From Character Arc to Theme

If you search on-line you will find plenty of articles covering the subjects of character arc and theme. If this interests you, then I can point you towards a few that I have found to be most helpful. But since Weave My Tale is actually developing, creating and writing The Preachers Son, I will cover just enough so you understand the basics of the story's development in these initial posts.

In the The Preachers Son … Idea, Premise, Concept and Theme, I outline two important structures of the tale, which are Premise and Theme.

The premise is the general starting point, or foundation, of the story. The theme is where the story ends up following the action (or arc) of the characters.  Just for review, the premise of The Preachers Son is "The defense of the innocent ends in self sacrifice," and the theme is "sacrifice for the good of many." The premise is specific to the story, but the theme is more universal to stories in general because it is ultimately based on the actions of the characters, and the actions of people are motivated by universally shared drives.

Even though theme is ultimately determined by where the character ends up at the end of the story, to make the story interesting the character usually starts somewhere on the opposite end of the emotional, physical or mental spectrum and then grows towards a state of being that best illustrates the theme.This growth is referred to as the character arc.

In The Preachers Son, the character arc shows the main character's transition from a selfish person interested in his own needs to a person who is willing to make a "sacrifice for the good of many," which of course is this story's theme. This is a fairly common theme that is often found in stories involving physical confrontation (e.g., war, westerns, espionage, etc.). Soldiers place themselves in harms way, if not always for the safety of their homeland, then at least for the safety of their fellow soldiers. In fact physical conflict and self sacrifice fit well together, because the ultimate sacrifice a person can make for others is to risk their life in order to save another. This is why I find it only fitting that a story entitled The Preachers Son should in some way reference the most popular story of sacrifice in the western world, the story of Christ.

Have I given too much away already? Hopefully this gets your idea wheels spinning … for your own projects and if you're really feeling nervy, for Weave My Tale.

In my next blog entitled Character Arc of The Preacher's Son, I outline the arcs of the main characters through Act One based on a technique you can find in Larry Brook's book entitled, "Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing" or at his blog www.storyfix.com.