How to Write Different Character Arcs for the Same Character (Part 1 of 2)

One of the most interesting challenges of writing a series is figuring out how to create different character arcs for the same character, without it feeling repetitive or forced. Whether you’re writing a progressive arc that unfolds over several books or you’re exploring entirely different arcs in each installment, the goal is always to keep the character’s journey fresh and meaningful.

Last month I shared a post about developing different character arcs using the Enneagram personality system. However, after writing that post (and its follow-up about how to unite the Enneagram with the archetypal Life Cycle for even deeper character arcs), I realized I hadn’t quite got to the heart of the question that inspired that original post, from Zoe Dawson:

What is your take on using the Enneagram nine personality types and constructing their Lies so that it’s not repetitious for each story?

Although Zoe’s question was specifically about the Enneagram, the deeper underlying dilemma is one any author writing more than one story will eventually face: How can you make sure you’re writing varied and interesting character arcs—rather than just repeating yourself?

This quandary may ring true in a number of different scenarios:

• You’re writing a series in which each book features progressive character arcs that all tie into a larger overarching arc.
• You’re writing a series that features a thematically new and independent character arc for each story.
• You’re writing multiple unrelated books and want each one to be fresh and different.

Writing Your Story’s Theme (Amazon affiliate link)

Today, I want to dig deeper into the big picture of how to construct Lies the Character Believes, character arcs, and themes that don’t repeat from story to story. This week, we’ll dig into some specific tools and frameworks that can help you shape varied arcs; next week, we’ll explore some general principles to keep in mind.

To get us started, here’s an idea I’ve always found resonant and that can be helpful to keep inmind when seeking to vary your writing:

We all have one story to tell and we just go on telling it in different ways.

Now, is that explicitly true?

Certainly not.

I, for one, have written one novel after another that is completely different from one another. And yet, I do feel that every story in an author’s body of work must ultimately point to the deeper truths and themes of the foundational story that is the author’s own life. No matter how much you may (or may not) change the outer trappings in your story (genre, setting, plot focus, etc.), the underlying thrust and focus will always be you.

Click to enlarge.

I don’t see this as a drawback. I see it as the most compelling offering every author brings to their readers. In fact, I would suggest you might be most successful in varying your character arcs across books once you can realize the thrust of your own underlying interest and intention. For example, no author was perhaps more famous for writing a legion of staggeringly quirky and unique characters than Charles Dickens, yet even a cursory familiarity with his stories shows the underlying cohesion of the author’s focus on social issues, particularly the plight of the city’s poor. As you brainstorm new and different character arcs for your stories, it might be worthwhile to start by first identifying what actually makes them the same.

Little Dorrit (2008), BBC / WGBH Boston.

In This Article:

• 6 Progressive Personalities and Development Systems to Write Different Character Arcs
• The Five Foundational Character Arcs
• The Life Cycle of Archetypal Character Arcs
• Enneagram Map of Health
• Spiral Dynamics
• The Four Stages of Alchemy
• The Four Stages of Knowing

6 Progressive Personality and Development Systems to Write Different Character Arcs for the Same Character

Let’s start where this question is trickiest: How to write different character arcs for the same character?

One powerful way to write different character arcs for the same character is to ground the character’s growth in a larger developmental framework. Just like real people, characters evolve through recognizable stages—emotionally, psychologically, and even spiritually. Mapping your characters’ journeys to a progressive system can offer a shortcut for creating arcs that feel both fresh and cohesive across a series.

The following models can offer useful blueprints for tracking your characters’ inner evolution and continuing to shift the lens through which they experience the world.

1. The Five Foundational Character Arcs

Creating Character Arcs (Amazon affiliate link)

The basic “shape” of foundational character arcs can, in themselves, guide you to resonant variations. These foundational arcs (which I talk about in-depth in my book Creating Character Arcs and elsewhere) are:

Heroic Arcs

1. Positive Change Arc
2. Flat Arc

>>Click here to read more about the Heroic Arcs.

Negative Change Arcs

1. Disillusionment
2. Fall
3. Corruption

>>Click here to read more about the Negative Arcs.

You can mix and match these arcs from story to story to create vastly varied experiences. The simplest approach is to observe the natural connections among them, especially between the two Heroic Arcs and the three Negative Change Arcs, respectively.

The Positive Change Arc—in which the character overcomes a limited Lie-based perspective and gains a broader Truth-based perspective—leads naturally into a subsequent Flat Arc—in which the character can stand upon this newly gained Truth to inspire change in others.

Likewise, the Negative Arcs can be crafted as part of a larger cycle. The character might undergo a Disillusionment Arc—in which a difficult new Truth creates a vulnerability that may lead to resistance or resentment. This can then easily lead into a Fall Arc, in which the character bolsters resistance to the Truth by investing in greater and greater Lies. This easily leads into the still worse Corruption Arc, in which a character who once had the opportunity and advantage of recognizing the Truth instead opts to reject it utterly.

2. The Life Cycle of Archetypal Character Arcs

Writing Archetypal Character Arcs (affiliate link)

In my book Writing Archetypal Character Arcs, I fleshed out the mythic lens of storytelling beyond just the Hero’s Journey to explore the full gamut of the human Life Cycle. Each of these six foundational archetypal character arcs naturally leads one into the other, making them perfect for a series in which you wish to explore an ever-maturing character.

These six foundational archetypes are:

1. The Maiden (Individuation)
2. The Hero (Service)
3. The Queen (Leadership)
4. The King (Sacrifice)
5. The Crone (Surrender)
6. The Mage (Transcendence)

You can find even more possibilities for variation—while adhering to a solid thematic throughline—by also exploring the six Flat archetypes and the twelve shadow archetypes that accompany each of the primary archetypes.

Graphic by Joanna Marie Art.

3. Enneagram Map of Health

Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson (affiliate link)

Last month, I offered quite a few new tools and perspectives for using the Enneagram personality system to develop your character arcs. One particularly useful aspect I did not touch on was the stages of growth inherent to each type. In their book Personality Types, Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson map nine stages for each type, ranging from healthy to average to unhealthy. Each of these stages could be fleshed out into a full character arc with the stages advanced in either direction, depending on whether you wanted to ultimately tell a story of a character who changes positively or negatively.

For example, the nine stages of Type Eight (the Challenger) are listed like this (from healthy to unhealthy):

1. The Magnanimous Heart
2. The Self-Confident Person
3. The Constructive Leader
4. The Enterprising Adventurer
5. The Dominating Power Broker
6. The Confrontational Adversary
7. The Ruthless Outlaw
8. The Omnipotent Megalomaniac
9. The Violent Destroyer

4. Spiral Dynamics

Spiral Dynamics by Don Edward Beck and Christopher C. Cowan (affiliate link)

Created by Don Beck and Chris Cowan, Spiral Dynamics is a model of human development that maps how individuals and societies evolve through increasingly complex value systems. Each stage—represented by a color—reflects a particular worldview, from basic survival to tribal loyalty to achievement and beyond. In character development, Spiral Dynamics can help you explore how a character’s core motivations and beliefs shift over time. As they move up (or regress down) the spiral, they may adopt new values, question old assumptions, or clash with characters operating from different stages, all of which can offer rich material for varied arcs across a series.

The currently recognized stages or “memes” of the spiral are:

1. Beige (SurvivalSense): Basic survival priorities (e.g., food, water, shelter, safety).
2. Purple (KinSpirits): Tribal loyalty, superstition, tradition.
3. Red (PowerGods): Dominance, ego, power, and asserting control over others (also called the Warlord meme).
4. Blue (TruthForce): Order, rules, morality, and obedience to a higher purpose or authority.
5. Orange (StriveDrive): Achievement, success, science, and rational progress.
6. Green (HumanBond): Equality, empathy, community, and consensus-driven values.
7. Yellow (FlexFlow): Integration, systems thinking, flexibility, and personal responsibility.
8. Turquoise (GlobalView): Holistic awareness, unity, and spiritual consciousness.

5. The Four Stages of Alchemy

Originally developed in the Middle Ages as a supposed process of turning lead into gold, the stages of alchemy are now recognized as a symbolic representation of … you guessed it, character arcs! (Aka, psychological development. Potato. Potahto.) A few years ago, I shared a post showing how the four stages of alchemy map perfectly onto the four quarters of story structure and, therefore, character arc. However, you can also choose to represent each stage as an entire arc of its own, allowing a four-story cycle to reveal the final alchemy. For that matter, many explorations of alchemy posit many more stages than just four, which could allow you to both lengthen and deepen your story arc.

The four basic stages of alchemy are:

1. The Nigredo (The Blackening): Descent into darkness, confusion, breakdown, ego death.
2. The Albedo (The Whitening): Purification and clarity, recognizing truth, separating from illusion.
3. The Citrinitas (The Yellowing): Insight, illumination, integration, growing wisdom.
4. The Rubedo (The Reddening): Wholeness, rebirth, final transformation into the true self.

6. Four Stages of Knowing

Earlier this year, I similarly explored how the popular “four stages of knowing” also map neatly onto the four quadrants of a story’s development. Just as with the alchemical process, you can also stretch these stages to explore each aspect of the transformation more deeply in multiple evolving character arcs.

The Four Stages of Knowing are:

1. Not Knowing That You Don’t Know: Unconscious ignorance.
2. Knowing That You Don’t Know: Conscious ignorance.
3. Not Knowing That You Know: Unconscious competence.
4. Knowing That You Know: Conscious competence.

***

All of these frameworks—whether psychological, mythic, philosophical, or symbolic—can offer powerful scaffolding for exploring different character arcs for the same character without losing cohesion or authenticity. Not only can they help you avoid repetition, they can also support you in uncovering the deeper throughline of meaning that connects your stories to each other—and to you!

Next week, we’ll zoom out for a big-picture look at some guiding principles and narrative strategies you can use to vary your character arcs across multiple books or series. We’ll explore how to make your arcs feel intentional and fresh without straying too far from the heart of what makes your storytelling uniquely yours. Stay tuned!

In Summary

When writing multiple stories—whether within a series or across a body of work—one of the most powerful ways to ensure fresh and meaningful character arcs is to root them in the natural evolution of human development. By drawing on progressive models like the five foundational arcs, archetypal Life Cycle, Enneagram growth stages, Spiral Dynamics, and other systems, you can create nuanced journeys that build upon one another rather than repeat. Recognizing your own thematic throughline as an author only deepens the authenticity of these arcs. Next week, we’ll look at broader storytelling principles that can help you vary arcs across books, even outside of progressive systems.

Key Takeaways

• Repetition in character arcs is a common challenge for writers of series or multiple books, but it can be overcome with intention and structure.

• Developmental models like the five foundational character arcs or the archetypal Life Cycle can offer a roadmap for evolving your character’s journey meaningfully across books.

• The Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics can offer deep personality and value-system frameworks that naturally lend themselves to transformation over time.

• Alchemy and symbolic systems can add depth and metaphorical resonance to character progression.

• Discovering your own thematic signature as an author can be a compass for creating unique yet unified arcs across your body of work.

Want More?

Writing Archetypal Character Arcs (affiliate link)

If you’re looking to deepen your understanding of character development and ensure your cast evolves in meaningful, thematically resonant ways, my book Writing Archetypal Character Arcs offers a powerful framework. It explores six foundational arcs—Maiden, Hero, Queen, King, Crone, and Mage—that reflect universal patterns of growth and transformation. Whether you’re crafting a protagonist’s journey or exploring contrasting arcs for supporting characters, this resource can help you weave rich, symbolic layers into your storytelling. It’s perfect for anyone wanting to write dynamic character arcs for different characters across a standalone novel or an entire series. It’s available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! How do you approach writing different character arcs for the same character in a series or across multiple books? Tell me in the comments!

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, or Spotify).

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