Developing Character Arcs

Rebecca King: Welcome, you’re listening to a 2021 WriteOnCon podcast. This is Rebecca King from the WriteOnCon team and I am honored and amazed to be here today with YA fantasy phenom J. Elle. She’s an in demand author here to share her strategies on developing character arcs. J. Elle, thank you for joining me.

J. Elle: Thank you for having me.

Rebecca King: For those of you who may not know, J. Elle is technically in her debut year, but she is already the author of one published and three soon to be released, all highly anticipated novels. Her debut Wings of Ebony sold in a six figure preempt. It’s the story of a Black girl from a poor neighborhood who learns she’s magical. J. Elle, can you set the stage for us? How much of the character arc is helpful to know before you start writing?

J. Elle: So that’s a great question, and what’s funny is that what’s helpful is not always what I do. It just depends on like time. I honestly think now my process has evolved a lot since I wrote Wings of Ebony. So I’ll kind of answer that question twofold. I personally think at this point, it’s a great idea to have a clear picture of what you want your character to learn, at least in broad strokes, over the course of the book, because it informs the direction of the plot and the type of plot events that you’re going to map out. You don’t necessarily have to do that, but I personally find it more efficient that way.

Now if I’m pantsing a novel because I want to explore the world building, or I’m not really sure how the magic is going to play out, and I really need to just explore it on the page, then sometimes, I will just kind of go in with an idea of like my character’s past experiences, the way they see the world, but not fully understand which part of them that I want them to grow, like what area I want them to grow in. And so sometimes I need to do some exploratory drafting to figure that out. But that generally requires a lot of time and often a lot of rewriting. And so, if a writer has that sort of time and space to explore, which is very much what I did with Rue in Wings of Ebony, then go for it. But if you don’t and you’re on deadline, then having it figured out beforehand is going to save you a lot of time.

Rebecca King: Okay. So can you talk a little bit about the relationship between character arc and plot in your recently released novel Wings of Ebony?

J. Elle: Yes, I’m gonna try to do this spoiler free. But, essentially, you know when you have Rue, the protagonist of Wings of Ebony, in the beginning of the book – gosh, this is going to be hard to do spoiler free. Okay, I will speak in more broad strokes, but essentially I wanted to give Rue experiences that would challenge the way that she sees the world. But more so challenge the way that she sees herself fitting in that world. And I loved leaning into the fantasy genre for this, because I wanted to give her power, literally and you know metaphorically, and so I was really able to bring that to the page with magic. And so I specifically thought about experiences that that she had gone through in her past, which sort of set the framework for how she sees the world, the things that she cares about.

And then I began to consider what would it take for her to look in the mirror and see XYZ, which is very, very, very much a spoiler so I won’t say it.  But XYZ is who or what Rue is at the end of the book, and I wanted to understand, okay what is it going to take to get her to that point. And so I had to map out specific events that would challenge her understanding of who she is and what she’s capable of. And she would incrementally grow as she goes through each parts of the plot, until she got sort of to a certain point where she could look in the mirror and see what I wanted her to see, and then act on that new understanding of who she is and what she’s capable of.

Rebecca King: So do you feel then like using fantasy allowed you have to have her arc further, or was it that you used it to externalize the arc?

J. Elle: That’s a great question. I actually loved the idea to – I loved using fantasy because I deal with some weightier topics in my book thematically. And I handle them pretty head on, that’s just kind of my style. But fantasy makes it feel one step removed. And I think that that’s important, because I am handling things that can be very triggering or potentially traumatic for depending on who the reader is. And it was certainly hard to write, it’s just a very deep emotional story and it’s very rooted. And so I wanted to give the reader the ability to sort of not view it as completely realistic fiction. Because if they see it and they go into it as like a fantasy world or fantasy fictional experience, I think, at least for me, it allows me to sometimes process more difficult things in a more digestible way.

So that was actually why I wanted to lean into the fantasy world in this way. And I do think that doing that helped me develop – I think that the magic allowed me to develop her internal arc even stronger. I mean it’s hard to say because I didn’t really consider writing the story contemporary, so I would have to sit down and map out like how would I do that the same way. But I love this idea of like limitless power and potential which is metaphorically very much what my story is about, a message to young Black readers. And that just like glitters with magic to me, like, if you look up limitless power in the dictionary, next to it you will see glitter and magic. It just felt like very obviously fantasy.

Rebecca King: Okay. So you talked about the difference between having space to write your first novel and then being on deadline, and how your process has changed. So tell us a little bit about the process that you’ve developed, so that for those of us that kind of can’t get through the process on our own, we can maybe have a map.

J. Elle: To develop character arcs. Okay, so I’m going to give you – if you’re listening, I want you to write this down: my critique partner, her name is Emily Golden, and she was not a professional editor when she became my critique partner. And after doing a couple passes on Wings of Ebony with her, I was like you do realize that you’re basically an editor. And she was like, nah ah, and I was like no seriously. This is the work I’ve done with an editor, this is the work I’ve done with you, like you have that eye. I believe editors have – it’s their magic right. It’s the way that they can see stories and they have this ability to help stories just really reach their fullest potential. And Emily has that magic and friends, she is now an editor, so. She has a bunch of free resources on her website. So write down Golden May Editing, I want to say that’s the name of it, if that’s not the name of it, please just go stalk her on Twitter and tell her I sent you. Emily Golden is her name and she’s fantastic. But she has a lot of free tools on her website, and they are absolutely just priceless. Like, it is incredibly rich resources that can literally help you map out your character and your plots side by side, just brilliant things.

I use a lot of Emily’s resources, but before I met Emily, my process was actually very similar, I just hadn’t like mapped it out into a chart the way she has so neatly organized it on her site. And I like to start with sort of what the message of my story is, what’s the point. I like character driven stories, so I like to start with like who is my character at the beginning of the story, who do I want them to be at the end. Usually  when I get a story idea, I have an idea of one of the major plot points. It’s either the inciting incident, like the hook of the story, the midpoint, or like the darkest moment, like the 75% point in the book when the character feels like they can’t go on anymore and then it’s like their last try before the end. And if those plot points don’t sound familiar, I’m referencing Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat beats. So if you haven’t heard of Jessica Brody or Save the Cat, it will change your life. So write that down too, Save the Cat Writes a Novel. I really hope I’m not butchering the name of that book but it’s very popular, very widely used. And I usually start with some idea of here’s the hook of the story, here’s a loose idea of what I want the story to be about thematically.

And then from there, it’s just a matter of figuring out like why the character is not aware that they need to grow. When do they become aware that they need to grow. How do they deal with that first awareness. So that’s sort of like the 25% mark to the 50% mark of my story. I outline very methodically, I’m not sure if that’s coming through, but I picture my stories in like little chunks of the book. And so after that I think about once they realize a change they need to go through, like first of all what is the midpoint event that causes them to realize what they need to do or causes them to realize that they need to chase their goals differently. And at that point, I work on – you know I have to decide if it’s going to be a false victory or if it’s going to build up to a false defeat, and so I have to decide okay, what is going to be sort of their last bit of trajectory to learn the final lesson that they want to learn.

And then the last thing I figure out is, how do they act on that change. So once they have made that, they turn the corner, they realize what I wanted – how do they demonstrate that in a scene. Because you don’t want to just tell it, you know, we want to show it on the page, right. And so the end of the story is them acting on that new belief or acting on that change, that paradigm shift. So, you have a very distinctly different person at the end of the book than you did at the beginning.

Rebecca King: So digging into that a little deeper. Can you talk to us a little bit about the line level story craft that you use to signal the character’s change to the reader. And how does that differ, if it does, if it’s a non POV character because obviously, given the POV character we at least have interiority, they can at least think about whatever’s happening. But can you speak a little bit about what are the actual words on the page that we’re getting in there, what are we doing with the words to show the change?

J. Elle: Yeah, and I mean some of this is gonna differ, you know, by writer. Like writers have different styles and just approaches to the way that they do things. So this is not by any means hard and fast, but I like to, for my main – my point of view character in particular, I like to use interiority to cue the reader on how to feel about a particular situation. And then I like to specifically chart those changes over the course of the novel. So once I finish the first draft, I will go in and say, you know, this is how they responded here, this is how they felt about this here. And then, we see the incremental change a few chapters later, a few chapters later, a few chapters later, to make sure that it’s growing at a consistent or not necessarily consistent pace but that it’s growing incrementally and that the growth and the change in how the character’s feeling is being prompted by something happening in the story. So they shouldn’t just be changing their feelings because it’s Wednesday and not Tuesday. They should be changing their feelings because of something that’s happened, which is your plot.

I wanted Rue to be a very emotional read for readers for many reasons. But because of that I leaned heavy into making the reader – I used first person first of all, first person present. I love first person present, I also like first person past but first person present is probably my favorite, and I chose that in particular because I wanted the reader to walk through the shoes of Rue. So for some, she will be a mirror, but for many she will be a window. And so I wanted readers to understand in a very real emotional way what it’s like to walk the streets of her neighborhood and what it physically feels like to love what she loves. And to deal with what she deals with. And to fight like she fights and to hope like she hopes, etc etc.

So I lean into a lot of descriptive writing. I specifically give Rue – I clue in the reader to a lot of Rue’s emotions and I try not to water those emotions down. So you will find when you read her like there are moments of rage and it’s very justified rage. And I want the reader to burn with her. So I lean into like those descriptive emotions, like what does rage feel like. Because I can just say, I’m mad, but then I can also show that she’s mad by the fact, you know, if you can describe what it feels like when you sort of get this burst of anger coursing through you. So I lean into physical description of emotions quite a bit to cue the reader to how she’s feeling, to help the reader experience it. And then interiority to help the reader understand, like cue the reader how they should feel about a particular scene or how Rue feels about a particular scene.

For non-point of view characters I think it is trickier. I’m still learning, obviously. This is my first book, so in theory your first book is your worst book. So I’m hopeful that I will continue to just grow in all of these areas. But for external characters, the growth that I see in my side characters that are not point of view, a lot of it is demonstrated. I still like to use a lot of show and less tell. I love the use of dialogue, like maybe a little bit too much. Dialogue is my favorite thing to write ever. And that probably just like makes it clear – I’m just a very chatty person, I think that’s the problem. I enjoy writing dialogue and one of my critique partners, she loathes writing dialogue. She likes writing action scenes, and action scenes make me want to pull my hair out. That said, Wings Of Ebony is extremely action packed. So there was lots of hair pulling is what I’m saying.

But I use a lot of like demonstrated growth for my side characters – sorry my dog is barking. I use a lot of demonstrated growth. So, I don’t know how to do this without spoilers in my book. So I tried to cue the reader by giving them a clear picture of who this side character is in the beginning, making sure we see how this side character fits into their world and how their world is shaped with their own worldview, their own goals. I think it’s really important that your side characters feel like real people. Like they need to be just as fleshed out as your main character, so that they feel round and not flat, and really dynamic in the story, like they belong in the story and not like they’re just placed there. So I think giving them context, so you understand how they see their world, helps a lot. Be it seeing them in their world – one of the side characters in Wing of Ebony is Bri, and Bri is Rue’s best friend in a certain place that she lives. And we get to see Bri’s home environment, more than once actually. And I think it’s very helpful because it explains a lot about why Bri is the way she is and why Bri cares about what she cares about.

And then Bri has a very powerful arc in Wings of Ebony. So she – oh how do I do this without spoilers – let’s say she has to make a decision and she makes a decision a certain way and that has an impact on how the plot unfolds. And so you see how the way she makes decisions incrementally changes over the course of the book and then you see how that then comes to a head and becomes explosive. And she’s forced to face, well wait, have I been making decisions the right way, and why do I make these decisions that way. And so I think using, I guess, to answer your question, on a line level I think is tricky, I’d have to really think about it. But I think just generally making sure that your side characters are as alive and dynamic as your main characters, and that they’re demonstrating their arc each step of the way, just like your main character, and that the things that they’re doing and growing in are all relevant to the main story.

Rebecca King: So did you try to give every character an arc, or is it your key characters?

J. Elle: My key main characters, yeah. My key main characters. Main character and key side characters, is what I meant to say.

Rebecca King: And how do you know if an arc is working? Is it just a gut feeling, or do you have some sort of…

J. Elle: I go over it with an editor. I mean, it depends on what draft, right? Like when I send my draft to my editor I think it is working and then I get a note back saying this is how it’s not working and they help you get it working. But I guess the biggest thing I look for when I’m drafting or looking over something is, if I had to spell it out, and Emily Golden has some great resources on her website about this specifically as well – I look for who my character is at the beginning, not just who I say they are, who they are in my head, but based on their actions.

If you look at your early pages, and you can’t really tell who your character is because they’re just sort of acting like anyone – there is nothing distinctive about how they’re acting or reacting, so a person would read it and not know the things that you know in your head about your character – then you need to be able to show on the page so the reader understands what you know about your character in your head, by them just reading it on the page. So you need to engage them in a scene that’s going to demonstrate who they are, how they make decisions, and how they se the world. And then I look at the end of the story and I ask those same questions, and I hold them side by side.

And I think the crux of it all is what facilitated that change and the answer is the plot. And so I think making sure that your plot is cohesively leading to that change is when you know that you have something that’s working. And then generally your agent, or your editor, or your critique partner will be able to help you strengthen it usually. Editors are magic at this, they really really are. And it takes sometimes draft after draft because as you’re polishing the plot, as you’re changing the character arc, things sort of evolve. And you find other little pockets and spaces in the story that you can deepen plot threads, you can explore other facets of a character’s arc. So really give your story time, draft after draft, to continue to ripen and get better.

Rebecca King: Very nice. And I think that was very eloquently said. So thank you.

J. Elle: Oh good, because I feel like I’m rambling.

Rebecca King: No, not at all. I mean, I’ve read a few books on this and I think that was a very concise way of explaining it.

So you are a prolific writer, you have two duologies coming out, a year apart, and that’s a lot of characters in a very short period of time for you to develop. So how do you keep the arcs from feeling redundant?

J. Elle: Well, so I will say this – of my four books, two are middle grade and two are YA. So that does help, but really for me my arcs comes from the story point. And so it’s like, what is the point of the story and what is the message I’m trying to tell, and like, who is the character. Those are kind of like the first questions that they ask when I’m starting a story. And so for me, I just like to make sure that those ideas are, you know, as far as Pluto and Earth. Is that far? I’m actually not an astronomy person. I was trying to be eloquent. What I mean is to say it’s far away, like far away. Like I tried to make sure that those ideas feel distinctly different.

And then once I get into the weeds of them, if I see similarities, I can – you know, you can always put a new spin on some similarities. Like it’s not terrible to have some some broad overarching themes that are similar across your books, because that can help readers sort of identify your brand. But very very broad, you don’t want it to feel terribly redundant. So yeah, I think starting with what’s the point of your story and making sure it’s just so vastly different from the other points of your story and what you want to get across that when you dig into the weeds of that idea, you really have a lot to sift through that is not even peripherally related to something else you’ve done.

Rebecca King: And can you speak for just a minute about the difference between YA and middle grade, and the types of character arcs and your handling of the characters?

J. Elle: Yeah, so again I’m not an expert on it by any means, but for me, when I write middle grade, I tend to write just simpler plots. And when I say simple, I mean definitely equally as important as my YA stories, but what I mean by simple is I do less plot threads. So in my YA story there will be several things that I’m managing: the mystery of this, and the friendship here, and the romance there, and this dilemma back home, and this dilemma over here. With middle grade, I personally tend to plot it a lot tighter. So there’s the main plot thread and and then maybe one other one, maybe two. But I like to keep just the main one front and center.

Because middle grade readers, for me at least, for my middle grade stories, I generally like to dig into sort of the character and the world and the fun of the book. And so slimming the amount of – because middle grade books are a lot shorter, they don’t have as much time to tie up loose ends.  So like slimming the amount of things that I need to have happen and tie up helps me lean into the experience of reading the book a little bit more, which is my favorite part of writing middle grade. My middle grade duology is laugh out loud funny. Like book one is actually almost done being edited and it’s still just like – it’s just funny. Like I just can’t wait for people to be able to crack it open and just have it like bring them so much joy.

So, in terms of plot threads – so I like romance in my YA, it’s not a necessity, but I certainly like romance in my YA, so I will always have that in there at least as far as I can see now. In my middle grade stories, family and friendship tend to be common themes in middle grade and so I really like those two in particular. Family is just a big one to me in general. So there are themes of family in my YA as well, but then friendship. I just remember being like absolutely obsessed with friendship as a middle schooler, so I feel like I have a lot of content to pull from. I like exploring those things.

And I also do try to weave in  – and again this is gonna vary writer to writer – but I also try to weave in like real life relevance, as well. Like it’s a fun read but I always dot in like little bits of commentary. So there is some exploration of gentrification in my middle grade book, because I mean, kids that age are – it’s not like they’re not noticing what’s happening in the world. They’re completely aware and so I think it’s great when a middle grade book can really meet middle grade readers where they are and understand that they too have thoughts and opinions about seemingly big older kid topics. They’re very much in their wheelhouse too. So I try to weave that into my stories as well.

Rebecca King: Well, I appreciate that as a parent with two tweens that are constantly reading these books. Yeah. I mean they very much still like the fart jokes, but they also are ready to have some real conversations.

J. Elle: My middle grade might have a fart joke in it.

Rebecca King: I feel like every middle grade has to.

J. Elle: I emailed my editor and I was like, I’m revising, can I do a fart joke? Please let me. And she was like it sounds really funny the way you’re explaining it, so try it. And then she read it and she loved it. So, we’re gonna keep the fart joke.

Rebecca King: All middle grades should have one.

So okay, now I know you spoken a lot about Emily and her resources, but on your website you provide a very thoughtful chart for collecting feedback from beta readers. I think this is fantastic. I think that for people that are yet unpublished that are out there working at it, that’s really kind of their first audience, is the beta readers. So starting to understand that relationship with your beta readers is really helpful. And that’s just a very super cool thing to put on your website to me. Can you comment on how betas can read for character arc and the types of issues they might comment on?

J. Elle: That was a great question. So, beta readers are such a valuable resource. And honestly when I started beta reading I didn’t understand how to beta read. And then when I started getting beta reads, I didn’t really understand how to work with feedback. And I do think there’s like a process to that that can be helpful to talk about, which is kind of a side question to your question, but I think it’s relevant and helpful. So when you’re asking for someone to beta read, I think it’s really important that you know what you’re looking for. And I think what you’re looking for should be influenced by where you are in your story development process. If you just finished the first draft and you think you got it down okay, you think you’re telling the story you meant to tell – that first round of feedback, I would suggest specifically telling this person, this is the point in the story I’m trying to make. Do you feel like the story is making this point?

Secondly, I would ask for developmental feedback, so like higher level feedback that’s like, what plot points in the story didn’t seem to tie into the character’s growth and change, or what moments for the character felt redundant. Because sometimes your character can kind of be stagnant and not growing fast enough, so that’s something you want to know. I would specifically tell your beta reader or your critique partner what you’re looking for. Because what can happen sometimes when you get a bunch of feedback is, you can run and fix everything and it can be comments or, you know, changing a paragraph and rearranging things, but if that’s not the stage of feedback that you need, it’s not entirely helpful.

What I like to do, and I will say this – you will have beta readers that don’t know how to give you only what you’re asking. And I have some of those beta readers too and I just love them because they’re going to give me every little thing they want to tell me whether I want it or not. And so then it becomes my job to sift through that feedback. Definitely get the feedback because they’re doing it because they love you and they love your story, so get the feedback. But then understand when you’re looking through their feedback and responses that you don’t necessarily need to fix everything. You need to look at what you’re trying to develop in your story and fix those things first. And then you need to come back to some of those higher level feedback, like little little things that you need to tweak.

Because, for example, and I made this mistake many times, if you have a beta reader who’s putting in lots of line level comments of the way you’re wording things, and they’re helping with punctuation and let’s say, you know, add a little tension to this moment right here, like line edits basically, but you ultimately need to rewrite the entire chapter, it’s really not the best use of time to do line edits on something you’re just going to have to toss anyway. And this really does mirror your experience or your process with your editor as well, for most editors I think. They’re going to do developmental edits with you first. That’s getting the story in order. Is the structure of the story working, is the character arc working, the world building, the magic if you’re doing fantasy, the plot. Once that’s in order, then they will go through line edits with you where they’re helping you fix up the sentences. So I encourage you to specify what you need.

And if you’re at that point where you need line level feedback, then tell your beta reader that as well. Say I would love to know is my scene tense enough, do you feel grounded into the chapter, like do you know what’s happening. Are you well acquainted with my character’s goals in each scene. When did you not want to turn the page, when was it easy for you to stop reading. These are the types of things that are going to help you go back in and tweak the tension and know okay this scene is running too long cause like every single reader stopped reading at this scene. Okay, so then there’s something about that scene that slowing people down or maybe they just need a moment to process. But you want to like look for that. You want to look at the experience of the beta reader as much as you look at their feedback. So that you have an understanding not only of what their suggestions are to fix, which can be subjective, but also what their experience was like reading. Because reading is an experience and I imagine you wrote the book to give them a certain type of experience. And I would encourage you to check in and see if you did that.

And then I think the second part – wait, what was the second part of the question? I’m looking at my notes here.

Rebecca King: So comment on how betas can read for character arc and the type of issues that might come in.  And you spoke to the fact that they’re going to have different levels of understanding of what, you know – they may or may not be a writer, right.

J. Elle: Right, right, right. Definitely try to get writer betas, if you can, but non writer betas are great too, you know. Because I think everybody’s a reader. But having betas and critique partners that are writers is helpful because they read like a writer instead of like a reader, which is what you want. But yeah, so it can be different depending on what you’re looking for, but just being very intentional to communicate what you’re looking for.

And then if you are a beta reader and you’re reading and you’re looking for things in the story – My process is different, depending on the book. So, for some things, if I know they just need developmental edits, like if I know they’re looking for big picture is this working feedback, I actually will just read without making any comments. I will just read and sit with it and think about, you know, how did I feel about this. What part of the story didn’t make sense to me, sort of your takeaways. And then I usually summarize those takeaways in a bulleted list and say you know, like I was really confused when the character did this because I thought they wanted this and I didn’t see how that action was going to get them there. I struggled with the motivations behind this because I thought she was always a family loving person, so when she did x y z, it didn’t seem to chime with the character I thought she was. So I’m telling the writer the way I processed the story, and the things that I saw sort of hold back, and then it’s up to them to kind of go in and figure out okay, where did J. Elle get that from, what gave her that impression, what scenes contributed to that confusion, and then they can kind of do the art of restructuring. Revising is magic. Just actual magic.

Rebecca King: So can you leave us with some of your favorite things – you may have already done so but do you have any craft books, podcasts? We have Emily, I’ve got it written down as well. Or magical spells we can use to write better character arcs?

J. Elle: Okay so magical spells, you’re going to need sage, you’re going to need a lead cauldron, you’re going to need – okay I’m just kidding. So, actual things. You’re going to need, let’s see – The Emotional Craft of Fiction is one of my favorite books. Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat Writes a Novel – that book, like the binding is worn off that book, I use it so much. And every single writer I mentor, I ask them to get a copy or I send them a copy. So those are probably my two favorite craft books. There’s The Emotional Thesaurus, that was fantastic for like showing versus telling if you’re working with that. Alexa Donne has some great YouTube videos on craft. So does iWriterly, some good craft videos. Golden May Editing has a ton of resources online, so please go harass Emily and tell her I sent you. And then podcasts – Deadline City with Zoraida Cordova and Dhonielle Clayton is probably my favorite podcast. I absolutely love it. And then Claribel [Ortega] and Kat Cho’s podcast is really fun too. So, those are probably all of my favorite things, or at least the favorite things that I can think of in this exact moment.

Rebecca King: Those are great. They’re great. Some of those I’ve heard of and I agree with you and then others are completely new. I’m gonna definitely check them out myself. But we are unfortunately out of time. I want to thank you J. Elle for your insight. Before we go, how can listeners find you online?

J. Elle: You can find me on Twitter at @authorJ_Elleand on Instagram @authorJ.Elle. You can also check me out online at wingsofebony.com. And if you do grab a copy, please share it on Instagram or Twitter and tell me.

Rebecca King: Thanks, do check out her website. She has a plot thread chart that made me stop and think, oh, that is exactly how I’m supposed to be doing that. And so I hope you find her tools just as useful. For everyone listening to WriteOnCon 2021, thank you so much for joining us. If you’d like to take part in the discussion, we’d love for you to do so in the comments of this podcast page. Enjoy the rest of the conference and happy writing.