How To Use Longing To Create Character Growth

Examples From Two Favorite Stories

A great way to hook a reader early on in your story is to hint at your main character’s capacity for growth. Readers eagerly engage with a story that centers around a character on the brink of change, and the best way to hint at the potential for character growth is to illustrate something your character has been longing for since before the story started. This sense of longing not only makes readers curious about what will become of the character, but it also reveals a character’s deeper identity, which engages readers’ sympathy and makes them want to root for the character.

Here are a few examples from two different film franchises of how a character’s longing leads to growth.

Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings

In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Aragorn starts as a shadowy Ranger and slowly morphs into the true king of Gondor. Aragorn is a character with a lot of secrets—but it isn’t his secrets that allow for character growth. Instead, it’s his longing.

If Aragorn’s arc were simply about revealing his true identity as the rightful king of Gondor, that would certainly make for a cool story with a nice twice, and in fact, that’s more or less the arc he goes through in the book. We find out he’s not really an aimless Ranger—he’s the heir of Isildur, which means he’s next in line for the throne and needs to rally support. But the movie creates a much more fascinating arc, imho, by portraying Aragorn as a good man who is nevertheless afraid he isn’t good enough to take the throne. That gives him a need for growth—but not the capacity for it.

In fact, it’s Aragorn’s longing to see Gondor restored that provides the impetus for growth. We see a glimpse of this longing when Aragorn carefully replaces Isildur’s broken hilt on its dais and holds his hand over his heart. He’s devoted to his throne, even if he’s not yet ready to claim it. This devotion won’t let him stay stuck in his doubt; he’ll eventually undo the lie he believes about his limitations and grow to be the king he is meant to be.

Luke Skywalker from Star Wars: A New Hope

Before Luke Skywalker becomes the Jedi who fights the evil empire, his longing for adventure signals to the audience that he is destined to grow from ordinary farm-boy to powerful hero. In the beginning of A New Hope, Luke dreams of attending the Imperial Academy, most likely to be a pilot. He wants so much to leave home that he argues with his uncle about it. His uncle’s insistence that Luke stay on for another season illustrates the burden Luke lives with at the start of the story.

In fact, Luke’s longing for something grander than the life of a moisture farmer is the impetus for arguably the most famous shot from the Star Wars franchise, the moment he watches his planet’s twin suns set in the desert. This stirring moment signals to the audience that Luke is a hero in need of a quest. He isn’t just an unassuming farm-boy thrust into adventure unwittingly—he’s a character with the capacity to become a hero.

Kylo Ren from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Illustrating a character’s longing is also a great way to make an audience anticipate growth for an anti-hero. Although Kylo Ren seems to be a villain in The Force Awakens, he is redeemed by the end of the trilogy, in the same way Darth Vader was redeemed at the end of the original trilogy. But unlike Vader, Kylo Ren starts as a rather complex character. He keeps the helmet of his grandfather, Darth Vader, as a token of inspiration: he longs to prove himself as a powerful figure worthy of respect.

This longing helps the audience realizes that Kylo Ren’s motivations are tied to his family’s heritage, a rich source of conflict that carries over from the original trilogy. As the trilogy progresses, we understand that Kylo’s longing to prove himself can take him down a path of villainy or heroism. Watching him vacillate between the two choices is part of the fun of the series because even though we thrill at his displays of power, we secretly hope he will grow toward redemption.

Longing and Burden

Each of these characters longs for something before the main plot starts, and their longing is enhanced by a burden that is part of their daily life.

• Aragorn is burdened by the weight of his responsibility toward Gondor.

• Luke is burdened by his uncle’s insistence that he continue a life of farming in the desert.

• Kylo Ren is burdened by the evil legacy he must live up to under the relentless prodding of his authoritarian teacher, Snoke.

These burdens compel the characters to engage with the plot, with the added hope that in doing so, they will achieve the object of their longing. As the characters go after what they long for, the audience anticipates change.

We see this same potential for character growth in other stories:

• Moana longs to venture out to sea, even though she’s stuck on land, a limitation that burdens her.

• Emma Woodhouse longs for true companionship after her losing the company of her governess, a loss that burdens her.

• Jack Skellington longs for a new creative challenge after pulling off yet another perfect Halloween, a boring repetition that burdens him.

Your Turn!

To create an impetus for growth in your own character, and to signal to the reader that character growth is underway, trying asking yourself

• What does my character long for BEFORE the story even starts?

• What burdens in my character’s life have prompted that longing?

• How does my character’s longing show their true self, a self that might be hidden from other characters?

For more help on using longing and burden to develop your character, check out The Five-Layer Method, my popular workbook course that takes you step by step through character creation.