When you read a novel or watch a movie that you really like, it can be difficult to think about why you really like it. You have the experience of having met some interesting people, and going on a great adventure with them.<\/p>\n
The changes those people go through in the course of the story seem natural, just as such changes would be in real life. It all seems so simple and reasonable.<\/p>\n
But when you read a bad novel, or watch a bad movie (like the one I discussed here the other day), you realize that crafting a good story is a serious skill. Characters don’t just magically appear and develop — they need to be constructed.<\/p>\n
The better the story and its character arcs, the less you notice the handiwork of the artist. It is only when a story fails, when you see a lack of good character development, that the artistry behind good stories becomes clear.<\/p>\n
This reminds me of something that Steven Spielberg said many years ago: “The best special effects are the ones you don’t see.”<\/p>\n
How much more true this is of creating good stories and characters!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you read a novel or watch a movie that you really like, it can be difficult to think about why you really like it. You have the experience of having met some interesting people, and going on a great adventure with them. The changes those people go through in the course of the story … Continue reading “Character arc”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24935,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24934\/revisions\/24935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}