Last week, we discussed the mirror moment of our novel. While it’s certainly one of the more pivotal ingredients to great story, every writer has to step their plot beyond the mirror to produce a novel with HPV (happily-ever-after).

This means, inner conflict causes our characters to rise. There’s enough chaos, enough problems in the real world for our readers to face. The last thing we want to create is a pluralistic society within fiction which displays no hope.

Writers joke about how to “torment” their characters, but the truth is our characters’ wrestlings should and can represent reality. Whether it’s cancer, terrorism, loss of a loved one, lack of confidence, loneliness—we know our readers are not immune to pain. So why don’t we write something profound?

Why don’t we create a story with the depth of the world’s pain, while building in a moment of restoration?

As a Christian writer, happily-ever-after isn’t just some piece of story I toss at the end of books. No—no, it’s much more. It’s the reality of our existence. It’s the story of love and truth, of God’s unfolding narrative in our lives, and the real end game. See, we display through story the power of a living hope, and I, for one, find that so enticing. How can we not bring this hope to the world?