An example of a Tearing Down Change Character would be Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. He starts out saying, “Leave me alone. I don’t want to be bothered.” But then ends up saying, “What can I do to help?” That’s the most typical of Change characters.

A Building Up Change Character has a problem he is trying to desperately keep. Like Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good As It Gets. He’s doing everything he can not to change. But in spite of everything he succumbs. Again, a better example of it is William Munny in Unforgiven.

But it really depends on where you are looking at it from. If you’re looking from the outside, some of them look like they’re building up, some of them look like they’re tearing down. But in reality, if they start out with a problem, its all about tearing down - if they’re a Change character. Why? Because that’s the nature of change.

The process of a Change character is always a spiral - it’s always tearing down. A Steadfast character stays on the path - and is always building up.

But it has more to do with the degree to which the Resolve is boosted or undermined at every Act turn. Sometimes it’s a lot, sometimes it’s a little. Sometimes a story starts out and the problem is there, but it’s so little that it hardly goes noticed. Like Luke in Star Wars. He’s got a problem with testing himself all the time, but he’s not really in that much angst. He just wants to go to the Tashi station to pick some power converters!

Other times, the MC is in such anguish that the problem practically overwhelms them. But over the course of the story it is slowly relieved. Hamlet starts off and he is in a really bad place. But as the story progresses he kind of gets better. He gets OK with things as time goes on, it’s not a straight line, but the tension is relieved. At the end he’s pretty OK with things, but then it all goes to Hell!

So what does this all mean? The Building Up or Tearing Down - the direction - that is dependent on the Resolve. Change is Tearing Down, Steadfast is Building Up. But the acceleration can be different. You can have a Change character who starts out and the first act change is a small one for them. But then as you move through the story the changes get bigger and bigger.

And then you can have another Change character who starts out and the first Act change is huge for them but then reduces over time.

Chris guesses that in general (and if there’s one thing to learn about Dramatica it’s that there are no definite rules - that these are generalities!) Steadfast characters start out with a big changes earlier and smaller changes later. And that for Change characters they start out with more subtle changes in the beginning that build to more overt ones towards the end.

Again, not a rule - but a convention.

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Somewhat related to this article

• Acceleration→

• changing a character’s approach→

• clearing things up - Steadfast character→

• clearing things up - Change character→

• Do Antagonists have Character Arcs?→