Arcing Characters

In the previous post I began discussing characters. Whether the character or the plot is more important is that chicken and egg thing. One really can not exist without the other. For now, I want to dwell on characters because quite frankly they are fun.

Internet groups often discuss how characters come into existence. Some writers want to use people they know and worry that could cause problems. I'm like Victor Frankenstein who assembles a creature using sundry parts collected from here and there, but my characters are not created before the plot.

In A Pirate's Legacy, Book 2, The Urchin Pirate, the Dolphin is captured by the Spanish and taken to the commanding officer's playroom. Speaking Arabic picked  up over the years, he attempts to pass himself off as an Arab sailor who fell into pirate hands. In an attempt to understand answers to the inquisition, the commander summons an Arab slave. Thus was born Sa'id who was instrumental in the Dolphin's escape and became one of his helmsmen.

In Book 4, The Lions of El Bayadh, Hassan (an orphaned Arab prince) comes to live with the Evreux family and is bullied by Demitrio, a prominent landowner's brat. One of the dons who lives on the western side of El Hierro has a son, Felipe Alvarez, who is an accomplice to the bully as an attempt to fit in, learns an invaluable lesson from both his father and Hassan, and becomes Hassan's close friend. When Hassan is kidnapped and taken to North Africa Felipe joins the rescue team and nearly dies.

I could continue examples, but suffice it to say, characters drop into the story as needed. It is at that point I begin to flesh them out with more detail thus locking them in as actual personalities and in a sense, limiting their actions except for one writing element. As characters they should evolve, grow, learn, and/or change as the plot unfolds as real people do in life. This is referred to as the character arc.  Felipe did.

Let's look a bit more closely at Jean-Paul II, Francois Evreux's first born son. Francois married Mariah on his fifteenth birthday. J-P is born nine months later. (Prior to the Industrial Revolution there was no middle ground. You were a child until twelve to fourteen, and then expected to do adult things.) J-P is four when his father returns after being kidnapped only to see him leave to fight off a French invasion. From that time forward he lives in the shadow of his father, practically glued to his hip.

Francois is a typical parent in that he fails to recognize the boy is becoming an adult; aware that he has certain, natural fears that must be overcome, and unaware that the boy is in a burgeoning love affair. One of those fears is jumping from the Dragon's Back, an eighty-foot high promontory overlooking their private cove. One day J-P overcomes that fear and plunges into the water. All is well, until his father leaves to help his pirate mentor, Hogshead Shaver, rescue his wife and child. Watching him sail off, J-P leaps into the ocean, catches the trailing rope, and comes aboard. Francois is furious, but begins to understand that J-P is no longer a child. He may accompany his father, but no special privileges. He is given a nickname, Curly, so his true identity remains private, and assigned crewmen to teach him seamanship from the bilge up.

Over the course of the story, J-P continues to mature, learning important skills and lessons, and become less timid until at the end he leaves a safe position to join his father and take part in a major battle.

Previously, I mentioned Pasquel. He started out as nothing more than someone who ran off to join the pirate circus and become wealthy so to live like the nobility back home in Spain. What he finds is that having and providing for a family gives him all the nobility he seeks.

Nijiru is a former African slave who serves as a helmsman along with Sa'id, but not for long. He is called upon to command the land force attacking the English army holding Hogshead Shaver's family captive.

Neither Nijiru, Pasquel or Jean-Paul are major characters, yet the reader sees them grow, learn, and change. In fact, nearly every character in the story can be an example of the character arc, as it should be. In reality, no character can remain static or they are as dead as the story itself. This is one of the most important elements in a story.

Take a look at your characters. All of them. How are they doing?