Welcome to 80 percent of a Friday Five. Today’s featured listicle contains only four points, but they are loaded with great information for writers who want to up their game.
Today’s post attempts to expound on some pointers about character development from Sue Monk Kidd‘s 2025 craft book/memoir Writing Creativity and Soul.
If you aren’t familiar with Kidd, she’s the author of the novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings and a bunch of other works of fiction and nonfiction. In Writing Creativity and Soul, she draws from her own experience as well as from other writers–Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou among them–to provide some practical and inspiring guidance for writers.
One section of the book that stuck with me was the chapter “About Characters: Four Questions.” Kidd’s advice here is prompting me to think more deeply about the characters that populate my writing, especially the main characters and their nemeses. While Kidd’s focus is on novel writing, I find that the questions she raises can help short story writers flesh out their characters.
For this Friday Five (minus one), I wanted to retroactively apply her four questions to one of my recently published short stories: “An Earthquake in China,” which came out in June by The Leafline Magazine and is also included in Leafline‘s recently released Issue 2.
“An Earthquake in China” tells the story of a church leader who becomes so focused on end-times prophecy that he neglects tending to his flock, told from the first-person perspective of a church member, Nathan. Leafline‘s editor called the story “a powerful, quiet story about what happens when a leader loses touch with his people” and “a relatable look at how fear can drive people apart rather than bring them together.
You might want to read the story before reviewing the questions below.
1. Who is my main character?
From the outset, it’s important to get to know this person you are creating. Go beyond physical attributes–with short stories, and especially with flash, there’s not much time to create vivid physical descriptions anyway–and think about their interests, motives, anxieties, pleasures. Nathan, the protagonist of “An Earthquake in China,” is a faithful churchgoer who is struggling with what he sees as the pastor’s changing priorities–the pastor’s focus on end-times prophecy–and the widening gulf between the preacher’s message and his congregation.
I also wanted to have some fun with the protagonist’s name–to make it an Easter egg, of sorts. In the Old Testament, Nathan was a prophet who confronts Israel’s leader, King David, about his affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, whom David has killed. (Read more about the Old Testament Nathan here.) Like his biblical namesake, the Nathan of my story also confronts a leader (the pastor).
2. What does your character want?
What is your main character’s primary goal or desire? What drives their actions throughout the story?
In “An Earthquake in China,” the main character (Nathan) is concerned about the pastor’s fixation on predicting the end times and preparing his dwindling flock for the impending apocalypse. Nathan wants the pastor to focus less on end-times prophecy and more on attending to the congregation’s practical needs.
3. What forces or person(s) thwart or impede my main character?
The impeding force may come in the form of another character–an antagonist or nemesis, which is the role the pastor plays in “An Earthquake in China.” But often the obstacles come from within the main character. Kidd mentions a phrase from William Faulkner’s 1950 Nobel Prize speech–“the human heart in conflict with itself”–that aptly describes the possible turmoil a protagonist must overcome.
In “An Earthquake in China,” Nathan is not only thwarted by the external nemesis (the pastor), but also by his own internal turmoil–his human heart in conflict with itself.
4. How will my protagonist change or be different in the end?
What inner shift with your protagonist undergo?
To avoid any spoilers, I won’t mention how the narrator changed as a result of his meeting with the pastor.
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If you’re in the process of developing a new novel or short story, ask these questions first, and see whether they will help shape your writing.
Happy weekend, and happy writing.
Image via Pexels.
I’m reading a book you might like: Writing to Learn, by William Zinsser.
Since I started, nothing I write is good enough! Haha!
Mark, I read Zinsser’s book “On Writing Well” many years ago. It was quite good, and quite humbling. He is a good teacher of writing. I’m sure as you apply what you learn from that book, your writing will continue to improve. I don’t think any of us ever arrive to the point where our writing is exactly how we want it to be. Continuous improvement is the point!
Thank you for this Friday Four motivation–and the Sue Monk Kidd book recommendation. I heard her speak in Tulsa years ago after the success of “The Secret Life of Bees.”