Another way of understanding how your Main Character feels at the end of the story is to define whether or not they can tell the difference between their real inner problem and the symptoms of that problem.
The Main Character Judgment is another factor in how the MC’s growth develops. The degree of clarity with which the Main Character sees the MC Symptom and Problem is tied to the MC Judgment. Do they end up in a good place or a bad place?
For example, let’s take Hamlet. Hamlet is a Change Main Character. However, it’s not a conscious choice he makes at the end. He starts out with a pretty good sense of where he wants to go, but at the end finds himself changed by the story. Even though the opportunity to see the difference between the Problem and Symptom is right there in front of him, he can’t. He has essentially lost sight of it all.
There is always this teeter totter between making the wrong choice and making the right choice.
The Judgment attenuates the growth of the Main Character (the spiral up or the spiral down). It lets you know, as an Author, what it feels like to be the Main Character in the end.
If the Judgment is Bad things are not as clear as you would like them to be. You can’t distinguish between what is the Problem and what is the Symptom, or what the Solution or Response is. Instead, you have this mish-mash of pieces. Obfuscation describes this state of things perfectly:
to make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand.
The MC can’t help but the take the wrong course - leaving them unresolved.
If the Judgment is Good, clarity is the key. The Main Character can easily tell the difference between Problem and Symptom - granting him the ability to make the right decision.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 andrew // Jun 27, 2005 at 2:54 pm
My question relates to the MC spiral. If I’m dealing with a change character where the outcome is good, doesn’t he end up spiraling downward before he comes back up. As I see it, in the second act, the character is introduced to the solution to his problem (by the actions of those around him), but for one reason or another, at the beginning of the third act (seeing the formula as a four act construct - 30 pages per act) he is back where he was at the beginning and things progressively get worse until at the conclusion of the third act he is forced to either make the change or not. In the fourth act, he then acts accordingly and is either rewarded or punished for this.
My question is this, with the character stopping and starting is the character arc really a smooth progression? In practice it seems like there is always some backsliding (though, the character’s perception of the situation may change) at the beginnning of the third act.
2 Chris Huntley // Jun 28, 2005 at 10:17 am
The progression is usually anything but smooth. A main character’s resolve strengthens and weakens over and over again over the course of the story. He absolutely can backslide or waffle as the story progresses. His character “arc” often looks more like a seismic chart or lie detector test, with one notable difference–the overall trend is toward character growth.
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