As a Fiction author, you purposely put your protagonists through countless challenges. You wouldn’t have it any other way.
Neither would your readers.
Because the story is only interesting once the status quo is blown up. When the protagonist must step up, face overwhelming odds, risk something, and become something more than they were on page one.
The protagonist ends the journey transformed. In the best of novels, the reader does too.
But protagonists everywhere are puzzled.
Sure, we understand what’s best for them.
Yet in our own lives, we do our best to avoid the very conflicts that would transform us.
None of us are drawn to stories where the protagonist sits on the coach and experiences zero challenge or risk for 300 pages. Boring …we scream.
So why do we accept – and embrace – a life of status quo? Why don’t we see the unknown as something God can use it for good…the challenge leading ultimately to our transformation?
It’s a fair question. Ask a protagonist if you don’t believe me.
