EMBRACING IMPERFECTIONS IN OUR STORY
Improvisation. That’s why we call it art, isn’t it? We writers embrace imperfections in our written characters’ thought patterns or behaviors so that the story can twist and turn just as much as it does in real life. Like jazz, development of a good story means the endings are strategically hidden in misunderstandings, physical barriers, or in something past. Discovering your own implicit historical bias will help you learn to use a story character's bias in his or her communications, meditation, or self-talk. Give them a starting place.
Can a writer empathize with the antagonist? A writer learns to love the enemy, maybe not the choices of the enemy, but a writer can sympathize with the person and the beginnings of the enemy. Did Jesus love Judas Iscariot?
You must learn about your antagonist’s unique place of belonging or setting so that you can shape his or her believable thoughts, recognizable appearances or dialogue with accompanying accents and activities.
From an unlikely source or through an accident that turns out well, insight emerges.
Imperfections make your characters relatable. When you love them through their storytelling, you emulate God’s love and faithfulness for our imperfect selves born into an imperfect world.
A setting can help to hide your plot. A setting can reveal your character’s flaw, so that you can write, bringing help the character. The light we cast onto the flaws of our characters is an act of kindness, though we can create for them a severe mercy, as God often does.
Did Hagar run to the desert to escape, only to be visited by the God of her hated mistress, Sarah? “I see you,” God said. “Eat. Drink,” and, “Go back to your hated mistress. I have a plan for you. Your own son will make a great nation because I have ordained it.”
“Me?” Hagar said.
“Yes, Hagar, I see your need and your mistreatment. Yes, you,” God said. So, Hagar dragged herself back to Abraham and Sarah. In faith. [i] And, God blessed her walk of faith.
When you draw on your own experience with fear or temptation, or from those close to you, you will understand that it is not impossible for the antagonist to be redeemed. Communicate that hope. If you determine to defeat the antagonist when thwarting the antagonist’s purposes, you must feel that grief. It was written that Jesus loved the rich, young ruler who turned away.[ii]
– Excerpt from Being Creative, Chapter 2, Laura Bartnick
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