Creating Character Arcs

Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development by K.M. Weiland

A discussion of character character. Indeed, of the old trio Boy Meets Girl, The Little Tailor, and Man Learns Lesson, it discusses only the last, describing a character who enters relationships and picks up skills as unchanged.

But it covers the arc of change nicely, in terms of the Lie (the thing the character must unlearn) and the Truth (the thing the character must learn), even if a bit abstractly. Covers an important point in introducing characters that I've never seen in another how-to book: introducing the character must give us a correct first impression. (Fun though that is with the issue of giving him flaws and making him likable enough that the reader will care.)

She and Her Cat

She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai adapted by Tsubasa Yamaguchi

A manga adaption of a story -- the first in the book by the same title. A gentle slice of life about a Japanese career woman from the point of view of her cat.

outlining out of order

One advantage of a plot structure -- Save the Cat, Hero's Journey, Lester Dent's, what have you -- is that it gives you a place to put story ideas in order when the story is incomplete.

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