For Christians new to writing novels for kids and teens. Creative writing tips, encouragement and inspiration from Janet Wilson, writer, speaker, and publisher of Christian fiction for young people. Get ready to take your writing to the next level! You can do it - all you need is a bit of help. Don't miss out!
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SPEAKER_00
Welcome to the Write for a Reason podcast. My name is Janet Wilson. I'm a publisher of Christian fiction for young people with Dernia Publishing. If you're a Christian and new to writing stories for kids and teens, stay tuned for encouragement, creative writing tips, and actionable strategies you can implement immediately to become a better writer and get your books out into the world. So today we're going to be talking on the podcast about the changed character. So sometimes called character development, character arc. It is the fact that your character will change as they go through the story. Stories tend to be on two levels. So you've got a physical one and an emotional one. This is what fiction is all about, isn't it? So as your characters go through all manner of difficulties and trials, they'll be learning and changing along the way. And that's really important that we get this right in our stories. After all, they've been through everything that you've put them through, they're not going to be the same person they were at the beginning. By the time you get to the end of your story, you want your protagonist to have learned something, and also you want to have considered how they have changed and grown throughout the story. And it's really useful to think about how you're going to show these changes to your readers. So you might have a great plot for your story, but if it doesn't affect your main character, it will lack depth and it won't ring true because every trial we go through changes us. And we sure do know that, don't we? This is what life is like, and it also needs to be what is like for your characters. Perhaps your protagonist might have learned something about themselves along the way, come to a particular decision about something, found a new and needed skill, or in some way improved themselves or decided to improve the lives of others, even perhaps. The sort of thing I'm thinking of is perhaps at the beginning your protagonist was quite shy. But by the end of the book, they've learnt that stepping out isn't perhaps as scary as they thought and they can do hard things. If during the process of your story your protagonist becomes a Christian, you will have needed to move them on perhaps from being diffident or antagonistic even at the beginning of your story to issues of faith, to realising their need for a saviour, and then recognising that Jesus is the way. You don't have to do that, of course, just because we're writing so-called Christian fiction. That's just by way of an example. Equally, your protagonist may have gone through a process from being fearful of a particular situation to finding peace in it. They may have gone from being excluded from school due to their destructive anger to channelling their anger into working for positive change in attitudes in their community. The possibilities, of course, are endless. Here's an exercise you might like to do on your own sometime. Take a book and have a look how the protagonist is different at the end of the book than the beginning. Write down everything that you notice. Is the change obvious, realistic, inspirational? And what about any other characters have they also changed and grown? It's great to make some notes because it helps you to remember these things as you're thinking about your own stories. Note that all characters will grow and learn, but your protagonist is the one we're really most concerned about in the story. This is a really important thing. Think how you're going to have your character change and grow throughout your story. What will they have learned? How will they be different? How will it have changed their lives? I hope you found that helpful. If you'd like lots more free creative writing tips, hop on over to rightforeason.com where you'll find lots more resources and encouragement to help you write excellent, relevant, fun novels and get them into your readers' hands. If you haven't yet done my free course, Gripping Beginnings, you can sign up and start immediately. We also have a membership group and there's the Right for a Reason Academy. I'd love you to join us. So don't put it off, folks. Today is a gift to use wisely. Only you can write your book, and if you've been called to write, someone's waiting for it.
