Thanks!

Unless you're writing a CSI or Law and Order-type story where all the characters are more or less interchangable and serve only to relate expository dialogue, I think some character growth is expected and inevitable, even if it's just an increase in competence or acquisition of a new skill. A friendship can grow into love, an enemy can become an ally or vice versa, the protagonist can suffer a crisis of conscience or PTSD and decide to give up his/her role as an action hero, or can have some kind of epiphany that helps to solve the current problem. All these things function as a character arc, whether it occurs over the course of one book or several.

Really? That's awesome!

I DO plan for this to happen. I generally start with relatively normal (compared to the story world's "major players") main characters who are fairly competent at using what they have. They get smarter, stronger and more experienced as my stories progress. Their relationships with people change and they do reel from the major things (like ruined friendships, regrets, deaths, etc). They also learn from mistakes...

What threw me off was how a lot of articles and editors say "change" means some permanent internal change...  that protags need to overcome some flaw or part of themselves before they complete a book's story arc. It didn't ring true to me. So I've been sort of agonizing over this for the past few days. By that definition, most of the things above wouldn't count, because they're usually not fundamental; forging friendships/making enemies/altering opinions of individuals/getting more badass are physical and worldly.

For example, if the heroine's partner dies, the grief may make her angry enough to track down the killer, but when he's been defeated and she comes to terms with her friend's death she's still the same (unless she permanently becomes colder or something else due to the events that happened). So it's not really a fundamental change so much as a temporary emotional response to a major knock. No beliefs/attitudes are altered.

As another example, if a hero is always getting messed around by a love interest, and he finally decides to cut things off, it doesn't necessarily mean that he's changed, just that he's hit his limit.

Ya, I'd probably be good with learning more about them.

Maybe change isnt even the best word, maybe I should say I'm looking for reaction to the events going on.

Yeah, if this counts as change I'll be REALLY happy because my MC always reacts to events... I just don't want to have to change him fundamentally every time something major happens or in each book I write!

As in, I'd rather not have to make him more paranoid or less trusting, etc. if his mentor is killed, or to have him struggle with an emotional issue and then have an epiphany at the climax of every story arc.

From a technical standpoint, what do you think it is that makes each book so fast paced?

So far I've noticed:

Constant danger: There's always the threat of something going wrong, which keeps you on your feet. Time seems to go fast when you're having fun or anticipating something, so scenes never seem as long as they are.
Spectacular fight sequences: The danger regularly tips into a scuffle or a major fight sequence. These look cool and have consequences, so they're both instant gratification and full of tension. There are a large number of them in each book (relative to most other books) so by the time you get to the end you feel like you've had a satisfying amount of adrenaline injected into your system. The fact that there are so many means that you know there's something explosive around the corner -- you just don't know when it will jump out.
Switching between important subplots: This provides variation and adds to that feeling of anticipation because you know all these issues are up in the air and they WILL come down, with consequences. The fact that they're important means that the way they pan out matters, so you care. They also tend to feed back into the plot -- now or later -- so the consequences are generally long-term.
Rate of revelation: Each scene introduces something significant about the main plot or one of the subplots, or both, so it feels like there's constant progression. You're not waiting for things to get moving again.

I've been using these in my writing for a while, because for years I noticed them consistently in all of the action-packed stories I've enjoyed. Thinking back over the Dresden Files made it absolutely clear to me. Pick up on anything I've missed?

PS: I don't encourage checking your story against these while you're writing because it'll most likely stifle your creativity, but it's helpful as a checklist... well, it is for me, at least.

I've been doing a bit of world building for my new UF city. I've come up with a bunch of factions I'd like to use, but I decided to scrap them after I started to wonder how plausible they all are. It seems that most UF stories have their critters split up into neat groups with obvious leaders, but I can't imagine this happening in real life. Not that it ever could happen in real life, but, you know

It's believable that these creatures would need some way of keeping each other in line (resulting in some kind of authority/structure), but it's unlikely that they'd do this based on species. For example, vampires are vampires, so why are they split up into courts? It would make more sense for all of them to work together to keep up the masquerade. And so on. It seems unlikely that -- after centuries of co-existing -- the supernatural world would have such a fragmented structure. (This isn't about the Dresden Files btw, but UF in general. I'm only using Jim's vampires as an example Lots of other stories, like Illona Andrews' series, etc have similar factions)

I'm just trying to figure out whether or not it's actually believable that these clear-cut species/ability-based factions would exist within a city. What do you think?

How many plots and subplots would you say most of the DF books have (on average)?

I'm trying to estimate how many plots/subplots Jim uses each book. I'm hoping that doing this'll help me to sustain the same pace/level of action as the DF in my own books Once I know this, I'll know if I'm including too few elements to keep the pace up. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble distinguishing whether different story threads are part of the main plot or subplots in the actual plot summaries of each book=_= . As it's 5AM and my brain is about to turn to mush, I'm kind of hoping that someone else here has already thought this through

Btw, HEY I've been a lurker for a while! Nice to meet you