Yes, It's Research. Really.

Writers...research.

It's what we do. To tell about a time or place we've never been takes researching until we are as well acquainted with that subject as we are our own time. We must be able to see that place in our minds to write it in terms so that our readers can see it too.

That research can show up in any form, at any place. Yes, I'm really doing research when I insist on tasting every flavor of taffy when it says it was made the same way they made it in the 1800's. It's research when I need to hold that hand stitched lace because I can't describe what it feels like when my heroine's mother makes all the lace on a wedding dress if I don't know what it feels like. And it's research when I need to go to every frontier festival, living history museum, and stagecoach festival that comes within driving distance.

Oh...

And all those Christian fiction books on my bookshelf...

They're research too.

Really.

I Was That Little Girl

There it was.

In black and white.

Mocking. Taunting. Reminding me of the simple ways people used to live.

I held in my hands a children's book filled with stories of a grandmother sharing stories from her childhood. Bonnets, hoops for wearing under skirts, aprons, pumps... They were all there. Written out in simple terms that would appeal to children in the five to twelve age range. And they were holding me captive.

This isn't the first time I've experienced this. Every time I hold that book in my hands the same thing happens. I am drawn to those simple stories, to the closeness shared between the grandmother and her granddaughter. As I read the stories I am reminded of many an hour spent in my own grandmother's company, hearing stories, learning at her knee, being loved.

Only my grandmother told stories of the depression not the pioneer era. She told of riding in a car while her newborn cousin lay on a pillow beside her because it was believed in those days that to bend a newborn at the waist would cause them harm. She told of the first Christmas she ever got a present, how her mother made donuts using her wedding ring to cut the circle out of the middle, getting her fingers smashed in the sewing machine...

And while she told me those stories she taught me how to sew, how to cut patterns, how to cook.

So when I hold that children's book in my hands and read the stories it contains, I enjoy the simple days, the simple life, the closeness of the family it portrays and I picture that little girl sitting on her grandmothers knee, standing at the table leaning over a woman that never grew weary of explaining and answering questions. Because once...I was that little girl.

Drawn To a Simpler Time

For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.

Psalm 90:4

I was 11 when I discovered a world I never knew existed. Books. Books. And more...books. I'm sure I grew up with books around me. I remember visiting the library as a child. My mother read chapter books aloud to me and any friends that happened to be at our house but it wasn't until I turned 11 that I discovered the pure joy of reading.

Not only did I discover the pleasure of reading but I also learned that books could take me places I never dreamed of. I traveled west in covered wagons, experienced the depression through the eyes of a girl that 'lived' through it, traveled through time, visited foreign lands. Without warning my world opened up and I lived in a ways I could only imagine. And imagine I did. Not only did I read those stories I spent hours making them up in my head.

I did not know then that those chapter books and the daily doses of Little House on the Prairie that I watched as soon as I escaped the confines of school would mark me for life and create a fascination with a time gone by. Or that years later my life would be changed as I entered an all new world. The world of writing.

Many a day have passed where I wondered what it would have been like to live in a time when things were simpler. A time where morals and faith ruled peoples lives. A time when family and friends held more importance than things. When towns were communities of people pulling together helping each other. Sharing fellowship, sorrows, joys....life.

Those days were not without their problems. Of that I have no doubt. Then, as now, there were believers and non believers. There were law abiding citizens and outlaws. Friendly folks and people that would just as soon shoot you as look at you. 

But...Oh to see those days as they were. To walk the main streets and see the general stores, the women in long dresses, the children in bare feet, streets lined with wagons and horses tied to hitching posts. To walk into a store with .50 and buy...whatever they sold for two quarters and leave with a brown paper wrapped parcel that crinkled in your hands. To see neighbors helping neighbors. 

To live when people revered the Lord, where  often the person standing in front of you shared your beliefs. To live and laugh and love among believers that faced every day in a simpler way because it was a simpler time.  

What about those simpler days draws you to them? When you chose historical fiction over modern what is it that pulls you to those books?

Kitchens...Then and Now

One of my favorite places to place a scene is the kitchen. There's just something about the kitchen that makes the scene more...homey to me. I sit at my computer, lost in a world only I can see, and I mentally stand at the door and 'look' at the room. I turn a slow circle. Take in the scarred wooden table, made of slats of solid wood not plywood or other man made materials like today's tables are made of. I explore the wood burning cook stove, count the doors, open the warmer above the burners, check to see if it has a reservoir for warming water. I note whether or not there's a rag rug on the floor and what color it is, what kind of curtains hang on the windows and where they're placed in the room. The cast iron pots and pans grab my attention from where they sit on the dry sink.

Then I mentally step inside and smell the apple pie baking in the oven, the smoke in the air from the cook stove, feel the heat of the fire needed to do the baking.

When I come back to the present I take a good look at my kitchen. The white refrigerator that often holds so much food it threatens to overflow. The bar that is used for everything from rolling out dough to eating on. And holding a collection of junk that always seems to find its way there. I see the stove that needs no wood to get it going, the one I need only turn a knob to set the temperature. The dishes and gadgets that make my life easier. And the cast iron pots and pans.

They seem to be about the only thing that has survived the passage of time. The only things that lived in kitchens then and now. Those black pots that can take a beating and still survive have stood the test of time and many of them have been used in those wood burning stoves and our modern ones.

As I place my cast iron skillet on the burner I am reminded that my grandmother fed her family from this very pan, that her mother had one just like it. That most likely my great grandmother and great great grandmother did too.

And I make sure my heroine cooks in the exact same skillet.

The Kitchen

"I'll buy everything if you'll cook it."

That one little sentence pulled my attention from the line of people at the check out counter to the women skirting the line to get to the front door. There was nothing about either one that would have taken my attention from the groceries I was holding, the children around me, or the cashier making small talk with the woman ahead of me. Except that the younger one said that one sentence that captured my attention.

It reminded me a bit of a scene in one of my favorite pioneer shows where a young girl wants to know who is going to cook because she doesn't like cooking. This woman, who was probably in her thirties, didn't sound or look like the girl in that show but she reminded me of her anyway.

But unlike this woman, the girl in that show lived in a time when cooking was a requirement for survival. And it was considered women's work. Today we can avoid cooking if we want to. We have hundreds upon hundreds of restaurants to chose from. Many of them sell meals for less than we could cook at home. A trip to the grocery store can get us a refrigerator full of food that never needs to be heated much less cooked. If that is what we desire.

But those women got me thinking... about old time kitchens, wood burning cook stoves, slips of paper with hand written receipts (as recipes were called then), and a time when it was considered an honor for a woman to cook for her family.

Of days gone by when hours upon hours were passed in the kitchen. Days when women cooked three meals a day or their family didn't eat. When families gathered around a table that showed scars from years of daily use, and love. Where company was entertained at that same kitchen table.

A time when the kitchen was considered the heart of the home.

Late Night Visitor

So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:21

Some mornings dawn bright and cheery. Some are gray and rainy.

And some...

Come with a phone call to your husband informing him we had a cougar in our front yard last night. With those few words I was jerked into full wakefulness this morning.

A cougar.

In the yard.

Did I mention I am 90% city born and raised? Stray dogs. Neighborhood cats. I can handle those. Large felines with sharp claws and pointy teeth...are out of my experience zone.

So what did I do? I got dressed and went outside looking for tracks. After all, a cat of that size wouldn't be able to pass through a yard full of sand without leaving prints, would it?

It did not.

I found the proof in all their over sized cat shaped evidence marching down the driveway like it had every right to be there and knew just where it was going.

I just hope it went somewhere far away. The cute little raccoon prints I saw while tracking those cougar prints are more than welcome. I wouldn't mind coming face to face with one of those little masked bandits. They're cute and make interesting companions when they trail after you. But cats the size of...motorcycles?

I think I'll pass.

Building Fences

Yesterday I played cowboy. 

I collected fence posts. Held the rails in place while they were secured to the posts. Waited to see if my rather feeble attempts at fence building passed the inspection of the rancher waiting anxiously to see if the fence would be sturdy enough to hold his bull in the pen.

I must admit to two things.

First the rancher was a five year old with a plastic bull. And second...the fences were three inches tall. Held together first with yarn and then with staples.

But I played cowboy.

Sitting there on the back porch steps holding fence rails while my husband used a staple gun to put them together I could well imagine a full sized fence, in the middle of a pasture, in the hot sun or a blowing blizzard. And a rather demanding boss breathing down my neck wanting me to work faster because his 'bull' needed that fence up NOW.

It was all in my imagination but...

Isn't that what we writers do?

Two Hearts

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made[a] into a woman and brought her to the man.  Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

    and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

    because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:22-24

Two arms.

Two eyes.

Two legs.

One heart.

My daughter found a short little poem online asking why we were given two of nearly everything but only one heart. It was cute and made a good point.

We have one heart because our other heart lives inside the man (or woman) the Lord has set apart to be ours. If we are married we know where our other heart is. It lives inside the person that holds our heart in his/her hands.

Can you see the other heart the Lord gave you when your husband (wife) speaks to you? Can you feel it?

I have read many comments by other writers (all women) that talk about their husbands. Every one of them calls him 'my' something. My hero. My cowboy. My... whatever. From the way those writers talk about their husbands it appears that they are heroes come to life. They walked right off the page of a romance novel and into these women's lives.

I am blessed to know where my second heart is. To see it. To feel it in the way my husband treats me.

But there was a time I did not know where it was. A time when I thought I would never find it. Then one day, without warning, it walked into my life when I least expected it. And nothing's been the same since.

God blessed me on that day and everyday since.

Because He made me the heroine in my own manuscript. A story that unfolds more and more with each day. A story that leaves me embracing every line and unable to put the book down.

It is a page turner.

Looking at the future

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:34

What is it like to look your future in the face?

Is it even possible? Yes, I firmly believe it is. There are just some moments in life when we can look ahead and know (to some extent) what is coming in our future. I'm not talking about foretelling the future but in just being able to see something coming and knowing it will change our life. The way an expectant mother knows her life will be forever altered with the birth of her baby, or the way a couple can know that their life is changing as they say their wedding vows.

But what is it like to stand and look at someone or something and have a good idea that your future will forever be changed because of that person or that moment? We've all had those times when we experienced something and knew as it was happening that we would be forever changed because of it.

Sometimes a person passes through our lives that changes who we are. Sometimes they change the course of our lives. A new friend. A new spouse. Even a stranger that makes a big impact on us.

All of those have the potential to change our future in a moment. They can effect who we thought we were, who we want to be, what we thought we wanted in life.

If those changes are good we give thanks for the changes that came, pray in gratitude for what we've been given. If they're bad we may complain and question 'why me?'

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Whether or not we like what comes our way it is part of a plan that is much bigger than we can ever imagine. Bigger than anything we can see. Our future stretches before us like an open book, one in which we cannot read the words. The lord is writing the story as we make our way through the pages. He's guiding our paths, directing our steps. Taking us to where he wants us to be.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[a] for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. Romans 8:28-30

But what happens when we stand on page 200 and we catch a glimpse of what we think may be coming up on page 300? When we can see the plot twist coming but we can't tell exactly what it is?

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5


Conflict.

Plot twist.

As an author those words are what makes the story flow. It's what keeps things moving. But every so often when those things show up in real life I find myself feeling sorry for my characters. I don't like conflict and plot twists in my life. And I throw those things at my characters with just about every scene I write. It is the way manuscripts are written. It is the nature of books. Because who wants to read a book about characters that are plodding through life at a slow pace where nothing ever changes, where day after day everything goes without a hitch? Readers want barb wire fences thrown up in front of the heroes and heroines. They want outlaws, kidnappings, bank robberies, missing children, tornadoes, etc. They want conflict. They want plot twists. They want excitement.

And we give it to them.

Because we're writers. Because it's what we do.

But do we ever put ourselves in our characters boots? Do we ever strap on their spurs and wear them around the yard for a while? Not because we have to but because doing so just might make us a better writer. It just might make our scenes better, or our story seem more believable. 

When our heroine has something looming in her future that scares and worries her....who does she turn to? Does she turn to the hero? Tell him all her thoughts and fears? What if he's involved in that? What if she doesn't want to give him more to worry over than he already has? Then what?

Who does she turn to? 

Who hears those fears? Catches her tears?

Does your heroine have someone she can talk about all those things to? Is there someone in the story whose shoulder she can cry on? Does she call her closest friend? Send an email? Does she find peace and solace in prayer? Scripture? Listening to music? Where does she find her peace?

How does she pull herself together when she needs to fall apart? 

It is so easy to throw catastrophe after catastrophe in front of our characters. So easy to give them conflict even when we don't want to. After all if our story is going slow we can bring in outlaws to speed it up. We can make the wagon wheel break causing the wagon to tumble down a ravine into a fast flowing river. We can make anything happen because we are the writer but do we remember to put ourselves in our characters place, to make them react the way we would? 

When they're facing the hundredth conflict in six months, when their world is falling apart...

How do we feel and act and react in similar situations?

Conflict isn't fun. Plot twists are confusing. Facing things that we don't want to see happen have the potential to tear our world apart, to make us hurt even before it happens. They can make us dread something we know is coming, make us want to grab hold of today and never let go, grab hold of someone and never let go. They can make us hurt and be happy at the same time. Make us cry, or want to, because we can't do anything else.

Do we, as writers, remember to make our characters experience all those conflicting feelings when they go through their trials?

Living in a make believe world

As a writer I am privilaged to be able to share my alternate world with my daughter. When I speak of word  counts, characters, or made up places she understands and can discuss them with me the way most people can talk about family relationships and doing laundry. She simply understands.

It is a language she knows without me having to explain what I mean when I say I have to use that in a manuscript. Or he would make a great outlaw. Or how can I rework that to make it fit my work in progress.

She knows.

But what happens when you're faced with someone that doesn't? I've gotten many a questioning look from my mother and sisters, a few from other relatives and friends but tonight I discovered what it was like to talk about writing and a particular manuscript with someone that isn't a reader and had no idea what we were talking about.

It started when this person made a statement that made my daughter think of a character in one of my manuscripts. I knew what my daughter was thinking by the look on her face. This character is one that is weird and creepy while being funny and unforgettable at the same time. And a few words was all it took to make my daughter think of this character.

As we explained the character to this person, gave a brief summary of the plot, told the story of the main characters we got a chance to see how our world looks to someone that doesn't enjoy books the way we do.

In the end my daughter read her favorite scene aloud, commenting from time to time about this character that holds no real significance in the manuscript but it one of those people that give the story life.

And I was given a look into the world of people that does not share my love of books.

It was an eye opening experience.

Change part 2

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Romans 8:28-30

We all have favorite books. Both those that we've written and those that we've read. When we write a manuscript we have the ability to change the course of the story with the stroke of a key. By hitting control A and delete we can completely erase and entire story. I have done that. Sometimes just for fun or the shock value of seeing it all disappear. Control Z brings it back again.

With only a few keys I can reword something or completely erase it. I can change a characters name, their family situation, even whether they live or die.

But in a book that someone else wrote I do not have the ability to do that. If I could...what changes would I make? If I could write in the margins and make the changes I want to see what would I change? In some books it would be little more than a characters name. In others I might rewrite half the book. Or I might replace the hero with another because I do not think the one in the book made a good hero.

Luckily for us authors readers do not have the ability to make changes to our stories. That would become chaos that would never end. And our stories would wind up looking nothing like the manuscript we spent hours laboring over.

Change comes in real life too. It's easy to see and I'm pretty sure everyone will admit to going through it. Little changes. Big changes. There's no getting around them. No stopping them. They just happen. And they keep happening. Some we want. Some we don't. Some we can see coming.

Some we would erase if we could.

But what do we do when we are powerless to stop what could become a big change that we don't want?

My son, do not forget my teaching,

but let your heart keep my commandments,

 for length of days and years of life

and peace they will add to you.

 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;

bind them around your neck;

write them on the tablet of your heart.

 So you will find favor and good success

in the sight of God and man.

 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

 In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

 Be not wise in your own eyes;

fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

Proverbs 3:1-7

And while we're doing that...

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

For change will come whether we want it or not. In our lives. In the lives of our characters. Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes we see it coming. Sometimes we fall into it. And sometimes we walk into it with open eyes knowing in advance that it's coming but we chose to travel that path anyway. 

All we can do is hang onto the Lord, pray hard, and know that in the end He has bigger plans for us than we can ever know.

Change

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

I did not know when I set down to write that first manuscript that my writing style would go through so many changes. Nor did I know how writing would effect the way I look at the world. I learned to watch the way I start my sentences. Using the same first word sentence after sentence isn't allowed. Neither is using the same word in several sentences in a row or even in a couple of paragraphs. One can only use the word amazing so many times before it looses it's effect.

But for the sake of this post let's just say that the writing process is amazing and that it is a growth process. One that creates change in every writer. No matter how we got started on this journey it changes us. Takes us places we probably never intended to go. I did not know the places I would go when I started writing.

I did not know about the hours and hours I would pour into research to turn out a story that seemed so easy when I first came up with it. How was I to know that in learning to critique my own work it would change my enjoyment of reading books so that I can now no longer turn of the critique in me?

Let's admit up front...we've all done it.

As readers...as writers. We have sat down with a book and while reading, no matter how much we may be enjoying the story, we have thought I would have done this or I wish the writer would have done that. Or 'why isn't my favorite character reacting to this the way I want them to'?

Once the ability to critique a story is developed it can't be turned off at will. It can't be erased. Once there it becomes a part of how you read and interact with books and manuscripts. This is a good thing when you're writing your own manuscripts and you need to figure out if what this character is doing is the right thing or if they are acting in character for who they are. But it's a bad thing when you pick up a book and just want to read for the enjoyment of it.

Maybe you're sick and you don't feel like doing anything but laying on the couch and reading. You want to lose yourself in a book for a while, to forget your sore throat and stuffy nose, the pounding in your head, and just focus on someone else's life for a few hours. For readers that works very well. I have passed many hours that way. For writers...it doesn't quite work so well.

Sooner or later we are going to start catching repeated words, mistakes, even mentally changing a scene to what we think would make the story better. Why do we do that? Because it was part of the change that happened in us as authors as we learned to write better.

This can be good and bad depending on when and why we are reading and what we are hoping to gain from it. Being able to spot all those differences, to pick apart a story lets us learn and keep growing as authors. It lets us read a book and get a story idea from a scene or two or even from a single line. Reading feeds our imaginations, keeps the editor in us alive and can be considered a tool of the trade. I read somewhere that if we want to be able to keep writing we must keep reading. For that is what fuels the imagination in us that feeds the stories we keep creating.

But...we did not start out being able to do that. At least I didn't. Nor did several of the authors I have had the pleasure of getting to know. It was a learned process. A change. Something that we acquired slowly as we began picking our own stories apart.

Change is a good thing. It happens to all of us. In life there is no getting away from change. As good as it is because it makes us grow and become who and what the Lord has planned for us it can also be bad. Or so it may seem at the time.

Some changes that come our way are things we do not want. We would never look for it, never ask for it. I recently moved to a new house. That was a change I fought for months. I simply did not want to move. Now I'm glad I did. There are many other changes I did not want in my life just this year alone. My grandpa passed away, my sister and her family moved across the country... I could sit here all day listing changes I would not have asked for but got anyway. Changes that not only came my way but also made me grow as a person.

In writing our characters are supposed to grow. Throughout the story they are to have some sort of internal conflict that makes them grow as a person. Often this is seen in their belief in God. They struggle with faith or with forgiving God for something in their past or...whatever.

As the writer of that particular story, as the one changing and making that character into who and what they have to become what does it take to bring about that kind of change? And do we give our characters enough situations that stress or push them far enough to make them reach the change we are creating if they were real people, in real life?

That's a very good question.

In one of my manuscripts...one I had a lot of fun writing...my heroine has a very troubled past. She has things in her past that she believes no man can ever forgive. Without warning the hero crashes into her life, actually she crashes into his. Literally. From the first meeting between the two they are drawn to each other but they both have very good reasons to want nothing to do with the other. The heroine, despite her past, is interested and willing to see where things go. At least at first. The hero is not. He wants nothing to do with women. He learned the hard way that they're nothing but trouble and he is determined to stay as far away from them as possible.

My preacher often says 'a wife will follow her leader' meaning she will follow her husband. He teaches regularly that if men want a good marriage they have to treat their wife good. And he is right. It isn't a magic formula for a good marriage but it is a basic idea that will make a difference. Because a good number of women do follow in relationships. No matter how strong a person we may be, no matter what our character is, we get our cues from the other person. Something that probably works for men too.

But it isn't limited to spouses. Following the other person in a relationship comes natural no matter the dynamics. I recently met two young women, on two different occasions that I knew before the initial meeting were going to be an important part of my life. I wanted to hug them both on that first meeting, and I did, but not before getting my cues from them. I did not want to hug them if they didn't want it. I needed to figure out how they felt about that before hugging them and the only way to do that was to try and get a feel for how they wanted that first greeting to go.

I have a close family member that because of our relation to each other should be very close. And yet there is something there that prevents that. It can't be seen from the outside, can't be heard in our conversations, unless a person knew what should be there and isn't. I take my cues from the other person in this relationship most of the time. Sometimes I instigate hugs or conversations just because I know that we should be doing or talking about these things and we aren't.

I know someone else that has become family of my heart. We aren't related by blood or marriage. There is no true family tie between us but our hearts have adopted each other and the tie is there. This woman makes me happy just being in her presence. Her hugs feed something inside me that simply lets me know I am loved. Her advice, when given, is the kind of advice and encouragement I have been seeking for years without knowing it. Simply put...she is someone the Lord has brought into my life, that filled a space in me I didn't know needed to be filled. When I first met this woman I wasn't looking for any kind of relationship with her, not even friendship. We simply kept turning up at the same place time and time again. And then she started saying 'I love you'. There was no stopping the bond that formed after that. But it started because I responded to the way she treated me. Now this woman holds a place in my heart. A place that has given me an adoptive mother I wasn't looking for. I have a mother but now I have two. One I was born to and one I was drawn to in life.

But back to that manuscript...in it my heroine was initially interested in my hero but his attitude toward her pushed her away. To an extent. She was still drawn to him but she had scars in  her past that she couldn't separate from what was happening with him. And he was drawn to her despite his best efforts not to be. As a result she followed her leader. When he was nice to her she responded by enjoying her time with him and wanting to be around him. When he wasn't so nice she ended their meetings either angry or in tears. And he responded in kind. Because she got angry he tried to keep from making her feel that way. And he tried even harder not to make her cry, so much so that he kept count of the number of times he made her cry.

At the end of that manuscript, as with most, the hero's story comes out. The heroine discovers something in his past that she couldn't have fathomed. She had the opportunity to find out about his past without going through him but she refused, over and over, because by that point her faith in him was so complete she didn't believe she needed to know what his past was. Then it all came out. With the proof staring at her in black and white she couldn't deny what she was seeing. And she couldn't stop the reaction she had. Because his past came too close to something in her own past. It opened old wounds and created new ones. Wounds that caused the much needed black moment in the manuscript.

And it caused change. In the heroine. In the hero. It stretched them to become more than they were before. It's also the only manuscript where I have been able to create that sort of change in my characters. My hero went from not wanting anything to do with women to wanting to marry one in a matter of weeks. My heroine learned to trust the hero so much that she fell apart when she found out about his past.

Change.

In real life it happens on a day to day basis. To live is to change and to grow into the person the Lord wants us to be. In fiction, as an author, we create it. We must throw the kind of situations that cause life changes into our characters paths so that they can change and mature as the story unfolds.

But how do we do that? What kind of situations create that kind of change? What do you put your characters through to get them to change that much? In only a few hundred pages?