Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Change in a Life Changing Event

One of my student's asked me if a Life Changing Event (LCE) can be positive?

She had read yesterday's blog and felt it sounded extremely negative.

In response I'm thinking that events happen in our lives and we make choices that can have positive and negative consequences.

For example, say you are writing a novel and an event happens that alters the Central Character's path in life. Viewed on the surface you might see it as a good thing or a bad thing.

Say your story is about a young girl who grew up in a family without high expectations and couldn't wait to get her married off. Say she was smart, got good grades in school and received a four year scholarship to college.

Now, the reader might expect that this event would be the LCE in the Novel. Maybe it will and maybe it won't. If it changes her life and she becomes a different person than the event qualifies. However, if she simply puts in her time, graduates and perhaps gets a better paying job than she might have otherwise, but essentially remains the same... then it doesn't.

The key here is the word "Change." Does the character change as a result of the event. In the Book, Mutiny on the Bounty, Captain Bligh faces what most would consider, a negative life changing event. In the story that follows he leads those cast adrift in a small boat on an epic journey. It is an interesting story except for one thing. Captain Bligh doesn't change. Not one Iota. He is the same tyrant in the lifeboat that he was on the Bounty, and the only thing that changes are the conditions that surround his life.

In the case above, the scholarship might be viewed as a positive event, however, an event regardless of how good or bad, it might appear, has consequences that could be viewed as positive and negative. Say this girl met a "Jerk" in college, married and had a miserable life afterwards. That is negative. Or say she would have been happy with the "boy next door" despite the financial struggles that might have ensued without a college education. That could be seen as positive.

Thus the consequences of an LCE can be viewed as either positive or negative, even though the event itself might be considered for better or worse..

The point I'm trying to make (and not doing a very good job with) is that a novel starts out with the writer introducing a story world and a Central Character.(CC) If nothing else it needs to show that world and a Before Snapshot of the CC moving around in it.

Then comes the LCE. For better or worse there are consequences when the CC decides to take a new path in life that essentially changes their character. It is this change that the readers want to see as they compare the before snapshot with the change they see in the CC as the story progresses.