New Friends

August 20,2022

The fictional characters in my novels become friends to me by the time I finish writing a book. I know so much about them. I understand their problems and why they react the ways they do.

It’s easier, of course, when I write a series involving three or four books. I don’t have to say goodbye to them so soon, and I can actually see them through their difficult times.

With a new book comes new characters, new personalities, and new quirks. I don’t always adjust well at the beginning. (Sometimes it causes major re-writes.). Once I get into the writing, I know these are going to be my friends for a while. I learn to get used to them.

Perhaps it’s different with other authors. When God plants a book idea in my head, God intends for me to follow through with it. These characters will be my friends, like it or not.

It’s kind of like relatives, right? We’ve heard it said, “You can choose your friends but not your relatives.”

Wow, what if all friends were like that? What if we had to learn to get along with whatever people we find ourselves thrown together with? It’s like that at our jobs, I suppose.

In the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, it has always puzzled me why God throws such odd people together in a church. Sure, there are people with complimentary qualities, supplying abilities that other folks in the church don’t have. But, as I understand this chapter in the Bible, some of these “gifts” are going to clash with “gifts” of others.

That’s how we learn grace, defined as undeserved favor. We learn to get along, and somehow it brings out a great result, at least in God’s opinion. God gives us grace, and gives us a glimpse of the wonders grace can bring about.