t have much else to add to this discussion. 🙂
Hi Carradee,
LOL! Yes, this is definitely some big-picture stuff. 🙂
That’s a good point about how some stories include characters who will always disagree with us. Sometimes that’s because their world is so different that their worldview makes sense for them and they have no reason to change. Or sometimes series–especially in certain genres–fight changing the characters so much that the series takes on an episodic feel.
However, if the character doesn’t change at all, that means they don’t contribute to the theme. There’s nothing wrong with that. Theme can come from other sources as well–including secondary characters or the villain (what doesn’t work for them?). I’m just clarifying that for this purpose of theme, we’re focusing on the characters who do change in some way.
Even in your example, we could look closer and see if your character changed to become more self-directed or insightful about her situation. Either of those could be subtle changes closer to your ideal. 😉 Thanks for the comment!
A change in belief is a theme, then?
Hi Carradee, Great question! There are exceptions for everything, but in general, we express theme through story and character arcs–how things change (or how they attempt to change but fail). So a change in belief alone wouldn’t necessarily create a theme, but it would if story “evidence” (a change in belief caused change in actions that led to success, story events drove the change, other characters supported the change, etc.) backed up that belief. That’s one reason it’s really easy to have unintended themes. For example on the character side, if a character changes from believing that love isn’t strong enough to overcome their situation to believing that love can overcome–and that’s backed up with story evidence that the belief is true–that creates the theme “love is powerful.” However, if the story evidence points to the opposite (i.e., they still fail even with their new attitude), then the theme becomes “love isn’t enough” or something along those lines. Alicia Rasley has a really good article on themes and how they develop out of events. She points out that if a romance heroine wins over a romance hero because she’s so sweet and innocent, what theme does that create? Sweet innocence is important for love. Well, that’s going to be a problem a couple of years into their marriage. LOL! Ditto for a hero who’s incompetent but “wins” anyway. Failure is the route to success? So having story evidence to back up the belief is also really important to make this… — Read More »
A great answer, Jami. I agree about the romance hero/heroine. Taking a broader view, I enjoy a series that allows for growth, for character evolution (also possible in a single book, of course). So, perhaps the heroine wins the day because she employs the sweet innocence that’s not working for her two years down the road. Now there’s a new story as she learns to shed her innocence and save the day again. Further along she becomes cynical and must recapture some of the wonder she possessed when she was more innocent, and so on. The end result is a multiple book theme that stresses we should always strive to grow and evolve.
Hi Christina,
That’s a great example of how to make a love story continue to work over several books! And as you said, in that case each book might have their themes, but an overall theme grows out of the series too: Growth is important for long-term success. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
🙂
Ah! That makes sense, thanks. 🙂
I’ve been able to describe that happening—a character and setting arc conflicting to change a theme—but not on that level. Thank you. 🙂
Hi Carradee,
Thank YOU for the great question! Most writers know that theme grows out of the subtext of what happens in a story, so that makes it hard for them to know what the events of their story add up to.
Your question got me to explain it to myself as: story events (evidence) create the building blocks of theme and the character belief/arc is often the lens through which to interpret those events. I’m not sure if that helps at all, but there you go. 🙂 Thanks again for the great question!
Great stuff, Jami! Your posts on Hauge’s presentations were perfectly timed for me–I’d already pitched a class on character arcs to a conference, which then got picked up, and snowballed into a whole book on the subject. So I’m always partial to character arc posts 😉
With all your interesting insights into worldview, I keep thinking of how Alicia Rasley has said worldview influences voice. … I suppose we need a reference for this, eh? Here we go http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/2009/05/voice-thoughts-world-view.html
Hi Jordan,
Yes! Thank you for sharing that link! I knew Alicia had written about worldview, but I couldn’t remember enough to search for the post. 🙂
I think her points are spot on–if a character has a paranoid worldview, they will have a different voice (word choice, etc.) from someone with an optimistic worldview. Our character’s worldview affects so much of the story that just as it’s good to be aware of our beliefs, it’s good to be conscious of our characters’ worldviews too. Through that we can nail their voice, personality, choices, etc.
For me, as a pantser, I might not have a clue about a character when I start, but I often have some idea of their worldview (or I learn that fairly quickly through their voice), and that insight helps me build the rest of the character while drafting. Thanks for the comment and for sharing that link! 😀
This was such a great post, Jami. I find that I write several views that work together (so perhaps they’re elements of one view?). One is that everyone’s contribution is important (so characters start off believing they aren’t important). Another is that we can accomplish more together than apart (thus differences must be overcome). The last one (I think) is similar to yours concerning love, the idea that when we open ourselves to the world and our emotions we find the benefits are far greater than giving into fear and hiding from the world. These views flow naturally for me, but recognizing them makes it easier to weave them through the story and integrate them in my writing approach.
Hi Christina,
Great job at recognizing the themes that work for you! Yes, those sound like fantastic themes to explore in stories.
Many times the “brokenness” our characters suffer from at the beginning of a story is not believing in the sense of potential: love’s potential, humanity’s potential, self-potential, etc. Martha Alderson talks about that “loss of potential” idea a lot in her workshops. Your themes fit right in with your characters “fixing” themselves by recognizing that potential again. Very cool! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
You’re welcome. I enjoyed the post. 🙂
I love this blog post. 🙂 When I build a protagonist I ask myself early on “What’s this character willing to do in the end that she wasn’t willing to do in the beginning? What triggered that change?” And usually those answers give me a clearer vision of my protagonist’s journey. Before those questions, I tended to spend too much time fussing on other character details and not getting to the heart of it. LOL!
Hi Stacy,
Yes! That’s a great way to put it, and I think I’ve heard Martha Alderson (the “plot whisperer”) word it that way too. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
“Sometimes the antagonist is the antagonist simply because they don’t learn the lesson…”
I’d really been struggling with my antagonist. Why was he doing what he was doing? When I read that sentence in this blog post, suddenly it hit me. He was struggling with the same issue as my protagonist, but while she changed, he didn’t. I had set that up subconsciously, but it wasn’t until I read this post that I was able to understand it, and now that I get it, I can work it. Thanks so much!
Brook
Hi Brook,
Wonderful! I’m so glad you found a way to get to the heart of your characters. I’m happy to help! 🙂 Thanks for comment and good luck!
I love the way you explain things. Half the time you’re writing about things I’ve already heard, but which didn’t make any sense until I read your posts. You must translate into my brand of crazy. 😉
Oh, and this is an UBER short Jami post. Normally, I’m like, alright, a Jami post. Sit down and prepare to think hard for a while. 😉 I got kind of scared when it ended so fast.
Hi Daphne,
LOL! I love that: “…translate into my brand of crazy.” I’m glad my brand of crazy makes sense to you. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
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