The idea is that a character change (arc) can be accomplished by chaning core beliefs. Bell uses a target illustration that goes from the center:

Self-image
core beliefs
values
dominant attitudes
opinions

He uses a good example of Scrooge getting his opinions and attitudes changed, through external conflict with the 3 ghosts, so that enough beating down of the outer rings of opinions and dominant attitudes (internal conflict), under stress, will eventually change the core beliefs and self-image. What I find difficult about plotting this out is that the names of each of the target rings listed above overlap. If you are doing a character arc on grief, there is a definite psychological step-by-step process a person goes through from denial to acceptance. However, for other character changes, I have not found a psychological model that is so clear-cut.

How do you differentiate between opinions, dominant attitudes, values, core beliefs and self-image?

I have long maintained that good writers create believably consistent characters; great writers create believably inconsistent characters. Real people are unpredictable; even in similar circumstances, they may react in different ways. Different circumstances also give the writer the opportunity to show us different aspects of a character’s personality. The real challenge is to create characters in whom (apparently) contradictory behaviours make sense.

One way to do this is in the character’s arc, a subject I would like to expand upon. We can all cite examples (Hollywood is rife with them) of films in which the change in the character at the end of a film seems like something the writer read in a screenwriting book and felt she had to do rather than something integral to the character. The solution is to give the character a conflict with two reasonable positions, and have the character move from one to the other over the course of the work.

An example might help clarify this. Consider a character who is a pacifist who is also a patriot. At the beginning of the work, they may be against a war. The things that happen in the course of the story may slowly bring the person around to the belief that enlisting in the army to fight in the war is necessary. The character’s arc, revolving around two of the character’s core beliefs, will be credible for the audience. (How this inner conflict is related to the more obvious exterior conflicts of the plot can be quite complex.) Of course, depending upon where the writer’s sympathies lie, a different story could be created in which the character’s arc moves in the opposite direction.

However, at the end of the day are you writing a story for your own amusement or are you writing to a particular market. In which case if your story is of a lighter reading style, heavy character discriptions would be akin to walking into a brick as you got half way across a road. Let the style of the story dictate the characters, after all, how many writers out there have found that a) the story writes itself and b) some characters invent themselves as they walk through your story.

First off, let us distinguish between purposes and motives.

Jane Nimblefingers is off to steal the ruby from the idol in the temple of the monkeys. That’s her purpose.

Her motivation is why: to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of her life, to avenge herself on the god who killed her husband and child, to prove she’s good enough to join the Thieves’ Guild, without which she will starve.

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can help there.

Then, after you have decided what the character wants most, you can then consider:

Why doesn’t he want it?

Or, to be less coy, what does he want that he will have to sacrifice to get what he wants? Does Jane not want to succeed because her arrogant SOB of a father will puff himself up like he did it himself? Will she lose the love of her life if she joins the Thieves’ Guild?

(Okay, one of the many reasons…)