S02E05: The Archetype of Arcs

Do detectives need a character arc?

Gow and SR, circa 2040 - according to Dall-E

One of the great joys of my life is that my husband shares my passion for detective fiction. One of the great annoyances of my life is that his bar for characterisation is very high.

All too often, while watching an episode together, he will suddenly grab the remote, hit pause, and rant about the abounding clichés or poor character development. The annoying part is that once he points it out, I find myself agreeing and we just lose interest in the series. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When this happened for the umpteenth time a few weeks ago, I persuaded him to write about it. And so we have it—season 2, episode 5 of About Murder, He Wrote. Over to Sreeram.

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To arc or not to arc

A while back, I had pitched the idea for a murder mystery series to my literary agent¹. In my mind (as is the case with all writers and their ideas), this was a winner: the plots were unique, the setting Indian, the detective refreshingly (and relatably) ordinary. In my naiveté, I believed that was enough.

“This won’t work,” he said very soon after. “No one wants to read about a software engineer solving crimes.”

“But the crimes themselves…”

“No one wants to read about a software engineer,” he said. “It’s just not interesting enough. Where’s the drama, the evolution, the character arc?”

Well, he becomes a Team Lead, then a Project Manager… and continues to solve crimes in his free time. Works, yes?

No.

Blooded (if you will pardon the expression) as I was on Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Perry Mason and Miss Marple from infancy, I grew up enjoying murder mysteries for the mystery element in them. Book after book, the detectives remained constant.

Holmes perhaps grew older through Watson’s eyes; Della Street would fob off Mason’s spur-of-the-moment proposals with sound logic and a deft touch of wistfulness, forever stepping back from that track. Poirot did not really seem to grow old until Curtain, and Miss Marple… well, nothing really closed her out, did it?

The first time I encountered a proper story arc for a detective was perhaps the Hardy Boys Casefiles. For the uninitiated, the Hardy Boys stories fell into one of two timelines: the child-friendly line, HB Mystery Stories, which had crime but never (if memory serves me right) any murders, and the more PG-rated Casefiles series that kicked off with (mild spoiler alert) Joe Hardy’s girlfriend getting killed. For a kid discovering this ‘darkness’, it was weird for me at first: finishing a Casefile book and then moving to a Mystery Series title where Joe is whole and Chet is happy…

(Interestingly, at the time of writing this article, I have discovered that the Mystery Series was officially closed a few years ago, and the Hardy Boys have a new series where they are older and find themselves in more dangerous situations.)

The Need for Character Arcs

Stills from Castle (L) and The Mentalist (R)

Castle was one of the first series I remember watching that had an arc running throughout. While the eponymous Richard Castle had a rather static arc, Detective Kate Beckett’s quest to find out what happened to her mom formed a running thread through the series, often leading up to cliffhangers as part of season finales. Yet, by season 5, this felt overcooked. Like riding a tiger, it felt as if the writers couldn’t pull the trigger and reveal it all, with the result that the increasingly unbelievable conspiracy ended up feeling ridiculous.

Contrast this with Patrick Jane’s arc in The Mentalist. Right from episode 1, he’s out to get Red John for murdering his wife and child. Jane’s character arc is largely static, but the story moves forward in big and small ways episode to episode. (Read on till the end for a tip for the Mentalist².) Detective Lisbon starts out as a cynic but eventually becomes Jane’s romantic partner; she has her share of demons but nothing that’s recurring, and that’s about the depth of her arc as well. There are character arcs for their team members, but nothing that impacts the plots at a series-level.

Which begs the question: how important are arcs?

Well, Jane uncovers Red John in S6 E8, and the series ends after seven seasons. So one way of interpreting this is that the writers ran out of steam once the larger Red John story was resolved. The other possibility is that the larger story was resolved because the writers had run out of ideas, and the only thing left to do was to let it all out.

But if arcs are what keep a series alive, why didn’t it work for The Good Detective? After all, it had an interesting set of characters: a disgraced cop-dad and his straitlaced, OCD-driven detective son, and their quest to find out if their family tragedy was indeed an accident. They’ve got a likeable team too, free of drama, never short of comebacks and wry observations. A good setup, but the studio pulled the plug on it after a season.

The Mentalist shared a good part of its run (2008-2015) with another hugely successful series, Psych (2006-2014), with the latter even throwing in a couple of hat-tip mentions to Patrick Jane in its episodes. Both series had protagonists pretending to use extra-sensory skills when they were principally relying on observation and intellect. Both worked with cynical female detectives, eventually getting together with them.

But where The Mentalist had its Red John thread, Psych was largely unencumbered by the weight of a nemesis. The principal thread was the relationships between the various characters - Shawn with his dad Henry, Shawn and Juliet, Shawn and Gus, Shawn and Lassiter, Lassiter and Juliet… By spreading out the load between these relationships, the writers didn’t have to invent deep tragedies or artificial drama to keep viewers invested. Of course, Shawn did have to contend with Yin-and-Yang, the Psych series’ official nemesis, but these episodes were few and far between.

The Types of Arcs

Freed as I am from having to make this article bullet-proof from an academic perspective, let me just share what I think are the types of main character arcs that have found purchase over the years:

#1 Born Complete

Poirot, Holmes, Morse, Tom Barnaby (of Midsomer Murders), Mason, Vera

Inspector Morse (Source: Prime Video)

These detectives are pretty much the same throughout their narrative lifetimes. There are some subtle character developments that shift the trajectory just a millimeter or two to the side, but nothing so drastic as to change the way you view them.

If at all their back-stories are indulged in, it is merely to draw out some parallel to the present case (e.g. Vera in the Crow Trap). Speaking of Vera, the books do offer more of an insight into her past than the television series does - but then again, that is where books in general score over TV.

In all these cases, it’s the storyline characters around them that evolve - they become victims, perpetrators. Their stories come to life, changing the way you perceive them. But at the end of the book, their arcs are done and they cease to exist in the universe anymore. Only the protagonists and their side-kicks survive the ‘Snap.’ The narrative here often follows a three-act structure.

#2 Grow Along With Me

Luke Thanet, Dismas Hardy (by John Lescroart), DI Perez (Shetland), Spenser (by Robert B. Parker), Shawn Spencer (Psych)

Source: Dramatica

Their stories are parallel to the plots of their stories, independent of each other. They find love, lose love, grow older, kids grow up, trajectories shift. These stories typically follow a form of Freytag’s Pyramid characterized by some exposition, action, failure, realisation/resonance, awareness and resolution. When executed well, it can keep freshness and emotional investment alive in these characters; otherwise, it brings down even the enjoyment of the plot (looking at you, Martin Edwards!)

#3 Trauma as Wallpaper

Harry Bosch (by Michael Connelly), Mare of Easttown, Luther, Harry Hole (by Jo Nesbo), Armand Gamache (by Louise Penny), Tom Thorne (by Mark Billingham)

These protagonists have arcs that are so closely intertwined with the crimes in the book that the resolution of the latter must, by necessity, also require further character development. By most standards, these are ‘heavier’ stories - deeper, darker and more depressing than the first two types. The crimes are often more violent, more senseless, and every story leaves its imprint, a dark shadow, upon the character.

Pacing the arc is vital to success for an author here: the darker you go, the more into a corner you’ve painted yourself. There is, after all, only so much you can do before even your most ardent readers/viewers find you too depressing to persist with anymore.

#4 Everyone Else Sucks

Vienna Blood, The Sinner

No, this is not a thinly-crowded place with only two exemplars - these are merely the two I can remember at the moment. This is a category where the writers compensate for a lack of depth in storytelling vision by stacking the deck with as many unpleasant characters as possible.

Let me take Vienna Blood for instance. Against the backdrop of rising anti-Semitism, you have corrupt police chiefs, incompetent competitors, and sadistic superiors - and there is never a redeeming quality, never a shade of gray to them.

You damage your principal characters just so that you can build a redemption arc for them. Unfortunately, like the software engineer’s arc, what it reveals is a fundamental lack of effort in character genesis. It’s far easier to get this wrong, simply because reader/viewer fatigue sets in early.

The Ideal Arc

Perry Mason and Della Street (Source)

There is none.

In 50+ books, Erle Stanley Gardner never aged Perry Mason by a day or brought a Mason-Street union a step closer; that is left to the reader’s imagination, if anyone is so inclined. Poirot did not seek therapy and become an easier person for Hastings to work with. Holmes was never persuaded by Watson to enter a deaddiction center for his vices.

In her Vera books, Ann Cleeves uses the first archetype. But when it came to her Shetland series, she parks us as a fly on DI Perez’s shoulder, living his life as he grows older, slower, softer. By the end of it, it feels as if Perez is just about as old as Vera is - despite the fact that Vera never seems to have grown a day older in all the years between her first book and her latest.

Just as everything else in storytelling, the ‘rightness’ of the arc depends on other elements such as the plotting, the characterisation (to the extent that they contribute to the plot), the quality of writing, repetition and reinforcement, and the length and format of the narrative.

Of course, it is equally accurate to say that the arc also determines the plotting, the characterisation, the writing/narration, and the length and format of the narrative. This circular chicken-or-egg problem is why writing a detective series is so difficult to get right—and so rewarding when it comes together.

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Recommendation of the Week

John Taylor is a reclusive puzzle creator. His quiet, solitary life is rudely interrupted when his twin brother, a Detective Chief Inspector, disappears. John must pretend to be James to figure out what happened, while solving murder cases along the way. Well-paced, good acting, and good mysteries! Watch on BBC Player via Amazon Prime in India.

Rating: 🩸🩸🩸🩸💧

1. Sreeram is the author of the political thriller Kalyug (Westland, 2014)

2. Whenever a Mentalist episode has Red or its equivalents - like cherry, for instance - in its title, it means that the episode has a significant clue towards the revelation of Red’s identity. So if you want to avoid the drama and just enjoy the standalone episodes, look for episodes without Red (or its shades) in the title.