Character Change Plots

Character-change plots: Metamorphosis, Transformation, Maturation, Discovery

Rule for using this skill: It supplements your answer and does not replace it. Always give your full general answer to the user's request, using everything you already know about story craft. Then work in the tips below wherever they apply. Do not shrink the answer to these tips or leave out general advice because a tip covers part of it.

Telling the four plots apart

• Metamorphosis: the protagonist's body literally changes form (animal to human, human to beast). This is a character plot.
• Transformation: an adult changes psychologically, moving from one significant character state to another. The focus is the process of change and its effect on the character.
• Maturation: a child or young person becomes an adult (innocence to experience, the Bildungsroman). The focus is moral and psychological growth.
• Discovery: a character learns something fundamental about himself or herself. The discovery matters less than the character making it. It is not specifically about growing up; it is about interpreting and dealing with life.
• All four are character plots: action is a function of who the character is.
• All four use three dramatic phases.

Metamorphosis: setup and rules of the curse

• The change is usually the result of a curse, imposed for a wrongdoing or an offense against nature.
• The cure is generally love (parent/child, man/woman, people for each other, love of God).
• Exceptions: a metamorph may be beyond redemption by love (Dracula, the wolfman). Then release is death.
• If the curse is profound, the metamorph seeks death and welcomes it even while resisting it.
• Terms of release are usually dictated by whoever cast the curse, and the antagonist (or her agent) carries them out.
• The metamorph is usually the protagonist, innately sad and a source of mystery (what did he do, how can he be freed?).
• Give the curse rituals and prohibitions that shape his behavior (no daylight, the full moon, being hemmed in by thorns).
• The metamorph is cornered and looking for a way out.
• The metamorph cannot explain the curse or hurry the release. That is an implicit law of the curse. The wolfman may explain, but only to people who don't believe him.
• Make the beast's form fit the curse's purpose. If the point is to make him unlovable, don't soften him into something cute.
• The point is to show the process, or the failure, of transformation back to humanity.

Metamorphosis: three phases

• Phase 1:
  • Start just before release, with the curse already long in place.
  • Show the protagonist in his cursed state but don't reveal the cause yet.
  • Introduce the antagonist as the catalyst, "the chosen one", who may not know she is.
  • She is often a victim or captive, held physically (thorns, walls) or mentally (a promise).
  • She is usually repulsed but typically falls under the metamorph's spell in some small way.
  • End the phase with the curse evident and its effects felt (gruesome, comic or eerie).
• Phase 2:
  • Develop the relationship. Her will softens through pity, fear or control, and she gains control over him through beauty, kindness or knowledge.
  • The two move toward each other emotionally.
  • Build complications around escape: she takes the chance and is recaptured, or she doesn't take it.
  • Show his full animalness plus unanimal tenderness and concern for her.
  • The reader is rarely aware that the release terms are being fulfilled.
• Phase 3:
  • Use a final catalyst incident that triggers the change (the frog thrown at the wall, the declaration of love over the dying Beast).
  • Fulfill the terms of release. The metamorph reverts or dies.
  • Disclose the reasons for the curse and its root causes here.

Transformation

• Isolate one portion of the protagonist's life that represents the period of change.
• Make the change significant, from one real character state to another.
• Concentrate on the nature of the change and how it affects the character from start to end.
• Phase 1, the transforming (inciting) incident:
  • It starts the change.
  • First establish who the protagonist is, in a few brushstrokes, so the reader understands why this incident hits him so hard.
  • Prime him: the same event would be trivial to someone else.
  • The incident can be small-scale (an accidental kiss in the dark).
• Phase 2, effects:
  • The process is internal. Actions come directly from what the character thinks.
  • Stress self-examination.
  • He may pass through several personality states and have moments of rational doubt before the fantasy or conviction retakes him.
• Phase 3, a clarifying incident:
  • It defines the result.
  • The real lessons are often unexpected. Expectations are baffled, illusions are destroyed, and reality overtakes fantasy.
  • True growth happens here, and the price of wisdom is often sadness.
• Transformations often carry costs. Don't force a happy ending if the point is the human cost of change (e.g. one person meddling in another's life).

Maturation (coming of age)

• The protagonist is on the cusp of adulthood, sympathetic, with goals confused or unformed, and naive.
• Start where she can be tested as an adult. She may be ready or forced into it.
• The young protagonist is often an observer rather than a participant.
• The span can be one day or years.
• Phase 1, before-state:
  • Show who she is before the change, with childlike faults (irresponsible, selfish, duplicitous, naive) but endearing.
  • This raises the expectation that she will rise to the test.
• Phase 1, catalytic event:
  • Examples: a parent's death, divorce, being cast out of the home.
  • It must shake her belief system and be apocalyptic from the child's viewpoint.
  • Make the reader feel it as the child does, not as an adult.
• Writing the young voice:
  • Don't write adults pretending to be children, and don't go primitive.
  • Balance maturity and immaturity.
  • Don't give her adult values or perceptions until she is ready.
• Phase 2:
  • Her reaction is denial and resistance. She may do the wrong thing or even degenerate.
  • She may be trying to do right without knowing what right is, so use trial and error.
  • The lesson comes at a price, tangible or intangible. Decide the price and how she copes.
  • Test her beliefs: do they hold or fail?
• Phase 3:
  • She develops a new belief system and it is tested.
  • She accepts or rejects the change. Most stories end on a positive note, with a meaningful rather than token acceptance of adult roles.
  • Rejection is valid if it is the point (a boy too young to grasp a death).
• Keep growth gradual, in layers. Don't rush adulthood into one day.
• Don't lecture or moralize.
• Choose a small moment. Don't try to capture all good and evil.
• Find meaning in the seemingly trivial.

Discovery (self-realization)

• Focus on the character, not on what the character does or finds.
• Use three movements: before, disequilibrium, understanding.
• Movement 1:
  • Meet the character moments before she loses equilibrium.
  • Start as late as possible. Don't overload the pre-catalyst phase with detail.
  • Convey her past through flashback and a few telling scenes.
  • Show her flaw or defining trait (e.g. romanticism).
• Catalyst:
  • It must be significant and interesting, not trivial.
  • It forces change from equilibrium to disequilibrium.
  • A catalyst can carry irony, e.g. money that frees and enslaves.
• Movement 2, the middle, the hardest:
  • The character resists change, tries to regain balance, and is forced to confront what she has avoided.
  • Move her into the crisis quickly, keeping the tension between past and present.
  • The outcome can be healthy or unhealthy (a better or worse person). The struggle is what matters.
• Movement 3:
  • She understands the nature of the revelation and moves from unawareness to knowing.
  • The revelation often hurts.
  • There may be partial reconciliation or peace, or a mess left behind.
• Proportion:
  • Match the size of the upheaval to the depth of the revelation. A goldfish's death can't justify a life reevaluation, and a monumental struggle can't end in "I should go to church more".
• Melodrama:
  • It is emotion exaggerated beyond what the subject can sustain, and it appears when plot overrides character.
  • Develop a character strong enough to carry the emotion, or you're gluing feelings onto a cardboard cutout.
  • Don't exaggerate actions to force emotion.
• No preaching:
  • Don't make characters carry your message.
  • In children's fiction especially, let the reader work out the meaning.

Quick pre-submit checks

• Does the story begin just before the key turning point (release, transforming event, catalyst) and not far back?
• Is the protagonist's before-state clear enough to make the change believable?
• Does the change arrive gradually, with a cost?
• Is the final insight proportionate to the events and unpreachy?
• For metamorphosis, are the curse's cause withheld until phase 3 and the release terms fulfilled by the antagonist?