A God's Eye POV of Character Development

Pepper here :-)

As many of you know, last weekend I attended the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference in Indianapolis.
Leave a comment today for a chance to win Making Waves by Lorna Seistland - she was signing books at ACFW!!!!

 Tim Downs was the keynote speaker. His presentations were fabulous – filled with humor, insight, and enough gravity to weigh your heart down to your shoes. In a very good way.

Seriously. He challenged us.

So it got me to thinking. That’s right. Me. Thinking. Are you scared yet? ;-)

One of the elements which make for a fabulous story is the ensemble of characters in a book. The mesh of various personalities.

Is your heroine memorable? Your hero?

How about the way they blend together, your whole cast, to bring about the journey you started on page one?

Characters are important, vital, the heartbeat of a novel– a masterpiece of the author’s skill, creativity, and design. Each one serves a specific purpose within the grand scheme of your novel. You shouldn’t just toss in Cousin Melville unless he has something to contribute to the overall story. He’s strategically placed.

Just like you and me from God’s POV.

Each character He’s placed in His story is specifically designed to serve a purpose. All parts of the body of His best prose.

In the writing industry we hear so much about…

What editors want for their publishing houses?


Where publishing trends are heading?


Which rules to keep and which ones to break.


How to create memorable characters, page turning plots, and meaningful conflict –

And all of those hold important places in making us better writers who write compelling stories…

But at the bottom of it all, of our writing and our lives, there is one simple truth:

We are called to glorify God.

From the words of our mouths to the ones that flow from our fingertips – we have a unique calling. We are all characters in a massive story, a saga from the beginning of time. In this compilation of dramas, comedies, tragedies, and adventures, there is the scarlet ink of God’s redemption stamped on each page – within each soul. It marks us, motivates us, and modifies our thinking.

And we can’t help but express it. Not if we understand what that red-stained hope really means.

If we view ourselves from the vantage point of God’s creation, characters developed for a specific purpose in His story, then it changes the way we live AND the way we write.

The bottom line is that the attitudes of our hearts guides the direction of our pens

Or

Our perspectives influence the choices in our keystrokes

Who we believe God is – and how we see ourselves within His world directs everything we do.

To say it from a Biblical POV, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks…” (or writes).

And this overflow may come out in an overt way, splashing onto the pages of our novels through Bible verses and conversion scenes – or it may weave its way subtly through the message of our books, barely noticeable except to a reader who is ready to ‘see’ it.

We are each uniquely gifted to make an impression on the people God brings into our lives in the flesh, or vicariously through our writing.

And in God’s story, no one is a minor character. Some may end up being recognizable names like David, Peter, Mary, or Paul – and others names we may never know, but they are strategically placed in God’s story to fulfill a mighty purpose in a quiet way. Just like the characters we write.

Stories are the same way. Some will SCREAM of God’s redemption – shouting for the sinner to find hope in Jesus, but others will woo with words and paint pictures through stories, without one overt mention of the salvation plan.

And God will use them both – for His glory.

God’s characters are all paged together for the perfect story, all moving the story forward to its climactic and glorious ending ;-)

At the ACFW banquet, author Janette Oke called our books “paper missionaries”. I like that, because missionaries know, as the rest of us should understand, the call to change someone’s character isn’t up to us – but the AUTHOR of that character’s life. Only the creator of that character can truly change him/her.

In the grand story of life –

We may write the words

but God writes the heart.


What's some of the best writing advice that's ever reprioritized your writing?