5 Characters You Don't Want in Your Writing Story

by Lori Hatcher @LoriHatcher2

Authors go to great lengths to develop engaging, relatable, and winsome characters. Many experts say strong characterization is the key to a successful novel. If we can craft a charming lead, pull together a strong supporting cast, and weave a dynamic plot, we have a chance at a best seller.

Our writing journey, however, is often fraught with characters that have no place in our story. They add nothing to the plot, fail to move the action forward, and drain energy and momentum. As we self-edit the writing pages of our lives, here are five characters we’d do well to cut out:

Impatience

Impatience is a bossy character, full of ambition and steam. While Impatience sometimes gets stuff done, it does so at the expense of others. It shoves people aside, disregards protocol, and blows past learning opportunities with nary a backward glance. Worst of all, impatience steamrolls its own agenda with little regard for God’s timing. 

Haste

Haste often plays a supporting role to Impatience. It fails to fact check, ignores the squiggly lines in Word, and seldom stops to proofread. Devaluing excellence, it submits work without editing and poo poos the value of letting writing sit for a few days before revising. Haste’s goal is completion, not conscientiousness and often substitutes quantity for quality.

Selfishness

Selfishness is the character everyone loves to hate. Narcissistic to the core, this bad boy concentrates on advancing his website, his book, and his ministry above all others. He monopolizes conversations, agents, and editors at writers conferences and employs questionable or rude methods to better position himself. Eager to accept Likes, reviews, and guest blog posts but unwilling to give, Selfishness capitalizes the I in the middle of his name so everyone will know who’s most important.

Jealousy 

Jealousy might be the ugliest character we encounter in our writing lives. Despite its bright green eyes, Jealousy is ugly and small. It refuses to rejoice in the successes of others, believing, somehow, they diminish its own. It carries a tape measure everywhere, measuring other writers’ careers, platforms, and writing ability. When Jealousy turns its measuring stick on its own work, it receives no joy, for it maintains a mental list of others whose success is greater.

Agnosticism

Surprisingly, Agnosticism makes at least a cameo appearance in every Christian writer’s life. Known for a faith that ebbs and flows with circumstances, publishing trends, and rejection letters, Agnosticism fails to rest securely in God’s promise that no plan of his can be thwarted (Job 42:2). It second guesses God’s call to write and doubts God will use its writing for his purposes. Working in its own strength rather than God’s, Agnosticism seldom prays and often frets.

So here you have it—five characters we should diligently edit out of our writing stories. If you think you’ve seen any of them skulking in the shadows or sneaking through the pages, hit the search feature in God’s Word, select Find, and remove any highlighted results. Better still, use the Find and Replace feature to substitute new characters that will advance the narrative of your writing life and draw you closer to the Lord.

Now it’s your turn. Which characters have you found to be the most detrimental to your writing life? What steps have you taken to remove them?

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Lori Hatcher is the editor of Reach Out, Columbiamagazine and the author of several devotional books, including Hungry for God … Starving for Time, Five-Minute Devotions for Busy Women, which won the 2016 Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year award. Her most recent book, Refresh Your Faith – Uncommon Devotions from Every Book of the Bible is due out in the spring of 2020 with Discovery House.A blogger, writing instructor, and inspirational speaker, her goal is to help busy women connect with God in the craziness of everyday life. You’ll find her pondering the marvelous and the mundane on her blog, Hungry for God. . . Starving for Time. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter( @LoriHatcher2), or Pinterest (Hungry for God).