He found that small teams moved through four predictable phases of cohesion. In the 1960s, Tuckman studied team behavior for the US Navy. I’ve stolen these four phases from Bruce Tuckman’s classic theory of group dynamics. When I plot how my characters are going to evolve through a story, I use a four-phrase model for change: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. A Model for ChangeĬapturing something so complex in prose can be intimidating.

Once we’ve started the process of change, without a time machine, there’s no going back to the way things were before. Usually a string of things have to happen to force us to move from where we are. It’s scary and unpredictable, so we will protect the status quo until we can’t anymore. Change is almost always catalyzed by an outside event. We try things on, discard them, try new things, discard them, and then finally settle on some combination of the outfit. Going through change is like my teenage daughter picking out an outfit. We may pick up new habits quickly, but they take time to have real impact on us. While each person responds to change differently, there are a few things that are common to change. If we want our characters to connect with our readers, they must change, too. People change throughout their lives in complicated, slow, messy ways. I’ve held addicts’ hands as they found sobriety, fell off the wagon, and then sought recovery again. I’ve counseled professionals through being laid off, searching for new jobs, starting in new fields, and then quitting for something else. I’ve watched couples meet, start dating, get married, have kids, and even get divorced. We are invited into people’s most painful and personal moments. Clergy get a unique view into people’s lives.

If your Story doesn’t change your lead character irrevocably from beginning to end, no one will deeply care about it.īefore becoming a writer, I worked as a pastor for fifteen years. People Must ChangeĪs the amazing editor Shawn Coyne wrote in his book The Story Grid,

In today’s post, I’m sharing a system of thinking that helps me build characters that experience believable and realistic change.

It’s not enough to simply flip a switch and make our protagonists different from one scene to the next. From the first word to the last, if our main character isn’t different, then we haven’t written a story people will connect with.īut writing believable character change can be hard.

How to change preferences to read write