By now, we all know that our protagonist needs a character arc – a challenge and a change between the beginning and the end of our story. In a post on DIY MFA, Lewis Jorstad says our heroes can have more than one arc going on at the same time. Jorstad calls these “secondary character arcs, which are specialized character arcs based on common journeys like coming of age or redemption.”
Jorstad’s favorite secondary arcs include:
- The Hero’s Arc. A subsection of the Hero’s Journey, the Hero’s Arc encompasses the period between the time the protagonist leaves the ordinary world and becomes the hero the story needs.
- The Hero’s Self-Discovery. Jorstad calls this the Heroine’s Arc, but…no. In this secondary arc, the hero searches for their true identity and some truth about their world. As the Hero’s Arc is often about power or weapons, the Self-Discovery Arc is about wisdom and self-knowledge.
- The Coming of Age Arc. “This is a journey all about a character’s transition from dependent child to independent adult,” Jorstad explains. “As your character leaves the safety of their guardians behind, they’ll have to learn to survive on their own, face the consequences of independence, and eventually earn their place in their new adult world.”
- The Hermit’s Arc. “These are characters who have been driven from their communities by some past event, and must now undergo the difficult process of returning to their old world,” Jorstad writes. “To do so, they’ll have to forgive their wounds and eventually find a new place in their society.”
- The Redemption Arc. “Unlike the other secondary arcs on this list, this arc begins with a character that’s detrimental to their world,” Jorstad says. “They’re destructive and dangerous, and so their journey is about recognizing the harm they’ve caused, atoning for the past, and earning their world’s forgiveness.”
