Writing Your Story from the Middle––Part IX
Your readers want to see transformation of your Lead Character. In writing your story from the middle, you’ve already chosen their “mirror moment.” From there to the end, is the transformation. How the character arrived at change is your task as author. Click to Tweet #amwriting #writefromthemiddle
A powerful way to really cement character transformation is to solidify their decision with an object that will be meaningful to them in their new way of thinking, acting, life, etc. Also realize that in order to step into the new life, the character must sacrifice their old ways of being. It’s got to cost the character something.
Let’s say a girl is given a locket by her stepmother when she was a toddler. That locket comes to mean the world to the girl as she continues to grow up, and become a woman herself. In order to help a friend in financial need, she sells the locket (which she thought she’d lost years earlier––yet found it around her neck). Little does she know, her husband buys it back and gives it to her. Does this sound familiar? (Love Comes Softly movie series).
The idea of sacrifice is older even than the coming of Jesus. But His sacrifice is central to Christian faith. The character gives up something for the greater good, either for himself, for others, for the world.
Find the resonance in your story. What can the most people relate to and inspire them to pursue change and transformation in their lives? Bringing that will help the character change and the readers will be completely satisfied.
Show transformation of your lead character by focusing on a meaningful object to inspire them and help them through the change. Click to Tweet #amwriting #writefromthemiddle
What have you sacrificed to bring change to yourself –– or do you know people who have sacrificed something they wanted, all for the “greater good?”
Donna L.H. Smith 