Meredith Mansfield, Author

Archetypal character arcs are another way of looking at . . . well, if not precisely the same thing, something very similar. Just because one of the archetypal character arcs is call the Hero, doesn’t make it exactly the same as the Hero’s Journey. That doesn’t feel quite right to me, but that’s just my opinion. It may only be a matter of perspective. And, really, it doesn’t matter that much. If thinking in terms of character arcs instead of journeys feeds your muse and fuels your creativity, that’s what’s really important.

The interesting thing about the archetypal character arcs—at least, to me—is that they follow one another. In fact, in this analysis, the point of the arc is to level up, as it were, to the next arc. So, a coming-of-age arc would lead to a hero arc, and from there into something like the arc of a Heroine’s/Leaders Journey and then on to still other arcs. That certainly has possibilities for a long series centered, mostly, around a single character. Although, there are plenty of examples out there that prove it’s not the only way to write such a series.

That’s all a little bit beside the point of my current focus on the Heroine’s/Leader’s Journey, though. If you want to dive deeper into these character arcs, I recommend starting with K. M. Weiland’s website. She’s doing a series on these arcs, starting here: Archetypal Character Arcs, Pt. 1: A New Series – Helping Writers Become Authors.