Characters as Reflections of Christ

Writing stories with characters is something that is easy to learn; after all, most of us have been imagining stories since we were young. But writing good characters– ones that will reflect the reader’s heart and teach them something new about themselves– takes a bit more effort.

Sometimes we feel as if our characters just fall a bit flat. They might be bland, uninteresting, or just not right. It can be discouraging to try writing a story– especially an entire novel– when the whole way through your characters aren’t resonating with you.

That is the difficult part of writing good characters, and it’s what keeps a lot of people from ever becoming confident in their writing. But there are a few ways you can really get into your characters’ heads and bring them to life, and that’s what I want to discuss today.

I’ve already written a post about characters that focused on making them feel realistic and relatable by diving into internal and external goals and flaws. (You can find that post here if you’re interested!) But today I wanted to look at another facet of writing good characters– redemption.

We see redemption as a theme in many places– books, movies, and of course, the Bible. After all, Jesus is our great Redeemer, and redemption is a prominent part of Scripture and the Christian’s life. But this redemption is actually something that we can instill within our own characters. Think about it– if we want to make our characters relatable, we need to give them human attributes, and what’s more human than being redeemed from our life of sin?

This “redemption” we can give our characters is called something else in the writing world: character arcs. When we take our characters on a journey from being lost and broken to having new life and a greater purpose, that’s called a character arc. An easier way to define it would simply be the way our characters change over the course of the story, and most often they will grow into better people. (Of course, negative arcs do exist, but are very rare for main characters, so we won’t cover those today.)

Character arcs are how we show growth in our characters and demonstrate how the plot is affecting them. We are slowly redeeming them over the course of the story, almost like sanctification (or the process of becoming more like Christ in the Christian walk). Without an arc, our characters are “flat”, or without change, and that’s what leaves them feeling bland or colorless.

To give your characters an arc, we need to think about three things: their vice, their virtue, and the journey between them.

The characters’ vice, or flaw, is something we as readers should be able to see early on. Every character has a flaw, a negative attribute that affects their life in a negative way. More importantly, this flaw is actually the thing that is keeping them from attaining their virtue (but more on that later). By the end of the story, the character will not only have attained the opposite virtue but will also have conquered (or begun to have conquered) their vice. Flaws are one of the pieces that make our characters relatable to readers; when readers see something in a character that they also see in themselves, they’re more likely to continue reading and learn something from the characters’ redemptive journey.

Secondly, the character should have a virtue, or positive attribute. At the beginning of the story, this should simply be a dream, something that the character hopes to attain one day but cannot reach. Another way to write it would be to have the character not realizing they need this virtue until later on. Both are options for introducing the virtue at the beginning of your story. Remember that the characters’ vice should be something opposite to the virtue, meaning that because the character has not conquered that vice, they are unable to attain the desired virtue. Greed and generosity, narcissism and humility, impulsiveness and thoughtfulness– these are all vices and virtues that are opposite each other, and when a character has one they cannot have the other.

Once you have decided on your character’s vice and virtue, it’s time to plan out the arc, or transformation. A character must go through certain things amidst the trials of the plot in order to grow closer to conquering their vice and attaining their virtue. This can certainly be a reflection of our journey with Christ through sanctification, growing steadily closer to being like Christ and overcoming the temptations to sin.

There are four stages of a character arc that will occur over the course of the story: temptation, fall, realization, and repentance. The key to making sure these stages flow with the plot is to have them occur after key moments that not only are impactful for the reader but also the character. Be sure that the changes that are taking place are not just because of the arc, but are happening because of what has happened in the plot. The character still needs a reason to change, and plot is how it will happen.

The first stage of a characters’ arc is temptation. As per usual with storytelling, there are several ways to portray this. The temptation might occur on the page and happen as part of the plot; it might have already occurred and be a part of the character’s backstory; or it might be a daily temptation to embrace their flaw. It can also be either a result of their flaw or the reason their flaw exists. However you decide to write it, the temptation is what begins your character’s arc and sends them spiraling down the path to darkness. (But don’t worry, they get better by the end!)

The second stage is fall, where the character ultimately makes the wrong choice and casts themselves further into sin and their flaw. The fall is usually a large event in the story and happens somewhere between the beginning and middle (for all you plot nerds, it most often occurs during the inciting incident). This is usually one of the characters’ darkest moments, and later on will be fuel for the fire of change.

The third stage is realization. Somewhere between halfway through the story and the climax the character will realize their flaw and make an effort to try and conquer it. Most likely, they’ll fail the first few times, which is actually a good thing. Failure to overcome sin is one of the most relatable things to write about, and it’s also realistic. The realization will most likely happen during a major plot point or a dark moment for the character, and will spark the path to change. For the rest of the story, the character will (hopefully) be trying to fix their mistake, but trials and hardships brought on by the plot will make that much more difficult for them.

And the fourth stage is repentance. This is when the character begins to change and work toward defeating their flaw, slowly gaining the virtue it was blocking. This will last until the end of the story, and there are a few ways to wrap everything up. You could show the character having achieved their virtue and conquered their vice, and have a “happily ever after” sort of ending. Depending on the genre, this could work. But I prefer the more realistic ending, where the character knows what they need to do to change, and it’s obvious to the reader that the character is changing, but they still have some work to do. This can be more encouraging to readers who are facing struggles themselves to let them know that you can overcome them, but there will be hard days and days where you’ll fall back into sin. Repentance is a long and slow process in our own lives, so representing it this way in our characters is the most realistic and, in my opinion, the most impactful.

All of this mirrors our own journey to Christ and toward building a relationship with him. We are tempted our entire lives to fall into sin, and sometimes we do. But it’s when we realize our sin and decide to repent that we can truly be saved and begin the journey of sanctification, which is very much like the arcs that our characters go through.

As you write your story, consider what flaws your characters might have, and what virtues they might be blocking. Also think about how your characters are changing as they go. What events occur that might make them see things differently? How can you show them descending into darkness, and what spark of light will bring them out? And how can we mirror Jesus’ light in that? How can we show our characters deciding to repent of their mistakes and work towards a better life?

Vices, virtues, and character arcs are all valuable tools to create realistic, relatable, and most importantly, Christ-like characters. Once you’ve mastered the art of writing them, your stories will have a far greater impact than you’d first believe.

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If you are looking for guidance on virtues, vices, and writing character arcs, I’ve created a printable worksheet that is available for download when you subscribe to my email list, where you can also find behind-the-scenes information on my current writing projects as well as encouragement and community. It’s also a great free way to support me as an author and to show that you enjoyed this post!

See you among the shelves,

Emma G. McKee

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