by Sacha Black
During the show, Dexter was beaten and tortured on a number of occasions. Despite his serial killing habit, the audience still sympathizes with him when he’s tortured or captured because — ‘killer actions’ aside — Dexter has several traits of a hero. He has a moral line he won’t cross (his code), he tries to do the right thing, he protects his family, and deep down most of us relate to vigilante justice.
Moral Torture:
Moral torture has always been one of my favorite forms of character pain. There’s something fundamentally brutal about making a (character) have to choose between the things he values most. It plays on reader fears: what will the hero do? What would they do? Will the hero choose loyalty or justice? Moral torture creates a natural ‘moral’ question: will the hero stick to her morals or will she cross the line to get the justice she desires? It comes back to human psychology and the need to have our questions answered. This keeps the reader on the edge of their seat.
Dexter has managed to evade police capture by adhering strictly to 'the code' which his dad helped him develop. Dexter only kills criminals if they meet the code. But, throughout the series, we watch as innocent people who don't match the code start to get suspicious of his behavior and even threaten to expose him. This tests his moral fiber and everything he believes in: if he goes against his code then he’s the same as the common murderers he’s trying to get rid of. It's his moral code that makes him interesting and what drives the viewer to keep watching to find out what he will do, and how far he can be pushed before he will break his code.
Dexter’s character arc is a fascinating one because he’s an anti-hero. Anti-heroes, by their nature, don’t change. They make better decisions, and ultimately do the right thing, but they retain whatever negative personality traits they had at the start. Their character arcs are effectively flat. At the end of the series, Dexter cannot give up his serial killing ways. But the realization he comes to is that unless he gives up his son and girlfriend, he will continue to endanger them. His sacrifice is his character change. Instead of killing his way to what he wants, he lets go of the only things he cares about (his family) and leaves them to be free.
Thoughts on series arcs
Writing a series is a wise marketing choice. You can use your first book as a loss leader to generate a huge volume of sales to get readers to read through the other books in your series (which is where you make your pennies). But writing a series poses three issues for your protagonist:
Readers come to a series for continuity, which creates problem two:
How do you create character continuity when you need to generate character arcs in each book?
You need a series arc too.
Readers come to a series for continuity because they like the familiar comfort of well-worn characters. It’s like a child’s comfort blanket or your favorite shirt. Genre and character tropes mean your readers know what’s coming and they love it anyway. It’s what causes readers to stick to one or two favorite genres when choosing their next book.
A series arc is, simply, the arc your story follows across every book in your series. If your book was the ocean, your series arc would be the undercurrent and each book arc would be made up of surface waves. What often happens is that the hero will face a different villain in each book, or the same villain but with a different method of attack in each book. Overarching all of the individual book duels will be a bigger problem, whether it’s a bigger ‘grand’ villain, or perhaps the gradual decline of a society (often in dystopian series like The Hunger Games or Divergent).
Here’s an example:
Harry Potter faces a variety of villains throughout the books, from Dark Arts teachers to Dementors and Draco Malfoy, but bubbling under the skin of all of them is his long-running battle against arch nemesis Lord Voldemort. Voldemort is ever present in each book, albeit less so in the earlier books. As Harry defeats the minor villains in each successive book, Voldemort becomes more and more significant until Harry and Voldemort reach their epic final battle in the conclusion of the series.
There are various series arcs you can use but the three most often seen are as follows:
Groundhog Day arc – The hero in this series never changes, no matter how many books there are in your series. Often the protagonist will be an anti-hero rather than a pure hero. Examples include series and characters like James Bond or Sherlock Holmes. Interestingly, individual story arcs are often the same too. In crime books a body is found, the detective works the case, unearths clues and discovers the killer.
Slow Burn arc – Some protagonists mature over the entire series. They repeat mistakes and often encounter similar obstacles (albeit in different forms) throughout the series. They have one or two major flaws they need to overcome, but they don’t achieve this until the end of the series. Examples include Harry Potter, who works on leadership and confidence and the realization that he needs to make the same sacrifice his mother did for those he loves: his life. He isn’t strong enough to defeat Voldemort until the final book.
Multiple Stories, Multiple Problems – The last type of series arc occurs when the protagonist faces a new problem or flaw in each book. Each new story results in him having to overcome a new flaw or problem. This is the hardest type of arc to use in a series because having a new flaw or problem each time means there’s less opportunity for continuity. However, it also makes for excellent lessons-learned type stories which are more often found in children’s fiction. For example, Woody from Toy Story has to overcome his jealousy of Buzz Lightyear in the first film, move past his ego in favor of his heart in the second movie and, in the final film, he has to let go of the past.
STEP 6 - Arcing on a Journey Summary
A character arc is an inner journey a character goes on during your plot. The arc represents the change in your character, where they begin your story as one person and end it having grown and developed into a different version of themselves as a result of the experiences in your novel.
Character arcs come in three forms: positive, negative and flat.
Story is change.
The start and end of your book are like north and south for your character arc. They represent polar opposite character states. Start at the end so you can create a map to guide you through to the end.
The challenge in your story must be so acute that part of your hero has to change irrevocably to win.
Think of story structure as the foundations upon which your character change is built.
Try to bury the theme within your story’s plot points, scenes and characters’ actions.
Flawed hero - all stories start with an inadequate hero — that is the purpose of the story — to push him through enough experiences he will become a better person.
The hero has goal - the hero’s goal and desire is what ultimately pulls him into the story, and makes him take the call to action.
The hero tries to achieve goal and fails repeatedly - these are the obstacles and challenges your hero faces during the plot.
The hero has a realization – the hero discovers why he’s failing and gains a magical item or newfound strength or insight that enables him to succeed.
The hero achieves goal – the villain’s defeated, the hero’s flaw is banished.
Back to normal life - the story is complete and life returns to the new normal.
Torture your hero. That is all.
Series arcs
Groundhog Day arc – the hero in this series never changes no matter how many books there are in your series.
Slow Burn arc – some protagonists mature over the entire series. They repeat mistakes and often encounter similar obstacles (albeit in different forms) throughout the series.
Multiple Stories, Multiple Problems – the last type of series arc is where the protagonist faces a new problem or flaw in each book.
Questions to think about
What type of series arc do you have?
What type of character arc does your hero have?
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8
STEP 7 – Crafting Conflict
I often hear writers weeping over the complexity of creating conflict. But, in reality, when you break ‘conflict’ down to its itty-bitty components, it’s as simple as:
A + B = C
Or
The existence of a goal + prevention of the goal being achieved = conflict.
That’s it.
Okay, I’m being a smidge facetious because, of course, there are a bunch of ways you can create conflict. But those ways almost always plastic wrap an author into a subplot hell-mare. Still. The point is, if you wipe away the subplots, dust down the descriptive prose and banish the witty dialogue, you can get to the core of conflict:
Create a goal… Stop the goal coming to fruition.
There are two questions you should keep in mind when reading this chapter. Let them percolate around the grey squishy between your ears and by the end you’ll have answers — or, at least, the tools to find the answers.
What’s your hero’s goal?
What are you going to do to stop her from getting it?
Specificity
If you want to nurture your glorious web of connectivity, your conflict needs to have a level of specificity. It should be specific to both the hero and the villain to get them invested in fighting each other. It needs to mean something to them both equally. It should also be linked to their values and heightened by their emotions. But to really hammer the nail in the connectivity coffin you need to connect your conflict to the theme. For example, in G.I. Jane the major theme was female power. This is why much of the conflict was based on sexism and reducing her power, and her fight was triumphing as a powerful woman. It’s all connected.
Types of conflict
I like to break things down to the most basic units. Einstein is famed for saying that if you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t really understand it yourself. He’s undoubtedly right.
Conflict can be broken down into three parts:
Macro conflict - These are large scale world wars, society against the hero, often found in dystopian novels as the ‘final’ villain that needs defeating. But this could be any war that spans more than just the hero. It could cross states, history, natural forces, the law, races and more.
For example, the faction system that categorizes every citizen in the Divergent series by Veronica Roth, or the man-killing Triffid plants in The Day of The Triffids by John Wyndham.
Micro conflict - This is a more interpersonal form of conflict — the battles the hero has with personal relationships, for example, between lovers, friends, family, colleagues and enemies.
In Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, the entire plot is based on a micro conflict. Will has a motorcycle accident that leaves him with a desire to end his life. Until Lou rolls into his world and tries to change his mind. Their desires: Lou’s love for him, and his desire to die, smash into each other as they are in direct opposition.
Inner conflict - This is the smallest unit of conflict as it’s internal only to the hero. It’s the conflict the hero has with his own flaws, emotions and values. While it’s the most isolated conflict, it’s usually the most heart-wrenching as it’s the conflict closest to the reader — particularly if you write in closer points of view like first person or third person limited.
Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin is rife with inner conflict. One of Martin’s specialties is giving characters conflicting values and loyalties. Jamie Lannister (known as the Kingslayer) killed the very king he swore to protect. Jamie even goes so far as to spell out the turmoil he’s in:
“So many vows… they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other.” Jamie Lannister in Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin.
In the same series, Theon Greyjoy is torn between his blood family and the adopted family that brought him up. Likewise, Brienne has a bizarre habit of putting honor before everything — including reason. She will follow her oaths even when logic and reason dictate that she shouldn’t.
Balancing Conflict
As cheesy as it sounds, balance is the key to life. You know what’s boring? Monotony. Even conflict in all its drama-fueled gossipy awesomeness can be boring if it’s the same drama throughout a novel. Conflict is best served layered… like cake.
I like cake.
I also like conflict.
And I’m sure your readers will love both.
So layer your conflict like a Victoria sponge on steroids.
You can keep your reader’s interest by layering different types of conflict on top of each other throughout your story. Or use multiple forms of the same type of conflict. But remember: balance is key. Too much, and it’s confusing. Too little, and it’s boring.
Example: In The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins there are multiple layers of conflict.
Inner conflict from her torn feelings between Peeta and Gale.
Micro-conflict that presents as physical fighting against the other tributes.
Macro-conflict between her (and the people of the Districts) and the Capitol in the form of President Snow.
While layering conflict builds depth to your story (and occasionally your world-building), there is a big ‘but’ attached to the layers. It’s important to remember that while all conflict builds pace, and layering it creates depth, it’s the inner conflict that forms the best connection with the reader. And that’s essential to keep the reader reading and growing their empathy for the hero.
“Our tragedy today is general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again.” William Faulkner, 1950, Nobel Prize for Literature speech.
Conflict and flaws
Conflict could, in theory, be about an infinite number of topics. But the cleverest conflicts are designed to make the hero confront his flaw. It’s that moment where I reach across the table to grasp my web of connectivity diagram and grin at you with a glint in my eye. If you connect conflict to the theme, to your protagonist’s flaw, you get a web of bookish, reader-hooking connectivity.
I mentioned the Disney movie Planes earlier. Dusty (the protagonist’s) major flaw is that he’s afraid of heights. To win the final race (the major conflict), Dusty must confront his flaw directly. The only way he can win is to fly above the clouds and go higher than he’s ever been before, thus forcing him to face his flaw and overcome it to achieve his goal.
Conflict and Theme
While you might have multiple conflicts in your novel, your major conflict should be linked to your book’s theme. It should be the very expression of your moral or thematic question. Naturally, sledgehammering your reader around the face with it might not be the best approach, but crafting it in a subtle way makes it more like a gentle stroke to the cheek.
In The Matrix one of the core themes is the question of fate vs free will: what free will is, whether we (humans) deserve it, and whether it exists.
During the film, there are dozens of expressions of the theme fate vs free will, although I’ll only cover three main ones now. But the point is these expressions of theme create conflict for Neo.
The world itself is constructed in two halves: the real world (what’s left of it) represents free will and what having free will has done — destroyed the Earth, creating this hellish dystopian world — and the machine world, where everything is predetermined and ‘fated’ by machines.
Morpheus poses the first and most fundamental fate vs free will question to Neo
by giving him the choice of a red pill or a blue pill. This produces inner conflict for Neo. Morpheus makes it clear to Neo that if he takes the red pill he will leave the comfort and protection of his ‘known’ life forever.
The final battle in the series of Matrix films poses the exact same conflict: fate vs free will. Neo was created inside the Matrix. Arguably he is fated to die to bring the destruction of the Matrix and, yet, he still has the choice of whether to go into battle or not. This produces yet more inner conflict linked to the theme. He goes, obviously, and the final battle is between man and machine a literal expression of the two halves of the world — fate vs free will — in a battle to decide which will conquer the other.
So how can you create conflict?
I couldn’t possibly list all the ways to create conflict here. Well, I could… but it would take forever and someone who’s more of a word nerd than me is bound to come up with another one. So, I won’t. Instead, here are a few ways you can build conflict under each overarching type:
Inner conflict
Wounds
Old wounds serve to create all three forms of conflict. Many wars are started because of a disagreement between two people in power. I liken a wound to a soul scar. Ask yourself: what scars in your hero’s past would make him fight for justice? Were his family murdered? Did he experience torture? Or maybe he failed to save his little sister and now the person that caused her death has come back into his life. soul scars impact a person’s life. They’re the kind thing a man goes to war over, which is why they create conflict.