With the exception of certain iconic characters, readers generally expect characters to have an arc throughout the course of a story, and a satisfying character arc is frequently a major driver of a book’s appeal. Kaladin’s arc in Way of Kings is one of the most significant drivers of that book’s quality, and the lack of compelling character arcs is one of the factors undermining Wind and Truth. Yet, readers also expect characters to be consistent and will complain when they fail to meet consistency expectations; indeed, character inconsistency was one of my complaints in my recent review for Wind and Truth. At first glance, these expectations appear contradictory, even mutually exclusive. Understanding how to navigate the tension between them is as much as matter of understanding psychology as it is of writing technique.
I’ve expressed my skepticism about psychology as a scientific field and endeavor in previous posts, so I will not reiterate them here other than to note they constitute a significant asterisk appended to the forthcoming discussion. In psychology, there is an idea called cognitive dissonance, which refers to the mental discomfort that can arise from acting or appearing in a way which is internally inconsistent. When we do something which is not quite in line with our values, or simply out of the norm for how we typically behave, we tend to find ourselves looking for excuses and explanations to alleviate the accompanying discomfort by providing a respectable justification for how that action or appearance can actually be aligned with our normal. People will go far out of their way to avoid or resolve cognitive dissonance, and the phenomenon appears in everything from norms of behavior and social signaling to the logic of crowds and personal value systems. We strive for at least a façade of internal consistency, and we look for it in others, too. It’s considered a sign of poor character if someone seems to be constantly changing their presentation and beliefs, regardless of the quality of any possible underlying reasons. It’s also considered a sign of poor character writing. Characters should appear consistent because people want to appear consistent.
This desire to appear consistent can be a major reason why people struggle to change, even when we know the change is good for us and actively want to make the change. It reinforces routines, normalizes the unfamiliar, and reduces uncertainty. Perhaps because of these impediments and resistances which make changing ourselves in the real world so difficult, we derive significant vicarious satisfaction from a well-wrought, well-earned character arc. Therein lies the key to resolving the tension between the desire for character consistency and the desire for a satisfying arc: the arc must be earned. Our lived experience is that people do not change easily, and often change slowly – if our characters change like the weather on a mountain trail, it will throw us out of the story in the strange way that it is easier for us to countenance worlds of magic swords and hidden magical fortresses than it is for us to imagine people changing so easily.
In practice, there are two elements which can help (other than ensuring that the change is gradual and doesn’t come too easily or conveniently for the character or the plot). First, keep some aspects of the character consistent. The more radical the transformation, the less believable it will be. Han Solo coming back for Luke and the rebellion at the end of A New Hope works because he didn’t change his whole personality or his way of doing things; he just made one decision differently. Plus, we see hints of the factors which motivate him to make that decision throughout our earlier interactions with him as a character, which brings us to the second tool of effective character change management: ground the change in something present all along. This might seem like it’s a way of making the change not seem to be a change at all, which it sort of is…which is exactly why it works as an effective tool, since it’s the same thing we do for changes in ourselves and others – we try to explain them away, ground them in such a manner that it seems the change isn’t a change, but a continuation of something deeply rooted.
Change is hard. There’s a reason “change management” is an entire field, one in which many organizations repeatedly fail. In that sense, an effective character arc can be thought of as a novel-length project in character change management. Like the changes we don’t like to notice in ourselves, and which only become obvious in retrospect when the effects have accumulated, character change should be gradual, building up in bits and pieces throughout the story where, for the most part, neither the character nor the reader quite notices what’s happening until the time comes for a pivotal moment or decision. That moment is not when the change occurs – it’s the moment the change can no longer be ignored. Of all story elements, character change perhaps best fits the goal of being “surprising but inevitable.” Everyone and everything changes. Managing and realizing that change in a compelling way is the author’s challenge.
IGC Publishing 