What themes are you exploring in your story? Character arcs should be intimately entwined in those themes.
Does your character cling to those things like friendship and family, duty, etc? Will he discover that those simple things in life are what matter the most?
Not really. Ok. The villain... well, which villain don’t want to have power? The MCs are living in a living community and two MCs are siblings. More I haven't yet.
I relly like that you said this because I always hear how important it is for characters to "Change" but never understood why. I swear its just as you said ,I am just the same as I was years ago and so is my mom and my sister and my dad etc. We have changed but in very very subtle ways. Like maybe due to a life expirence my ideas about something have changed or my outlook has changed but my personality and general way of thinking has up to this point stayed the same. And also I could be wrong but I always assumed change that does happen, happen very slowly and maybe even over a period of years. But a lot of stories take place in a short time span so I really don't see how the characters could change in such a short span of time.
Yeah, I know, I wrote that as an example of characters that we love and yet never change. I forgot about this kind of arc, thank you for reminding me.
The main characters that I am currently writing do go through arcs. It's an arc of self discovery or whether or not there really is any value to oneself or if that value subjective, but I don't wholly agree with the idea that characters need to change. I consider character change to be more of a guideline rather than a rule. It's okay for characters to be completely static and still be interesting. One thing that comes to mind is a picaresque novel, in which a character typically goes through little to no growth and doesn't experience any change of heart by the end of the story. More than anything, I think it's important to know what kind of story you're trying to tell, and what sort of character best suits it.
They can certainly change their minds—even suddenly. They can change their approach to things. They can change what they think is important, etc. They can learn and grow. But I don't believe people's basic self changes, and this belief is based on my own life experiences. When you meet people you haven't seen in 50 years, whose lives have taken dramatic turns you didn't expect (for better or worse) and you still relate to them the same way you did before ...well, that's what I mean. Did you argue with them a lot when you were young? You probably still will, and over the same sorts of triggers. You both might control the argument more tactfully, or even laugh at it, but the impulse will still be there. I just had an experience that reinforced that notion in me. I was contacted before Christmas by an old high school friend, whom I hadn't spoken to since I was about 21 years old. (I'll be 70 this year.) We never fell out, but just drifted apart when we went to different colleges and our lives took different directions and we found new friends. She'd got my email address from somebody and wrote to say we should talk. So I phoned her. Not only did she pitch right in with barely a 'hi, how are you,' holding forth on her favourite topic of the day (that has nothing to do with me, as usual) but I found myself growing irritated by her stubbornness and ultra-conservatism the same as I used to do. She's a good person, but she certainly hasn't changed. And neither have I. My life is totally different from what it was then (I live in a different country) and she still lives in her childhood home (literally, same house, although her parents have both passed on), but we reacted to each other exactly the same way we did before. After 50 years. It was strange, and yet so familiar. I'm fond of her, but all the things that annoyed me about her when we were hanging out, so many years ago, came RIGHT back. After I hung up the phone, I had a good laugh!
I don't create character arcs. I'm with Jannert in the belief that most people don't change but I'm also with Cogito in that events can throw people for a loop. That's how people can get redemptive, turn cowardly, find strength, let embarrassments set them back, or turn arrogant etc. I usually work with a theme, motivation, the characters past and the plot to shape how the character is going to make the story and the story is going to make the character. You don't need a character to change or evolve for the story to be good but I find those stories are usually either plot driven like Charlie and the Chocolate factory or character studies like Harriet the Spy. It's been a while since I read that but I don't think Harriet changed she was still stubborn and unapologetic, learning only I suppose to bluff a false apology to smooth things over with her friends. Usually holes in your plot are going to make your characters look stupid. If you box them in too tightly then the actions and reactions don't look reasonable they look manufactured. It's like in Sleeping Beauty - the three fairies raising Princess Aurora screw up her birthday - they can't make a cake, a dress or clean up without their wands only they've been raising the girl for sixteen years in the woods - so who has been doing the cooking, cleaning, and dressmaking? It's a huge plot hole and it makes the characters look flimsy and illogical. Timing is key too. You want to develop tension and keep it up so the reader isn't ahead of the story. A lot of romances I've been reading on other sites start with their characters in love too soon. There's no conflict, no self doubt, no second guessing and it really fizzles the tension.
