The perfect character?

What I love about both writing and reading fiction is the opportunity to get inside someone else’s personality. Skin-hopping, I call it. Perhaps it’s more like brain-hopping. We have the opportunity to discover a person’s inner thoughts, and what makes them react the way they do. We discover (or invent, if we’re writing) their flaws, how they cope with what life throws at them, and how they change and grow. How they win through against all odds.

Have you ever met a perfect person? If your answer is, ‘Yes’ then I would say you don’t know them well enough yet, because nobody is perfect, and they never will be. 

Another question. Have you ever been criticised for something you said, probably before you could stop yourself? Have you been met with a shocked frown and the admonishing words, ‘I thought you were a Christian,’ or something like that. Ah, if only we could assume perfection the minute we trust in God and in the words, personality and actions of Jesus Christ. If only!

What writing and reading, all kinds of fiction and non-fiction, have taught me is that there are many paths to God. Life experiences have confirmed this, too.

At the moment I’m reading The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson. It’s the compassionate story of an emotionally damaged 'bad' mother and her plucky, courageous, long-suffering, much picked-on-at-school, funny, cheerful and loving son Norman, who has recently lost his only friend to asthma. God is never mentioned, but I can sense Him there, His eyes twinkling, urging both Sadie and Norman on, to be the best they can be, to face the challenges they meet, and keep on trying.

Compassion leaves a wonderful feeling in the reader, and in the writer too, I believe. A feeling that whatever happens, there will be a positive outcome. Also, I believe that writers like Julietta Henderson are helping their readers to take their own tenuous steps towards knowing God or knowing Him better. 

Photos by Veronica Bright

Veronica Bright has won over forty prizes for her short stories, now published in three collections. She writes reviews for Transforming Ministry. She is the ACW short story adviser, and runs the ACW Writing for Children group, whose members meet up on Zoom. For more details look on the Writing for Children Facebook page.