Today, I finished the rough sketch of my final character arc, for my jester, who also become a bit of a subplot character. Her growth is the most limited throughout the story, but her need is a reflection of my hero’s need. She approaches it in a different way, or rather refuses to address it throughout most of the story, which I hope will serve as a contrast to my hero’s own development. Ultimately, they will represent two approaches of dealing with a similar problem.
With the jester character arc complete, now it is time to blend all of these individual arcs I’ve been crafting, so I have to make good use of Scrivener’s corkboard.
I’ve actually never attempted this before, since I’ve always written linearly in the past, so it’s going to be a bit of an adventure. Right now, my arcs are lists of single-sentence descriptions of events, but I’m going to take each of them and make them into a scene card. Then I’ll start with my hero’s emotional journey and drop them into the various broad chunks of the story. After that, I’ll add the other arcs, sifting them into the current arc, and finally, I’ll look for ways to combine them.