Character Arc Tracker

Not every arc is the same shape

Your school teaches one of six nineteenth-century novels, and here is the thing nobody tells you: they do not all offer the same kind of change. Some give you a character who is transformed. Some give you one who is exposed, so it is the reader whose understanding moves rather than the character. Some give you a narrator who survives an event and comes out seeing the world differently, though he is much the same man. If you learn one template and apply it to the wrong novel, you will write something fluent about the wrong thing. So the first job is not tracing the arc. It is working out what kind of arc you actually have.

Words for a whole-text answer

Six terms. The last two matter because the discursive question wants an argument, not a tour of the book.

Kind of arc to what changes

Which kind is this?

In a novel you are studying, the central figure behaves in much the same way from beginning to end, but a series of discoveries changes what the reader believes about him. Which kind of arc is this?

• A revelation arc, because what moves is the reader understanding rather than the man
• A transformation arc, because a series of discoveries always changes a character
• A self-knowledge arc, because he must have learned something about himself
• No arc at all, because a character who does not change has no arc

Changed, or revealed

This is the distinction worth getting straight before you plan anything. Both columns are proper arcs and both can earn full marks. What loses marks is describing one as though it were the other.

What a whole-text argument needs

The discursive question wants an argument across the whole novel. Select the TWO things such an answer must have.

• One arguable claim that the whole answer is defending
• A small number of moments chosen because they support that claim
• The events of the novel covered in the order they happen
• Every important scene involving the character mentioned at least once

An arc is a claim

Here is the sentence that decides the band. An arc is not a summary of what happens to someone. It is a claim about what changed, and about what the writer was doing by changing it. Test any sentence you write by asking whether someone could reasonably disagree with it. He goes to London and his circumstances improve is not arguable; it is a fact from the plot. His improvement in circumstances is presented as a loss rather than a gain is arguable, and now you have something to defend. Closed book means you carry only a handful of moments in your head, so choose them for what they let you argue rather than for how famous they are.

Moment to what it proves

Order the discursive answer

Put the stages of planning a discursive character answer into the order you would do them.

• Decide what kind of arc your novel actually offers
• Write one arguable claim about what changes and what it is for
• Choose three or four moments that let you defend that claim
• Decide the order to use them in, which need not be the order of the plot
• Write, returning to the claim at the end of each paragraph

The argument in a paragraph

A discursive answer is built on a _____, which is one claim someone could reasonably disagree with. It is supported by a small number of _____ chosen for what they prove rather than for how well known they are. The moment that sets the change going is the _____, and the moment after which the character cannot go back is the _____. The order you present them in need not follow the _____, and often it should not.

Which thesis can be argued

Which of these would work as the thesis of a discursive character answer?

• His change is presented as a loss as much as a gain, which complicates the ending
• He begins the novel in poverty and ends it in comfortable circumstances
• The writer uses many techniques to present the character very effectively
• The novel is a masterpiece of nineteenth-century characterisation

One arc, argued

The novel below is INVENTED. It is used so that everyone can follow the same example, and because assuming one of the six set texts would be assuming your school choice in a module whose whole point is that the six differ. In The Lamplighter, a young man leaves a village for the city after a benefactor pays for his schooling. Model paragraph: the change in him is presented as a loss as much as a gain. Early on his competence is shown through work he can do with his hands and through people who rely on him; by the middle of the novel he is fluent and well dressed and useful to nobody. The catalyst is the benefactor money, and the turning point is the moment he fails to recognise a neighbour in the street, after which the earlier life is closed to him. The writer gives him no scene of triumph, and the reader is left to notice what has been exchanged for what. Notice the shape. A claim someone could argue with, three moments chosen because they defend it, and a return to the claim at the end. The plot is never retold.

Retelling or arguing

Three of these sentences argue about the arc. Select the ONE that only retells the plot.

• His competence is established through practical work before it is taken from him.
• He leaves the village, travels to the city, and takes lodgings near his school.
• The absence of any scene of triumph invites the reader to weigh the cost.
• Failing to recognise the neighbour marks the point at which return becomes impossible.

Choosing your line

You have chosen the discursive question and have forty marks to earn on your own novel. Work through the decisions.

• Your novel has a central figure who is much the same throughout, while what the reader learns about him changes. What should your answer be about?
• You have a claim. How many moments should you plan to use?
• Two of your moments come from the same chapter. Is that a problem?
• You are half way through and realise you have been narrating. What is the quickest repair?

Trace your own novel

Leave the invented example behind and write about the novel you are actually studying. Nobody here can see your text, so what is being practised is the SHAPE of the argument.

• Name your novel and the character you are tracing
• State which kind of arc it offers, and give a reason for that judgement
• Write one arguable thesis about what changes and what the change is for
• Name three moments you would use, and say what each one proves
• Explain why you would present them in the order you chose, rather than in plot order
• Write one paragraph that uses a moment and returns to the thesis at its end