This is K.M. Wylant and you are listening to the 549th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode, Arcetypal Character Arks Part 16, The Flat archetype of the child.

In many ways, the child is hardly a flat or unchanging archetype at all.

Even though we often perceive and remember child, or unchanging archetype at all.

Even though we often perceive and remember childhood as a chapter in which everything

remained the same, and all suddenly it didn't,

the years before puberty are, of course, some of the most rapidly transformational of any part of our lives.

I suppose you could argue for another important life arc in there somewhere.

And yet for all children, there is also a definitive sameness

to this period of life.

No matter our individual personalities or family circumstances, we are all children. Blank

slates, innocence. More than that, we are free from the responsibility of growth that arrives with the burgeoning

adolescence and the onset of the

made-in arc, which as mentioned throughout this series can and should be taken by everyone.

At first glance, the child archetype also seems to be lacking in the flat arc ability to transform the story world or supporting

characters.

However, I think any adult who has had a child enter his or her life will attest that few

grown-ups are as utterly transformative and growth-inducing as our children.

More than that, the child is growth-inducing as our children.

More than that, the child is often a surprisingly, if unwittingly, wise archetype.

If we recognize that story structure always comes full circle, we can see how the final

character arc of the life cycle, the enlightened mage is in many ways a fulfilled return to the child's deep connection to and

instinctive understanding of life.

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