Persuading The Character to Arc

Mad Scientist 16
Connections are important whenever you’re working on a manuscript. As I’m going through The Mad Scientist what I’m realizing is the connections I make seem to be different than the ones I made in the first draft.

It’s coming together more now. Like I just realized a message my main character got earlier in the novel wasn’t right. It needed to be more specific because it didn’t really add anything to the later action.

So I went back and changed it and that changed the later section. It made it more real. These connections are so important. Everything has to come out of everything else in an organic way. Everything has to fit together, add to narrative and character.

Mad Scientist 17
I think I’m writing something into my character that is unearned. Not to say I’m stealing, you understand. No theft involved. Just that he hasn’t earned the thing I’m saying he has.

We talk about character arc. Well, I don’t, but I’ve had editors who have—as in, “Brian, this character doesn’t have enough arc.” BUT the character can’t just arc because I want him to. I think it’s right that he should change in the way I have him change in the manuscript, but now what I have to do is go back and, beginning at the beginning, change him so that later changes seem true to his character.

Writing is rewriting and rewriting and rewriting—at least for me. I need all the chances I can get.