Room to Grow

I have an online writing mentor, Randy Ingermanson, who's taught me more about writing than all of my classroom and reading time combined.  Although we've never met, I've been both inspired and instructed by him.  He's most well known for developing and teaching the Snowflake Method of story structure, which, if you've never heard of it and you're interested in writing a breathtaking work of staggering genius, you really need to check out.  Although there are no magical formulas to writing, it is a skill that, like any, can be learned.  Randy's snowflake method provides an incredible tool for structuring your story, so that when you actually start putting the words together, you know where you're going, and more importantly, how you're going to get there.

I say all that, not just to plug the website of a man to whom I owe much, but also to mention that I was working on my snowflake for Kindarell last night (if you don't know what Kindarell is, you're not alone.  In fact, I'm just about the only person who does.  I hope to address that soon with a 'works in progress' blog), and I finished the introductory character sheets for two of my main characters.  One of them, The Piper, is a fairly static character, who doesn't change much.  That's okay for him; it's part of who he is.  The main character, however, a girl named Amanda, prior to last night was also a fairly static character.  While this wasn't necessarily bad, it did unfortunately make her a little bland.  One of the questions the character sheet asks is "What's the character's motivation?"  And I realized Amanda didn't have one.  She was simply a person caught up in a series of events that happened to her.  So we tweaked a little, she and I, and before long, we had not only a motivation, but a story arc that involved growth and change.

Amanda now transforms throughout the course of the story.  The glorious thing that resulted from this was that the story grew and changed as well.  Her character now drives the story which used to drive her.  Things I was heretofor unclear on are now crystal.  And the old addage proved true that character is story.

One other quick note on this.  That room to grow that Amanda now has makes her more interesting.  That's true for us as well.  We all have a little room for growth in this life.  We all have those areas we wish we were better in.  When we find them in ourselves, let's have the strength to work on them.  When we find those areas in others, let's have the grace to let them deal with it and cherish them anyway.