Your protagonist will begin the story with a lie or misconception about themselves, the world, or others. Your job is to make your character aware of the lie, confront it, and abandon it. (Unless you are writing a negative character arc, then he will revert to the lie).

Step one: Help your character see the lie. Spend some time establishing the lie for the readers. Set your character in their normal world and routine oblivious to the lie. By the time you reach the inciting incident, the falseness of the lie will confront them. (I will use lie and misbelief interchangeably).

Step two: is to confront your protagonist with the falseness of their misbelief. Then, throughout Act II, continue to poke holes in that misbelief, forcing your character to examine their life and beliefs. Besides poking holes in the lie, show your character bit-by-bit the truth they must learn.

Step three: have your character try to resolve their problem (that awareness of the lie created) by treating the symptoms. However, your character will discover that their strategy for fixing the problem doesn’t go deep enough. Think of this as a journey to discovering the root cause of their trouble. Often when we are miserable or just unhappy, we fear looking too deep into the cause. It’s easier to look to entertainment, or little adventures, or the distractions of different addictions rather than search our souls for the cause of our misery.

Often the root cause reveals something ugly or uncomfortable in our own lives; we’d rather note face our shortcomings. It could be an old wound that we are afraid to reopen, or a personal shortcoming or flaw we are unwilling to admit to. Going deeper beyond the sleepless nights or feelings of loneliness is the only way to find fulfillment and wholeness. This is the journey you are taking your character on: one that few of us are brave enough to embark on in our own lives.

Step four: face and embrace the truth. This occurs at the climax of your story where everything comes to a head. Your protagonist faces off with the antagonist or antagonistic force (internal or external) and defeats the lie that force represents. Now they are ready to embrace and live the truth they needed. Your character ends the story a transformed person.