New Normal

Read Joshua 22-24

Joshua 22:4 "And now the Lord your God hath given rest unto your brethren, as he promised them: therefore now return ye, and get you unto your tents, and unto the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the other side Jordan."

At the end of the story, our protagonist and helpers need to be at a new normal. We need to show what their lives are going to be like now that they have endured the adventure and triumphed over the obstacles.

It can be a reflection of how the story started. We can show the characters in a similar setting and highlight the differences.

Or it can be more of a riding-off-into-the–sunset ending. An ending that gives hints of the hope that is ahead of our heroes, rather than spelling it out.

All Came to Pass

Read Joshua 19-21

Joshua 21:45 "There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass."

Stories are promises made to the reader. Plots and subplots rouse a reader’s curiosity and cause her to trudge through to the end to see how everything turns out.

So it’s important for the writer to make sure to keep those promises. Each question raised in the tale deserves an answer.

The reader should leave satisfied that all has come to pass. Writers must go through one final polishing to make certain that all promises are fulfilled and all questions answered whether the answer is positive or negative.

Strong Women

Read Joshua 16-18

Joshua 17:6 "Because the daughters of Manasseh had an inheritance among his sons: and the rest of Manasseh's sons had the land of Gilead."

Women characters, no matter the role they play in the story, will need to be strong. Even a victim character who needs rescuing will be spending the story time doing something and will need strength, even if it’s just the strength to endure.

Strong women can be the heroines of the story or the mentors of other characters. Whether they’re mothers, wives, bosses, employees, or on their own, their actions will show power.

Contemporary or historical, women characters will be a driving force no matter what role they play. Their actions may reflect the times they are in, but the results will be the same: a big impact on the plot.

Give Me the Mountain

Read Joshua 13-15

Joshua 14:12 "Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said."

Writers use different criteria to define ourselves as writers. Most of us don’t dare even to call ourselves writers.

Writers are people who earn money writing, but if we sell one or two articles, we still don’t believe we can be defined as writers. Writers, we say, must be people who earn their living by writing.

But a writer is a person who writes—those of us who can’t help themselves and write whether or not any money is ever involved. We can dare to claim that defining mountain—the title of writer—for ourselves.

The Zone

Read Joshua 10-12

Joshua 10:13 "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day."

Writing is hard work. The blank page is intimidating, getting ideas unlikely, finding the right words nearly impossible.

But every once in a while, everything seems to come together. The words flow onto the page nearly effortlessly.

That state of mind is what some people refer to as the zone. When it happens, it is a gift.

Ambush

Read Joshua 7-9

Joshua 8:7 "Then ye shall rise up from the ambush, and seize upon the city: for the Lord your God will deliver it into your hand."

Protagonists are ambushed by the situation they find themselves in—that event that is the beginning of the whole story problem. It’s that something that interrupts their lives.

They may be ambushed throughout the story. Events may continue to take them by surprise.

They may also be ambushed by deliberate actions from the enemy. The antagonist will also be working hard on his own agenda to the story problem.

Unconventional Solution

Read Joshua 4-6

 

Joshua 6:20 "So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city."

 

Our plotting is cause and effect—one action leads to another. Our protagonist reacts in a certain way to the disaster that happened to him and that action leads to other consequences, which lead to more actions and consequences until the story’s end.

 

So we have to make our story stand out by having our characters choose unconventional solutions now and again. We don’t want to bore our reader with too much predictability.

 

We start with the first logical effect and then brainstorm other actions our characters might take. Or we could ask ourselves what is the worst thing our character could do and do another brainstorm, then look at our brainstorm lists and come up with what would be the opposite of each idea we came up with.