Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

The battle over whether people change, or whether their basic nature is set in stone has been going on in society for about as long as there has been a society of any kind. The basic belief that people “are” something unchanging underpins the caste system in India, the concept of nobility in European countries, and still haunts our modern schools and prisons. The relatively new idea that people could “become” better than they are is what drives the ideal capitalist system, as well as literature.

I know for a fact that people’s basic nature is not unchangeable. Mine used to be far more gentle, shy, and uncertain. Then I got to spend a number of my formative years living with a violent psychotic, and in order to survive, things had to change.

I’m not telling you this because I feel the sudden urge to overshare, I’m saying it because it illustrates one of the basic reasons that a character will develop and change. Editors and readers are very big on characters growing throughout your story. It matters to them because we can’t invest in a character that just sits there like a rock and lets the world move on without them.

Too often, however, the changes authors put a character through make no sense. I actually enjoy the guilty pleasure of a good romance novel, but this is the worst genre for people making ridiculous life changes. The wealthy bad boy with a closed off personality, prior history of abandonment, and authority issues meets the shy but beautiful girl with a history of abusive relationships and an equally barren support system and they battle their attraction unsuccessfully for around 280 pages, when suddenly a miracle occurs and they are both instantly ready for a mature and long-lasting relationship, and probably parenthood.

It really doesn’t work that way.

Change is usually brought about slowly, by pain. No, this doesn’t mean you should torture your significant other so they’ll stop doing whatever irksome thing they do. Pain takes many forms: poverty, health challenges, violence, war, abandonment, fear, and isolation. It is true that many people break under these circumstances, but others blossom. Why?

My personal non-psychiatrically trained opinion is that some people see pain as a thing to avoid at all costs, and they retreat from it. Others see pain as a teacher, they’d like to avoid it too, but they’re going to learn how to keep it from bothering them again. After all, that is what pain is for. Your body uses pain to show you what to avoid so that you do not damage yourself. Stoves are too hot for your flesh. Knives are too sharp.

You don’t quit using knives and stoves, though, do you? You simply learn how to use them safely.

Your characters are no different. They can’t solve tons of problems because someone turned up pregnant. They aren’t going to go from shy and introverted to Valkyrie in a single step, but they could certainly build up to it. How much change you get depends on the individual and the situation you put them in, but if you want big changes you need to put them in some big challenges.

Pain isn’t a bad thing. It is a common experience that all people share, regardless of religion, gender, age, or any other factor you care to toss in the mix. I can guarantee that whatever genre you write, each and every one of your readers will have experienced pain, meaning that this is the one thing we can all identify with.

There is a reason Ernest Hemmingway described writing as sitting down at a typewriter to bleed.

Cheers,

Michelle