Hello! I am trying to build my very first MC! I'm very excited. So it seems like in my favorite young adult novels a parent or parents is usually missing for different reasons. I am going to use this same recipe in my MC. I also want his upbringing to be poor. He feels like the only way he can find happiness is by achieving great wealth. The wisdom he needs to learn is money is not everything. His purpose so far is to attend college in pursuit of a degree so he can earn the wealth he wants but in college he will encounter an organization that results on him going on fantasy adventures involving magic and time travel where he will learn the wisdom that money isn't everything and correct his course of only wanting financial success. Is this a good start to a character arc? Am I doing it right? Any feedback? Thanks everybody for helping me get started! FrigidWriter
It seems pretty good to me. It's already got a built-in character flaw—the lie he believes that needs to be overcome (that money will solve everything). The 'ghost' or the problem in his backstory that explains why he believe this—his poverty and absentee parents. And there's the thing he wants (money) versus the thing he needs (that isn't clearly defined here, but something to the effect that there's more to life than money). Is there an antagonist? Is he up against a person, an institution, or maybe just his own inner false belief? Actually with alittle more thought, the absentee parents seems superfluous to this idea. Povertly aone. fits perfectly, absentee parents sounds like a. setup for a different story. You want to stick to one major theme, maybe a mior one that goes with it really well, and. build your charaxcter web around that (or those). If yiour minor theme is something. like learning to take care of himself they way his parents never did (I didn'tput more than a second's thought intothat, it could. doubtless be much better), and if that supports the main theme nicely, then go for it. Otherwise you might want. to rethink absentee parents. It seems like a rather large problem if the rest of the story is about his overcoming materialism.
Yeah, there's a secret magical order called the "The Lake Legion" at the school that's how the story morphs into a fantasy he ends up having to foil them time and time again. He learns about friendship, courage, love, and other virtues and realizes that's more important than money. (I am hoping for a series) I have not clearly defined his strengths yet, but I know he will develop a unique psychic ability not available to all the magic users it's a rare gift. I also have not set up an individual antagonist yet. I have to read more of your links. I have only read the character arc one so far.
If it were me, I'd try to make it related to the things he learns about, that are better than money. This would keep everything aligned with your main theme. Some ability that helps him move away from the materialism. I won't try to come up with anything, that needs to be your decision.
In fact maybe at first he hates his newfound ability, because it makes it hard to pursue wealth, and moves him in a different direction. Then comes some crisis where he has to use the ability, and benefits from it by gaining new friends or making friends with someone who was an enemy or something. And he begins to accept the gift, and subliminally to accept that there are things better than money. Oh, take your time on that. It's a long-term project. In fact, each entry on that page about character arcs is a link to a more detailed full blog post (or series) on the subject. Unless you clicked through and read those (and I don't think there's been enough time), you just saw the blurbs.
Ohh I think I see what your saying like he learns he has a passion for magic and psychic abilities and it turns him down a path of learning more and more about that and less about learning how to make money... Am I understanding right?
For him to abandon his single-minded pursuit of money, it has to cost him. When faced with a decision, re: money vs. friendship, a girlfriend, loyalty, whatever - and he chooses on the side of money and it costs him dearly.
Now I can see a way in which your secondary theme, involving the absentee parents, can play in. It perfectly fits into the 'things that are better than money' idea, because lack of parental love is maybe what made his childhood suck, more so than poverty. Maybe the parents blamed everything bad on poverty, rather than take accountability for their own neglect, and he believed them. So he has to arc from thinking money will fix everything to understanding that bonds of human companionship are actually far more important. This way it isn't a seconday theme, it plays into the main theme.
Not quite, though that's good stuff. I mean the actual ability he recieves is something that doesn't help with getting rich, but instead somehow helps him to forge friendships or understand other people better. Maybe it's something like increased empathy, or something similar. In fact that would really work if he was a bit callous to the plight of other people in his pursuit of money (in the beginning). Maybe he valued being able to shut people out of his life because they were a distraction from learning what he needs to know in order to make lots of money. Typical money-obsessed thinking, like workaholics. But when he recieves the magical gift, it just makes him more empathetic to other people, and now he can't shut them out anymore. Which really pisses him off, but it results in good things happening for him. And that makes him eventually realize it's the better path. Sorry, I wasn't going to do that.
I have revised it a little bit. Thomas Shine goes to college with a single thing in mind a career where he can make a lot of money. Due to a childhood, living in poverty and absent parents he lacked love that most kids his age had known. While in college he learns of secret magic and finds he has a passion for arcane mysteries of magic! But it came at a cost he joined a power-hungry fraternity The Lake Legion that promised money and power using magic and he abandoned his friends to join this evil group! Once he learns he made a mistake of chasing money he makes amends with his friends and teaches them how to use secret magic. Together they work to foil the evil agenda of the Lake Legion. Through this transforming journey Thomas learns that the bonds of human companionship are what he was lacking in life not money. I am also wanting to incorporate a little time travel into my story so when he unlocks his empathic psychic gift and travels back in time to the point, he leaves his friends he is consumed by the heartbreak they experience at his leaving. The empath gift can also serve as a detector! The empath role is going to be difficult for me to pull off, if its going to be a constant trait. Maybe he finds an amulet of empathy or something that he can wear. hmm this is good stuff thanks for all the help!!
Slightly off the current topic, but related to the original posting in this thread. The absentee parent angle could be looked at as a strength the character has. Because of the parents not being present the MC was forced to become more self reliant. Look at the Darrel Dixon character in walking dead for an example.
You can make him an orphan if you want. It doesn't have to be integral. It can be mostly background. You'll want to explore his feelings on the matter and make it part of who he is, but it doesn't have to drive the story. One of the reasons heroes are orphans in everything from Greek tragedies to Disney films is that they don't have parents to bail them out. They have to stand on their own at a young age. If that sounds like something you like for your character, go for it. Side note: Also popular is the device of a teacher (Luke's Obi Wan) or surrogate parent (Batman's Alfred) partially filling the parental roll, but they often die, too, usually after teaching what they're supposed to teach. A lot of this is hero's journey stuff, and I haven't really studied that in depth. The other way to go is to make their absence totally integral to the point that the MC discovers that their deaths or disappearances or whatever were directly linked to how he got his powers or that they fought the same villain years ago and lost or something like that. Still, I don't think that's necessary unless it just particularly appeals to you.
