So I've had a crazy couple of months with moving across Canada and getting settled back in Alberta after living in Ontario for nearly 20 years. I'm slowly getting back to the business of writing and working even more closely with my publisher of 10 years, BWL Publishing! It's fun to see all the hard work I've done come back and all tie together. Speaking of tying things together, this is our topic of the month:
How important is Character Arc to your stories and how does it tie into the plot or story arc? Do you usually give some time and story to character arcs for secondary characters?
Since I am elbow deep into writing my next Gilda Wright Mystery, I'm already dealing with exactly those topics. Without giving much away,--mostly because I'm not that far into writing it--I can say that Gilda's Character Arc is going to be huge in this book. It ties directly into the plot for Dead Without Malice because of the inner struggle she is dealing with AND that she now has her mother back in town which will hugely affect her Character Arc!
For those who have not read the series, Gilda Wright joined a karate school after a bad breakup with a boyfriend (who happens to be a local police officer). She also ended up working at the school and having a romance with her boss. Which hasn't worked out the way she'd hoped. Along the way, she's also solved mysteries and gotten into more trouble than she'd ever anticipated. Her last mystery saw her badly beaten and in another one, she was kidnapped with her "fairy godfather", Gary del Garda.
Spoiler alert. Gary doesn't fare well in Dead Without Malice, and Gilda must struggle with grieving the loss of her friend as well as solving his death. Okay, that will be in the blub on the back cover!
As far as my secondary characters, Gilda's friend, Kane Garrick, will undergo his own large Character Arc. He has grown a great deal since his appearance in Dead Without Glory, but has always kept a bit of a shady side hidden from her. It will come back to haunt him in the new book and create a struggle for him as well. Yesterday morning, I wrote out a whole scene where he comes clean about a few things in his past and why he moves around so much.
As per a good friend of mine who has been a karate sensei for many years, this book will contain a lot more karate! Especially since Gilda is gearing up for her Black Belt Grading.
Will she do it in this book or will she walk away from it all and not bother?
I guess we'll have to wait and see!
Join the other amazing characters in this blog to see how they deal with Character Arcs and Secondary Characters:
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
Glad to hear there's another Gilda Wright mystery on the way! I have so enjoyed them. Hope you are all settled in now after your move.
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing in the topic of character arc over a series. Also important. When we get involved in a series, whether on television or in books, we care about the main characters (or we wouldn't be watching or buying the next book) and they need to grow over the series as well as the single book. Ditto with the supporting cast. I remember watching a Perry Mason movie that came out years after the TV series ended and there was clearly a romantic interest forming between Perry and his long-time secretary, Della Street and my first thought was ABOUT TIME! So glad you pointed this out.
ReplyDeleteSeries do seem to throw up issues that one never imagined.
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