TODAY'S NUGGET: Does My Arc Look Flat?

Everyone knows there's no good answer if a woman asks "Do I look fat?"

Same thing applies if someone asks me, "Does my arc look flat?"

[OK, no one has ever asked me if his/her story arc is flat.]

[OK, no one really thinks about the arcs at all.]

But this week I had a heavy duty dose of arc work on a couple scripts. 

So here's what has been on my mind.

 - When you don't know what is wrong with your script, I'm almost 90% sure the arc is flat.

- Think of a rainbow arc.  The character arc is the layer upon layer of colors.  The story arc is how it stretches from left to right.

- The best scripts are when the character arc and the story arc parallel each other.  Both should escalate. (Escalate = more conflict.)

- Script problems pop up when all we see is a kaleidoscope of colors (plenty of character) but no story.  Or a single color (great plot & story) but no character.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: The answer is yes, it looks flat.