clevergirlhelps:

Planning character arcs goes hand-in-hand with planning the plot itself. I like doing both at the same time, because the plot affects how the character changes, but, ultimately, the character dictates how the story will end. Or, at least, they should.

• Start with what will change. You probably have an idea of what the character is like at the beginning. So, what changes? Is it an opinion? Do they rectify a personality trait? If you have what changes and what it changes to, then you have a beginning and an end to the character arc.
• How will they look in the middle? The middle is the most important part. The character is in the midst of their change, challenging their past opinion/trait while simultaneously holding onto it. What do they hold onto and why? What change do they embrace first and why?
• Allow them to seek out the change. Normally, people don’t radically change themselves of their own accord. The character may need to be convinced to change via an accidental kidnapping or something equally dramatic. But, ultimately, there’s a point where you need to stop dragging your character through the checkpoints and let them walk there themselves. That’s how you show true change: by letting the character embrace it of their own accord. 
• How do they change? How is your character most open to being changed? (This is more to help the plot along, but, as I said, the plot and the arc should be intertwined.) Is your character best convinced by conversations with people they trust? Are they best changed by only the most dramatic of circumstances? Will they pretend to change, while the real change takes much longer?

Character arcs are about change, for better or for worse. However, you could do a character arc that begins in the same way it ended, with the character learning nothing at all or discovering the assumptions they had at the beginning of the work were correct all along. Even if this character learns nothing, other characters should change (unless you’re trying to drive home that being a stick in the mud is no way to live).

A good way to show the character has changed is to pose them the same situation at the beginning, middle, and end. Not in-story, mind – although you could do that – but as a drabble or something similar. The situation should compliment their change, e.g. someone afraid of heights having the chance to go skydiving. If you’ve done your job, the character should react differently at each stage of the story. At the beginning, they’d say no, of course. In the middle, they may think about it before ultimately jumping out of the plane and screaming the whole time. At the end, they jump out of the plane without any hesitation.

If you have any other questions, look in the character arc tag.