The Character Arc meets Story Structure
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- čas přidán 20. 03. 2024
- This video covers how the character arc is structured.
Story Structure Series:
• Advanced Story Structure
How to Write the Character Arc (components of the arc):
• The Character Arc meet...
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When the world needed her most, she returned!
Cannot be anything but grateful for an hour's worth of your expert advice. The occasional technical blips do not distract.
Thank you!
Ellen, I don’t think anyone gives a hoot about the light or the camera battery, you’re literally giving away amazingly useful information and I’m super grateful. Thank you!
so true
I know I'll be referencing this video in the future, so I'll post this time stamps here in case it's also helpful for someone else.
2:15 The four components of the Arc
5:10 The Status Quo
9:46 The Disruption
12:19 The Debate
13:37 The Decision
14:43 The First Plot Point
18:16 The 2nd Quarter
26:07 The Midpoint
30:20 Reaction
30:49 Emotions Come to Light
34:30 Failed Attempt to Succeed
36:54 Things Get Even Worse
37:10 Lowest Point
39:31 The Second Plot Point
44:44 The 4th Quarter (Preparation & Approach)
45:53 Confrontation
48:21 Sacrifice
51:53 Aftermath
53:50 Summary 1st Quarter
55:04 Summary 2nd Quarter
55:59 Summary 3rd Quarter
57:24 Summary 4th Quarter
Thank you Ellen, as always, your videos are gold 💛
Ellen after giving the most lucid writing advice ever: “So sorry if this was super repetitive or incoherent, I’ve been so disorganized!”
💯💯
I am SO sorry for the camera going out of focus at several points. When the sun got brighter, it shifted where the camera was focused. I hope it's not too terribly distracting! Thank you all for watching and for your support! ❤
Not only are your videos about writing the best on the internet, but your lack of affect as seen with camera and audio troubles sometimes show that you're only here to provide valuable info, and that's endearing. I hope Toby (sp?) is well!
Thank you! Toby is doing well! He's getting up there (9.5 years) so he's in his grumpy old man era.
@@EllenBrock Yay Toby! 🤩
It's always a good day when there's a new Ellen Brock video!
There is nothing confusing about your presentation. You are always thorough and complete. Thank you!
Your writing videos have been my favorite on the platform. I’m looking to query my 3rd manuscript within the next few months.
Awesome! Good luck!
@@EllenBrock thank you, I’m using your query interview video to help
Fantastic, Ellen. As for the camera stuff, it really didn't bother me at all. It's SO refreshing to have your videos stay framed the same way and not have endless cuts. I'm tired of videos cutting closer and further away all the time, and including a thousand editing cuts, as if the creator thinks my attention span is approx 2sec. I really like the constant angle and distance; it feels like I'm actually listening to you explain something, rather than watching a hundred tiny clips of a lecture back to back. So please don't worry about the occasional camera focus thing; it's far less distracting for me than the intentional editing other videos have. Also, I think we'd all deal with a lot worse tech issues to listen to such awesome content. Thanks so much for all the great information - I'm going to be watching this again & taking notes.
Thank you so much for your feedback!
Amazing video. I was already a big fan of the story structure and character arc videos. This one not only combined the two, but also enriched each of them individually. I'm really looking forward to the negative arc and flat arc videos. Also any additional video on scenes, particularly scenes in relation to chapters, would be amazing, since it's what I'm currently trying to improve
These videos are invaluable! Thank you so much for sharing.
No need to apologise Ellen about the quality of your video. Your videos are extremely helpful and useful.
53:50 Super Helpful Summary Here... shows how character arc is intertwined with the story arc.
This is excellent so far! And 1 hour long, we’re so lucky, thank you for making this!! You’re sooo helpful! 🙏
You're so welcome!
Ellen! I get so excited when you pop up in my notifications !
You’re a godsend, thank you for all your content, your channel is invaluable! And an hour! The writing gods are smiling upon us today, your long format vids are honestly a masterclass ! Thank you! So excited to dive in !
First stop apologizing 😊 your passion and commitment to sharing the craft could not be more appreciated or well-delivered. I am inspired and look forward to more! Thank you Ellen.
Oh, this looks like it's going to be a good one.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your videos are always great, but this was just pure gold. The references were so helpful! Character arcs are still my problem, so I will surely rewatch this video a lot of times. And an hour of listening to your advice? Give us more! This is great! You can fully dive into the topic, you explain things so very well, always giving helpful examples. ❤
Thank you so much! I always worry that the information is too boring and dense, but I also want to make sure to cover a variety of ways structure/arcs can play out since it's not as rigid as it might seem with just a simple explanation or single example. I'm so glad this video was helpful!
Legimately the only writing advice youtuber who clearly has experience and provides university level information for free. Thank you so much for all that you do :)
Great video! Really looking forward to what you'll have to say about the negative and the flat arc.
This is great, clear, and the distractions were minimal. Thank you.
excellent presentation and crazy helpful. Don't apologize. The visuals, here and always, are fine and the cinematography doesn't matter anyway. The info is what matters most and you do a great job of getting the ideas across. Well done, as usual.
Thank you! I appreciate that!
This is JUST WHAT I NEEDED, right when I needed it.
I was really fretting that the external and internal arc midpoints are a couple if scenes apart (because it's a plot point where the brown stuff hits the fan, and he has to flee for his life, not sit there and contemplate what a complete mess he's made of things!), so thanks for putting that at ease.
What I'm grappling with at the moment is that my protagonist has to learn TWO lessons through the events of the plot - kind of two parts of the same lesson. Thinking he might learn one during the Dark Night beat and the other closer to the climax 🤔
Another fantastic video Ellen, thank you!
Look forward to the follow up video(s?) about the negative and flat arcs.
Always love the super valuable information you give. You rock!
you just made me the happiest person on earth I love you ellen 😭❤
Thank you Ellen! I'm making games again, but I've got a bunch of detailed outlines for books. I watch all of your videos to see if I can make improvements. On one book series, I had everything lead up to a big battle at the end, but it felt kinda empty. The good guys won, there was revenge, the kingdom was saved... but it was just empty. I realized that I didn't have a "Use the Force, Luke." moment. The character arc was missing from the end. I went back and edited in some character flaws for the main characters that got resolved on the journey, and it really improved the ending.
I wish I saw this video 2 years ago! 😄
Great outline.
I’ve had story ideas tumbling around my brain for ages I’ve been honing. This really helped me realize why I was struggling with certain shifts.
I kept trying to make a timid character jump in the deep end sink/swim style and I realized I needed to have her be tossed there unwillingly or find a different pathway for it to feel natural.
I can't tell you how excited I was when I saw this video pop up! Spent all afternoon watching it and taking notes. Great insights as usual. I'd been trying to meld my notes on the character arc and plot structure videos together myself, but this video definitely cleared up some tricky points for me, as well as just adding so much more extra information and ways of thinking of it. It's such a complicated subject where everything is interconnected and you really manage to explain it like no one else. I'm looking forward to looking through the outline of my current project with these new insights in mind.
I'm so glad the video helped! It really is very tricky/complicated and can play out in so many different ways!
Thank you so much! This was great! I can’t wait to hear you speaking on the negative character arc
All good, Ellen! No worries, very helpful.
This is brilliant, Ellen, thank you! It's perfect timing! Just when I thought I'd give up on completing my second novel, a competition comes along, and your latest video showed up to get my enthusiasm up all over again on writing!
I have watched this video so many times, and I'm positive I'll continue to come back and reference it! Thank you for providing the most thorough, actionable writing advice on the platform! ❤
This video coming out on March 21st feels like a real new year treat to me. (The year starting with the spring equinox)
please do not ever worry about any technical difficulties (except for low audio, that's the #1 thing that makes me stop watching a video, and your audio is perfect) I love all of your videos I always rewatch them over and over bc they are so packed with info that I need multiple times to absorb everything and have it 'click'.
Didn't notice any problems at all. Very lucid and well articulated. Thank you!
I absolutely love these long-form videos and they give me so much clarity. Information trumps lighting and camera every day of the week. Thank you so much for turning on another light blub in my dark creative writing space.
The best writing channel around! Even on videos largely irrelevant to me, I learn useful stuff that I suddenly recall when I get stuck!
honestly your explanations are best i've ever seen. thank you so much for your videos.
This is hands down the most helpful advice about character arcs I've ever seen. I have been trying to wrap my head around it forever, and this finally made it click. I have a great plot and characters I like, and I knew the characters needed to have a misbelief that was corrected by the end, but it seemed so amorphous and I really didn't understand how it connected to the plot beats. I have a lot of re-writing to do now, but I have used the notes I took from this video to build a stronger story. Thank you, Ellen! You're the best.
this was a great reminder of how my story needs to stay on path! lol i'm writing a love story with the main character learning to get over a biased view on the world. i can stay ive made mistake already but i think i can make it work.
The camera issue? What camera?) I was so engrossed in the lecture that didn't even notice it. Great vid! One of the most useful and structured on YT. Thanks for the many examples, it's the most valuable part. Can't wait for the bad arc lessons!
One of your best videos! I love the visual outline as well - beyond the character arc, it's a great snapshot of how a standard novel's four quarters should flow from start to finish.
Hi Ellen, thank you from Poland. Yet another great video as always. Language does not matter. Udnerstanding the structure and the hero's journey is the same in Polish and English. I think this video goes well with the one that you have made about the story structure. Everything fits in nicely. I recommend everyone to watch it as well.
I hope the negative arc and the flat arc will also get that much attention, since I feel like they usually get treated very poorly as little more than an after thought.
All the way from Scotland, your content has helped me for over a decade. Thank you.
I'm a hobby writer, but love this content all the same
Thanks as always for the video! For one story in particular I realize I have been thinking of the plot and character beats as separate parts, so I want to make the effort to have them intertwined like you described.
When Ellen posts, it’s like Christmas!! 😂 Saving to watch tomorrow on my day off 😊
Oh, yes? You bet I'm watching/listening to this today.
Thanks Ellen you're a rockstar. Love how you are able to both break story down into a million pieces AND weave everything together (like character arc and plot).
I'm wracking my brain to reconcile this video with my novel, and it may be that mine is a negative arc... I'm going to review your video on that! But one thing you helped me realize is that I can use SHREK as a masterwork to compare. My story is fantasy that focuses on a class divide between magic users and non users, but the real story in Book 1 is a love story. Shrek and Fiona represent the low and high class, and they go on a quest together. Mine is similar in this, so I'll look to that movie (which I've seen ~10 times)!
One thing id love to see a video on is analysis of success stories that drastically strayed from the story arc structure or heroes journey blueprint. It seems like nowadays its mandatory to follow these blueprints but that mentality seems to clash with my creativity bone. There must be examples out there.
OMG THIS IS SUCH PERFECT TIMING
The best hour of today, thank you!
Awwww, glad you enjoyed it!
I can't wait to have time to watch this video. Hopefully this weekend maybe Sunday. Thank you Ellen for this hour long video. I'm in a slump and need a spark. Take care!
This is so beautifully explained!! Thank you so much! 😄
Thanks, Ellen, for another amazing video!
Looking forward to negative and flat arc videos. Especially the dark flat one.
helpful! a negative and flat arc version would be awesome
Hi Ellen! I just fell over your channel and am superdelighted. When I realised that I am a methodological pantser, everything made finally made sense. Thank you for revealing myself to me! I followed your advise and have now put together a structure sheet that works for me. However, I still struggle to now how to structure side plots and how to integrate them with the main story. If you would consider doing a video on that theme, I think it would be a great help for many. Thanks again, your channel is so great!
I never knew writing was so sophisticated
Very good teacher, thoroughly well structured and helpful, thank you
Thanks so much for your awesome content. No need to apologize for camera or looking at notes!
Very interesting and useful! I can't wait for the video about flat arcs - your other character arc video made me realise that the best way to write my current project might be with a dark/grey flat arc (I was trying to make it work with a positive arc, because the way story beats are described is often oriented in that way, but that wasn't satisfying because I ended up with a different message than what I wanted to convey)
It's so nice to see a new video on your channel! Thank you for your work 💕
And an 1 hour long??? I'm so excited to watch it, my town was without internet for two days and now I can finally relax
🥺 I’ve been wrestling with my outline and character sheets then I see this new video. 🎉❤
This is amazing. I just finished studying your other video about character arcs, so this one comes really handy. I'll deep dive into it as soon as I can. I've already learned a lot and can't wait to learn more.
Thank you for making this video! It was just what I needed.
This is so sickeningly good. My gosh
Thanks, this has given me some new ideas for my novel.
Thanks Ellen! It was really helpful to go thru this with u while visualizing my own heroes journey that im writing. It was nice to see that my plan is well thought out, but you inspired me to make a change in the relationship between 2 of my characters which i think will lead to a way more interesting story. So thank you!
I was JUST thinking of your channel and lo and behold there's another video out!! Thank you for making these, they help immensely
Thank you for the notes at the end! Very helpful!
Great stuff, Thank you for your gift and generosity.
this is so helpful as your videos always are!
THIS!!! IS THE VIDEO I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR!! TY
Great, great help with my story. Thank you Ellen!
This video was absolutely fantastic and extremely helpful. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise
So thankful that you're back! 🎉
Excellent video. Thank you.
Yesssss! I needed this!
Was waiting for this - thank you so so much!
I think that a character often has more than one belief/lesson to keep track of. At least when I started to apply this to my WIP, I ran into that.
I would really love to hear your take on the reason the anime Hikaru no Go hits so hard.
It's a very different story structure than the one you've outlined here or prior, but I think breaking down why specifically Hikaru's emotional arc in the last few episodes is so moving might be a great case study.
I don't know anything about how TV series are structured to be honest! It's something I'm interested in learning more about.
This is so helpful, and you explain it so well. Thank you!
This is EXACTLY the topic I needed for my project right now! 🙏🏼
Excellent!
This was great! Can I make a request for a deeper dive into this? I would really love if you could break down one of these movies into scenes and then fit every scene into this structure. Because I have my own book broken down into about 80 scenes right now, and I have these plot beats portioned out here and there in about the right places I think, but it would be nice to see which of these plot beats are kind of drawn out through several scenes and which ones are narrowed down to one single moment?
This is amazing!
Great video!
Thank you for yet another comprehensive lesson! I'm not entirely sure what to make of all the character beats you mention, because while I'm definitely writing a positive arc in my story, I feel like I'm barely hitting any of the character beats you mention. Even though my story is very character driven. So, I'm now low-key questioning all I've written... Oh well, I guess the exception makes the rule. 😂
It's not always as obvious as I'm making it in this video. For the sake of clarity, I don't want to give examples where you have to stand on your head and squint to "see it." I'm planning on covering a few stories all the way through to demonstrate how these beats can vary in appearance and length.
Please write a book! It would be the most valuable book on writing ever
Thank you!
I really appreciate your advice :) "Unfortunately", I write in german. It will not be possible for me to book your services for my writing or send you a chapter for your analysis. But that's okay, there is so much valuable input in your videos :)
Just got back into riding since I got a little bit of free time. Life moral has gone up with the bones of better jobs and pay and all that jazz. Kind of lifts your spirits back up to doing the things that you love. I noticed that you had an outline on the thumbnail. Is there a way we can have access to that outline and others that you have if we pay for patreon or something? I plan on finishing the video but I'm wondering if there will be supplements
I have seen some structures where the lowest point is where the lesson "seems" to fail such as a mentor dying. For example, if the character in liar, liar started telling the truth and it cost him big time. Is this also a possibility? Does that conflict with this structure?
Bingeable xxx I'm saving this for later
Thank you.
Love your videos, especially this deep dive! A quick question about the deep desires: do you think of their motivation (deepest desire) as subconscious or conscious? As in, A) the thing they want deep down but might not even be aware of, and are definitely too afraid to go for; or B) the thing they THINK they want which is driving their actions. For instance, if we have a rom-com protagonist, Jamie, isolating themselves and focusing on their job because they're afraid of abandonment and believe love is only for greeting cards, what would you consider their deepest desire to be? Would it be love, because deep down that's what they want but are too afraid to go for? Or would it be isolation, because they currently believe alone is better?
It's a niche question, but I'm struggling to figure out whether the deepest desire is about how they're acting now, or about how they're getting in their own way of what they REALLY desire, even if they don't know it.
My video on how to write the character arc goes over this, so watching that will probably help. In that video, I cover that exact problem with Shrek (love/relationships vs. isolation as the motivation). The character's motivation can be conscious or subconscious, but it's often subconscious or at least clouded by the belief. The belief is usually more obvious to the character and is burying their motivation from their conscious awareness. The motivation won't change over the course of the story which is how we have endings that feel great (like a win) even when the character didn't get the thing (goal) they thought they wanted. Some characters are aware of their motivation and so their belief is just impacting how they go about trying to fulfill the motivation (they are trying to fulfill it through Y when they should really be trying to fulfill it through X). I hope that makes sense!
@@EllenBrockamazing, thank you! that's extremely helpful. I'll have to go and watch that video now!
Very good video; I didn't notice any of the things you apolergised for. Please, if it is at all possible, could you do a vidio on character arcs that cover a series. My hero does move forward but is prone to backsliding, ten steps forward, nine steps back.
Thank you for you