The Writers’ Workout Character Arc Exercises

Over on The Writers’ Block Discord server, development of writing skills is a central goal. To stimulate development everyone is invited to join in exercises and flex those writer muscles in unexpected ways--to try out new things you might normally not do, practice the mechanics to get a firm grasp on them, and to work on the outcome until it shines.

Writers’ Workout #6: Character Arcs

For our sixth exercise in the #writers-workout channel, we had our members practice working on character arcs that would serve as the foundation of a short story.

Exercise #6: 19 March - 25 March 2018-- Character Arc

A good story has a complete character arc--a transition or change in the main character. Create a character arc based on this shared theme:

A person whose spouse is dead. Or is he?

Up to you if the partner is actually dead or isn't. And you get to decide if your MC is spouse or the person. Or someone viewing the situation.

For this exercise, we want you to describe your character before the change. Describe roughly the event or series of events that trigger the change. Describe what about the character changes and how you will show this in the story. Basically you're doing the prep work for the story. If desired, write a description of the secondary characters as well.

Please remember here that the goal is a short story, although we have no restrictions on the length. Don't outline a novel!

The Purpose

A character arc is essential for a complete story, showing the character’s change--however it presents--as they encounter the events within the plot. To focus on the character arc, members were challenged to outline how their character would change through the story, what causes the change, and how the character deals with it.

The Side Benefits

We did the exercise in a peer review format--so everyone's attempts went into our critique queue where we could comment on each other. Through rounds of feedback, we were able to help each other refine the character arc outlines. This exercise was a challenge to us all--to one extent or another. Through focusing on the character arc, members were able to get into their characters’ heads more and make a gripping story out of their outlines.

Writers’ Workout #7: Story From The Arc

Following up with the sixth workout exercise, members were asked to write out the story developed from the character arc outline.

Exercise #7: 29 March-8 April--Story from the Arc

Write the story based on your arc from exercise 6. Remember that your arc and character descriptions are a guide and not carved in stone. Change them as needed, but make sure your story has a complete arc in the end. Include a summary of the arc after your story so your critters can comment on how well this is reflected in the writing.

The Purpose

.With the character arc outlined, it was time to flesh out the story from it. For the seventh exercise, members were asked to write a complete story from the outline they created for exercise 6 to bring the character arc to life in a short story. This exercise resulted in stories of various lengths--from micro-flash fiction to novelette.

Writers’ Workout #8: Arc Flash

Exercise #8: 24 April-13 May--Arc Flash

Write flash fiction (max 500 words preferably) using information determined by dice roll.
Remember that your focus needs to be on capturing the transitional moment in the arc of your character. If you need help to understand what the transitional moment is and how to focus on it, look at: http://www.steemshelves.com/the-key-to-writing-tight-flash-fiction/

First roll a die to determine what event triggers your character's change. The event need not occur to your main character--it can (and in the case of 3, probably needs to) occur to a side character.

1. Job Loss
2. Identity Theft
3. Death
4. Pregnancy
5. Serious Illness
6. Surviving an Accident

Next roll the die again to determine the arc pivot in the change your character undergoes--what the character gains, gets rid of, or fails to deal with. The requirement is to use the emotion of your choice of the pair, not both, although both is possible. We wanted to allow both a negative and a positive side so you could fit it more easily into your character arc.

1. Hate/Love
2. Envy/Contentment
3. Fear/Courage
4. Anger/Calm
5. Empathy/Self-interest
6. Resolve/Irresolution

The first result is your trigger and the second is your pivot. No rerolls and no cheating!

Ideally these exercises encourage us want to push ourselves out of our comfort zone. So you might get a dice roll that really pushes you to write something different. TRY! Don't just give up. Talk the heck out of it in #brainstorming until you find a way to approach it that you can write. But pushing ourselves to do different things is the only way to grow as writers. If your story isn't perfect, you don't publish it. It's an exercise. The goal is to learn as much as to make a great story. And if we can't play around with flash, when can we play around?

Since the goal is to be writing and be creative, it's okay to interpret the prompt aspects loosely. You decide what kind of arc your character has also. It's okay to have a negative arc or a change that isn't an improvement in the character. Make it work for the story!

Feel free to repeat the exercise a few times and write multiple pieces of flash. But that is an option, not mandatory. Have fun with it!

The Purpose

Like exercise 6, the focus was on character arcs but this time with a word limit of 500 to create a complete story in a flash fiction format.

Comments from Participants

Since the point of this article isn't just to share the exercises, but to talk about how it helps, we'll let our participants speak for themselves on what they got out of the exercises.

@alheath

In Exercise 6, we had to plan out a character arc. I decided I wanted to add another character to my story from Exercise 4, so this was the perfect opportunity. When planning it, I found it fairly easy to focus on the arc. But we'll see how well that reflects in the story I'm still writing for Exercise 7.

For Exercise 7, we had to write out the story for our character. I'm still working on that at the moment, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. When this is finished, I'm hoping to combine it with my story for Exercise 4.

I haven't started Exercise 8 yet, but I do plan to do so. I have a lot to learn when it comes to writing flash fiction and I think this will be a useful exercise for learning how to write it effectively.

Overall, I've enjoyed doing Exercise 6 and 7. They've allowed me to explore a genre of writing which is fairly new to me and create characters that I might not have otherwise thought about.

@anikekirsten

Nailing down the arc and focusing on it primarily proved more difficult than I thought it would be. It was difficult to not write the story while working on the outline for exercise 6. After getting feedback on the arc, I still need to write the story--which i suspect will end up rather long for a short story. But with exercise 8, I had so much fun. Perhaps the flash fiction aspect? That was a challenge in itself, especially keeping the arc in.

Through these character arc exercises, I learned that arcs can be subtle and yet strong at the same time. And the exercises helped focus on the pivotal point in the story where the arc is the strongest. Not only did this help with improving character arcs, it helped me write tighter flash fiction, and I see its effects in my micro-flash fiction as well. The exercises are invaluable and I’ve learned more than just the character arcs from them. And I really need to write the story for exercise 7.

@asunalyn

I’m fairly new to TWB, and Exercise 8 was my first workout. It also happens to be the first thing I have written, besides notes, in over 10 years. I was incredibly nervous to join in on the exercise, having never done or even heard of flash fiction. I rolled the dice and ended up getting the combination of Death and resolve/irresolution. Immediately, I knew what I wanted to write. After reading the posts available about writing flash fiction as well as doing some research on my own, I was ready to put fingers to keys.

My story ended up being only 49 words. It may be silly, but I was and am exceedingly pleased with myself for somehow managing to capture the arc in just 49 words. (It’s now become a personal challenge to myself to write 50 word or less stories, regularly.) I plan to go back through the other exercises on my own, so I can practice working through character arcs.

This exercise was beneficial, not only in that it was a challenge to write a good story in so few words, but also in that it raised my confidence in myself and my ability to put together a cohesive story in general. I can’t wait to continue with these exercises and learn even more about what makes for good writing, and about myself as a writer as well!

@nobyeni

This was a difficult exercise for me. I normally don’t think about arcs, I realised, I mostly build a story around a plot. Which is fine, but also limiting and doesn’t make it as engaging. So I tried, and failed a couple of times, but in the end, by focussing on the arc itself, especially in exercise 8, having to cut everything else and flash the arc only, I ended up with a story I think is pretty good. And even though I almost didn’t participate this time round, I think I’m going to roll those dice again, and write another flash-arc-based story. It’s fun!

@therosepatch

Exercises 6 and 7 were a lot of fun for me. I actually decided to use one of the openers that I wrote for exercise 3, and expand on it for the exercise 6 arc, then used that for exercise 7. I knew I wanted to write the story for a contest on Steem, and the contest had a word count requirement. Learning how to properly craft an arc and identify how complex or simple it could be (cause I had a few ideas of where the story might go), really helped me identify which version of the arc would fit better within the word count limit.

Exercise 8 took a bit more time for me to get started on. When I rolled the dice, what I got seemed almost prophetic. Just a few weeks before I rolled the dice for this exercise, my husband was in a car accident that totalled a van we had just bought the night before, and took out the porch stairs. He survived and only walked away with a few cuts and bruises. That day was filled with emotions for both of us. When I rolled the dice for exercise 8, the event I got was “surviving an accident”, and the emotions I got were “anger/calm”. So, as a result, I’m working on a flash retelling of hubby’s accident.

@tinypaleokitchen

I’ve been fairly busy lately, and have struggled to get all of the writing done that I want to. I wasn’t going to participate in exercise 6 for that reason. But then I realised that the prompt fit perfectly with a story that was already half written, and which I wanted to finish for a magazine submission. Writing out the arc before continuing the story was a real game changer. Suddenly, I could see the scene I was trying to write so much more easily.

For exercise 7, we were then asked to write out the arc from exercise 6. I identified the transitional moment within that arc and wrote a microflash piece of about 35 words before trying to continue the full length piece I had already started. Not the best idea. After seeing it in a very minimal form, everything I tried to add to flesh the story out felt superfluous. Over the top. I really struggled finishing it.

For exercise 8, I got death and love/hate. I wrote a flash piece of 300-400 words, and again, once I had a clear idea of where I was going with the arc, the rest came along fairly easily.

For me, planning out the arc gives me a sense of where I’m going with the piece without planning it to death. If I plot out every detail in a story, I tend to lose interest since I know what will happen. But by planning the character arc, I know where I’m taking my character but can still allow myself to discover the rest of the story as I write.

@Tuwore

I’ve been a member of TWB for a couple of weeks now, but I never found the time/motivation to get started on the workouts. Since I’m focusing my writing mostly on flash/short fiction, exercise 8 was right up my ally. I rolled the dice and I got identity theft and resolve/irresolution as prompt. I really struggled with the topic of identity theft. I thought it was the hardest of all the option,s and it took me a couple of days to come up with something I felt inspired by. Once I had the story in my head, I managed to get it on paper in no time. After some editing, I was really pleased with the end result.

Exercise 8 was great fun. Rolling the dice to get a prompt to work with was a great tool to find new ideas/storylines to write about. I’ll probably use it more in the future when I’m out if new ideas again.

The Next Exercise

If you want to join us in our exercises, come on over to @thewritersblock Discord server (see the footer at the bottom). We do all our exercises in the channel.

We are still working on how to nail character arcs and develop gripping and complete stories from them. Why not try it out? Join our server and come into the channel. Or watch out for our next follow up article.

Even if many of us have moved on to a new exercise, you're always welcome to pick one of the older ones from the list. We'll all join in cheering you on, editing the heck out of your work, and helping you have as much fun with it as you can while learning in the process.

If you'd like to read up on our previous exercise, you can find that article right here.

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