Tracking character arcs

A character arc tracks how a character changes throughout your story - their internal journey of growth, regression, or transformation. Think of it as your character’s emotional roadmap, complete with peaks, valleys, and crucial turning points that shape who they become.

Our characters go through a lot, and it’s helpful as a writer to keep track of it. Having an ‘at-a-glance’ summary of your characters journey in one place allows you to see if you’ve veered off track, or if a crucial shift has occurred without the foreshadowing or logic that you intended.

This type of codex set up is best used when:

• You want to track a character’s development throughout the story
• You want to inform the AI about key character changes “in real time”, without risking spoilers.

Remember, not all character arcs need to be positive transformations. Sometimes the most memorable stories show characters falling from grace or steadfastly maintaining their values despite intense pressure to change.

How do I set this up?

This will make use of the progressions feature within Novelcrafter’s codex. You can learn more about progressions here, so I’ll use our case study as an example here.

Delilah’s character arc changes throughout the story, as she undergoes trauma, and learns new things about herself and the world around her.

You might be wondering whether or not to use the replacements part of this feature. This is entirely up to you—I prefer to keep the older entries in, as it helps show the journey, but if you find the characters are in an old state, then you can use the replacements and see if this improves the output.