Storytelling is an opportunity to experiment with life. We get to try on characters’ worldviews for size and experience how they play out in action. We’re invited to compare the consequences of the characters’ decisions, and hopefully, our observations will enable us to repeat their successes and avoid making the same mistakes.

Our job as authors is to set up the experiment, but a thought-provoking story gives readers the responsibility of evaluating the results. Here are a few key guidelines equipping them to exercise discernment:

⚡Start with a strong question:

An author can only get so much mileage out of a variation on “Should I do the right thing?” or “Is redemption possible?” Closed questions like this leave readers with only two choices—and it’s very difficult to present “No” as a legitimate option.

(A good author can still craft a worthwhile and meaningful story around a question like this. But if your goal is to challenge your reader’s mind and conscience, you’ll need something stronger.)

However, if you ask an open question like, “How do I do the right thing when it’s difficult?” or “What is the best solution to this problem?”, you’ll have a far more compelling variety of potential answers to choose from.

For example:

A Study of Shattered Spells begins its examination from a strong starting point with these questions (and others like them):

How do you protect bullied students without making things worse?

How do you know when to give tough love and when to give grace?

⚡Explore all the variables:

Every character is an opportunity to test out a different answer to your story’s thematic questions. The more potential answers your story explores, the richer and deeper it will be. More options will also present a greater challenge your reader’s discernment.

The beliefs that drive a character’s actions are your hypotheses, and the story will prove their value. Appropriately, author Josiah DeGraaf uses the term “experiments in living” to discuss this concept. (I learned just about everything in this post from his work as a writing instructor!)

For example:

In A Study of Shattered Spells, the protagonist Kalina is surrounded by a teaching faculty with a wide variety of opinions on how the situation should be handled. To add to the confusion, even those who pick the same side of the argument have different ideas about how to act on their convictions.

⚡Let the results be the judge.

The natural consequences of your characters’ choices are the strongest evidence for the value of their beliefs.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that being a good citizen gets you a pony. It might not even mean that everyone gets what they deserve.

What it does mean is that we get to see whether the characters’ actions ultimately bring healing or destruction. It means that every decision comes at a high cost, and we’re given the opportunity to evaluate whether the gain is worth the price.

I’m not going to spoil A Study of Shattered Spells with examples, but I will say that the consequences of the characters’ decisions speak for themselves, loud and clear.

Visit Josiah’s website to learn more about the book!

I’d love to hear from you! Do you have a favorite example of a character whose choices prove/disprove the value of his beliefs?