Hello, I'm a first time writer. I have been reading some of the advice given to a few of the different blocks I seem to have and everything is very helpful. I have a back story and a goal for my main character. Even the world that the story is going to take place in is pretty developed. The question I have is what kind of procedures do I need to take part in to find out what kinds of trials and experiences lead to a characters maturity in a fantasy setting. I have ideas that come to me every so often and even free handed about 500 words of a possible trial for this story earlier. Any advice would be great! Thank you.
One useful way to start may be by explaining us with simple English words what "character maturity" is. Imagine we've never heard that phrase before.
I really don't know what you're asking for. Are you asking for what sort of action should predominate in your plot? Or particular advice on this characters story? What does the world-building have to do with it in particular. I don't want to malign you but I do noticed quite a few of the new members here are fairly bad at asking questions for their threads. You really need to give us more to work with. World-building details, specific thoughts you were pondering, and just explaining the question more thoroughly. This is very vague.
I think NeglectedExperience could be talking about a story we sometimes call a bildungsroman, where a character experiences the shift from immature/ignorant to mature/experienced. It's a very common story type in the YA category, for example.
I think in a fantasy setting that plot arc has a lot of potential to be cliched as all hell.So advice point no 1, wary of cliche there. Also, I think that plot arc is kind of boring anyway. If you do anything like that it shouldn't be played completely straight.
okay! then you might want to start looking at the Positive Character Arc as a starting point for learning how your character changes through the story. Here's a blog post series that will teach you about creating your character arc in a story. This isn't the *only* way to do character arcs, and it's not even the only way to do a positive change character arc, but it's a decent starting point.