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#7: Create Multiple Relationship Arcs to Show Your Character’s Journey in Relation to Those Around Them
Theatrical adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels often eliminate characters in order to shorten, to focus, and/or to interpret the story. Simon Reade’s play Pride and Prejudice eliminates Colonel Fitzwilliam. Kate Hamill’s play Pride and Prejudice eliminates not only Colonel Fitzwilliam, but also Kitty and the Gardiners. Isobel McArthur’s play Pride and Prejudice (sort of) eliminates Colonel Fitzwilliam, but adds a group of named servants: Anne, Clara, Effie, Flo, Maisie, and Tillie. Melissa Leilani Larsen’s adaptation keeps Colonel Fitzwilliam (so if you’re a Colonel fan, this is the one for you); Mrs. Gardiner is maintained as a referenced character but is never seen on stage.
When characters are eliminated in an adaptation, either plot elements must be eliminated or something or someone else must step in to serve the missing role. For instance, in the adaptations that eliminate Colonel Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth must find out through other means that Mr. Darcy separated Jane and Mr. Bingley. (In one adaptation, Darcy himself tells her.)
The chosen cast of characters heavily influences the plot of any novel. Yet characters do more than that:
Each character can help illuminate the main character and their journey for the reader.
In Pride and Prejudice, the main character is Elizabeth Bennet, and the core relationship of the story is with Mr. Darcy, because it is through their relationship that we see most of Elizabeth’s change and growth through the story. Their relationship arc is a definitive component of Elizabeth’s journey.
Elizabeth also experiences relationship arcs with a number of other characters: her relationships with these people progress, develop, change, shift, deepen, weaken, experience betrayal, are challenged, etc.
Characters who have relationship arcs with Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice:
- Jane
- Lydia
- Charlotte Lucas
- Wickham
- Bennet
- Bennet
- Collins
- Lady Catherine de Bourgh
- The Gardiners
There are a number of other characters in the novel whose relationships with Elizabeth don’t change or have an arc over the course of the novel, including:
- Mary
- Kitty
- Phillips
- Anne de Bourgh
- Sir William Lucas
- Lady Lucas
While not all characters need to have a relationship arc with the main character, incorporating multiple relationship arcs in a story makes a richer world and makes the main character seem more complex and nuanced. Relationship arcs show your main character’s journey in relation to those around them.
(Note: There are books with a single character, or just two or three characters, but most books include more. For those books with only a few characters, these relationship arcs tend to be especially important. In short stories it is typically better to only include a handful of characters.)
Exercise 1:
Make a list of people with whom you have interacted with in the last week, either in person or otherwise (phone call, letter, digitally, etc.). Put these people into categories (friends, family, work, school, mortal enemies, acquaintances, salespeople, etc.).
Draw a star next to the three people whose relationships with you have changed or developed the most within the last month or year.
Exercise 2:
Create a list of your favorite supporting characters from books or movies. These should not be main characters, but rather small or medium characters that play a part in the story. For each character you have listed, write down a few attributes that you like about them, as well as details about their relationship with the main character. If you’re willing, share one of these characters in the comments.
Exercise 3:
Option 1: If you are planning out a story, make a chart of character relationships that are important to your main character. This is a standard chart but can be adapted for the type of story you are telling (for example, a mystery novel should have a column titled “suspects”). Some categories may only include one person, while some categories may include a number of individuals.
It is likely that not all of these characters will be in your story, or at least not all of them will play crucial roles in the story. Some of these characters will be main characters, while others will be supporting. Underline the characters who will be most instrumental to the plot, and highlight the characters who will have the most important relationship arcs with the main character.
Option 2: If you are revising a story, use Excel, Google Spreadsheets, or paper and pen to chart your characters over the course of your novel. One way to do this is to put an “X” for every time they are seen in a chapter and an “x” for every time they are mentioned. Another way to do this is to write a brief description of the role each character plays in each chapter. Here’s a sample of what it might look like if I was tracking characters in the first few chapters of Pride and Prejudice.
Once you’ve completed your chart, you can use it to self-diagnose areas where you can improve. For example, if one of your characters is supposed to have an important relationship arc but they are not present for a six-chapter segment, that could be an important thing to incorporate in your revisions.
#6: Use a Character Arc to Make Your Character Change and Grow
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner is a beautiful new novel about how our favorite authors can save us. It made me cry approximately three times—fine, exactly three times—and is a fabulous read. In the novel, the first character we meet is the farmer Adam Berwick, a man broken by loss of family and dreams. The book begins with him in a death-like pose next to the Chawton cemetery, yet over the course of the first chapter he changes and grows.
Adam is challenged by a visitor to the town to read Jane Austen, and he reluctantly agrees. As he reads Pride and Prejudice, he begins to change:
Reading Jane Austen was making him identify with Darcy….It was helping him understand how even someone without much means or agency might demand to be treated. How we can act the fool and no one around us will necessarily clue us in.
He would surely never see the American woman again. But maybe reading Jane Austen could help him gain even a small degree of her contented state.
Maybe reading Austen could give him the key.
The external plot of the story is Adam and others coming together to save Jane Austen’s Chawton home. But each of the characters, including Adam, undergoes internal change and transformation over the course of the novel.
In a novel, the internal journey, or character arc, constantly intersects with the external journey. A character arc is not a straight line of progress. It includes failures and successes, embracing and resisting change. Ultimately though, our characters should learn and grow. (I have the same hope for my children. So far it’s working, except for the fact that my youngest has been coloring on walls for years.)
As you create a character arc, consider how this arc is influenced by:
All of Jane Austen’s completed novels contain excellently crafted character arcs: all of her main characters change, develop, and transform over the course of their stories.
One example of this is Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. In the introduction to the Broadview edition of Northanger Abbey, the scholar Claire Grogran writes about Catherine’s transformation: “Catherine becomes an adept reader not only of texts but also of people and of situations.”
An illustration of Catherine Morland reading.
This illustration, by an unknown artist, was included in the 1833 Bentley Edition of Jane Austen’s Novels.
At first, Catherine is innocent and naïve, which allows her to be manipulated by others, including her friend, Isabella Thorpe, and Isabella’s brother, John Thorpe. Even though John consistently interferes with her desires and other friendships, she does not see him for who she is.
The first time Catherine meets John Thorpe, she is “fearful of hazarding an opinion of [her] own in opposition to that of a self-assured man.” She finds herself constantly frustrated by Thorpe’s speech and behavior, yet she distrusts her own judgment, and does not read anything truly wrong into his character:
These manners did not please Catherine; but he was James’ friend and Isabella’s brother; and her judgment was further brought off by Isabella’s assuring her, when they withdrew to see the new hat, that John thought her the most charming girl in the world.
As their relationship progresses, Catherine consciously makes the decision to not read into his character, to ignore his flaws, and to allow him to override her plans. In this, she is resisting change and development. (Characters often resist change because change is hard.)
Little as Catherine was in the habit of judging for herself, and unfixed as her general notions of what men ought to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt, while she bore with the effusions of his endless conceit, of his being altogether completely agreeable.
Yet because of this, she misses the opportunity to spend time with her friend Miss Tilney, and her brother, Mr. Tilney, who she is romantically interested in. This leads her to conclude that “John Thorpe himself was quite disagreeable.”
A few chapters later, Catherine plans a walk with Miss Tilney, but it happens to be at the same time as an outing that John Thorpe wants Catherine to attend. Jealous and vindictive, Thorpe ignores Catherine’s wishes, goes to Miss Tilney, and cancels Catherine’s walk.
When Catherine learns of this, she takes action in a way that begins her path towards transformation and growth: she decides to trust her own judgement of the people and the situation, and to act decisively. Disregarding all of Isabella’s and John’s entreaties, she declares,
“This will not do. I cannot submit to this. I must run after Miss Tilney directly and set her right.”
Catherine then proceeds to do so. Throughout the rest of the novel, she gains more practice reading people and situations. Sometimes her judgment leads her false (as when Henry finds Catherine in his mother’s room, looking for clues of her supposed murder), but over the course of the novel she does improve in her ability to read situations and she allows this reading to inform and change her behavior.
Exercise 1:
Pick a name for a character, any name.
Now choose one of the following attributes:
- Courage
- Willingness to sacrifice for others
- Ambition
- Persistence
- Resourcefulness
- Thriftiness
- Ability to forgive others
Set a timer for ten minutes, and in that time make a list of the following four events which would create a basic character arc for this character:
- An event which shows that the character does not yet possess this attribute
- An event which shows the character learning this attribute
- An event which shows the character resisting or failing at the implementation of this attribute
- An event which shows that the character has learned to incorporate this attribute into their lives
Exercise 2:
Read a book or watch as movie, and as you do so, take notes on the main character. How do they change over the course of the story? What do they learn and how do they develop? How do they resist change? On a piece of paper, plot out the main points of their character arc. Visually, what type of line or arc would you draw to show their development?
Exercise 3:
Take a story of your own that you are currently writing or revising. Write a 2-3 sentence description of who the character must become by the end of the story. Then write a 2-3 sentence description of who the character is at the start of the story.
Now evaluate your character. A few things to consider:
- There needs to be enough distance between who the character is at the beginning of the story and who the character is at the end. In a novel, this distance will need to be much greater than in a short story.
- The character may have multiple things they need to learn.
- If your story is part of a series, the character needs to change or develop in new ways in each book.
- As the character develops and grows, the goal is not to make them a “perfect” character or eliminate all of the negative attributes that are a core part of their character.
- Often, more than one character has a character arc, and these arcs can intersect with each other, parallel each other, or interfere with each other.