The ability to write a good story is one of the most complex things that a person might have to do. I would even argue that nobody has been able to perfect this skill yet; in fact, I’ve rewritten this article about 3 times. The characters have to be meticulously thought out and can’t remain stagnant for the entire story. Having a story where absolutely nothing happens is a mistake that almost every young writer makes; if nothing changes, then there is no story. You can give your character a perfect life, with perfect grades and a perfect social life, with no failures, but how can you truly showcase that your character has grown without the rough mountain climb to the climax and the fall down from tripping on a tiny rock? Good stories don’t have to influence someone into becoming a better person; they can be useful to entertain the reader and relate to them.
Good stories need conflict, and I don’t mean one with a simple example of “the golden rule.” I mean one with a gut-wrenching conflict that could completely destroy the character. Imagine reading a 300-page novel where the character has the same values throughout the entire story. A character’s reactions to their constantly changing environment are how they develop into the person readers are waiting for at the end of the story. The interesting thing about writing a story is that authors can put their own personalities into their characters, making every story completely different. Every character has their own beliefs, passions, and values, and the ways those differences collide and connect allow them to form relationships with one another. Allow for a character to make their own reckless decisions and grow through their obstacles. The decisions an author allows for their character to make, especially the bad ones, can reshape the values they carry throughout the story. Just like us, they abandon their hobbies and constantly worry about things like their grades or an argument they just had with their parents. They look back on their old decisions and memories, sometimes to reminisce or to regret, but ultimately realize that they have grown into a new person with different values. The best part is that the character has no idea how their decisions will impact them. There is something so enticing about reading a book and feeling the suspense of not knowing what is going to happen to the protagonist next. They don’t know how the book is going to end; they might not even know they’re living in a book.
Even the reader doesn’t know how the book is going to end; only the person writing the book knows how the character is going to shift throughout the story. We can visibly see there are still hundreds of pages left in the story but the character living in the book doesn’t. That’s what’s so unique about life. If we could hold our entire life with every decision we will ever make in our hands and skim through the pages to get to the climax, we wouldn’t experience the in-depth middle of our own story. The thing about people is that they are like their own authors. We can write our own stories and make our own crazy decisions. It is inevitable that we are going to change throughout our lives and we have no idea how. Stop worrying about the little fights you have or the bad grade you got on a test. Not every book ends the same way, and not every decision a character makes has to be the correct one; the good and the bad are what keep the reader from closing the book. The point is, live your life the way that you want to, write your own story and never forget that you are the author.
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