Writing Themes // Forgiveness // Episode 1

Themes…ugh! I don’t know about you, but this is one of the hardest parts of developing a story for me. I can come up with (what I think) is a fantastic plot line with all the fun/frightening details (I write about historical events and First responders, so yeah, some things get a little scary), but what are people supposed to learn from my stories?

Well, today, I’m going to take a theme and break down a few ways you can use it in your Work in Progress (WIP; I use this abbreviation for the sake of space and time 😉). So, if you’re ready, let’s begin!

This post is a little different from what I usually do. I got the idea from this post on different ways to write about Love, so be sure and check that one out too. I’m not talking about romance here. There are more love stories out there than romantic ones, y’all!

I was brainstorming a requested story, trying to plot out some ideas when I determined that this book should have a stated theme before I even began to plot it. I asked my family for ideas, giving them the setting for the story, etc. My mom suggested Forgiveness.

Forgiveness. Such a simple concept and an overt command of God, and yet so many struggle with it. It’s not an easy thing to do. I mean, sometimes it is, but not when it’s those things that really, really hurt you in life…those things that go deeper than the surface. The heartaches, the betrayals…those kinds of things are harder to let go of. That’s why it’s so important to write about it, to share what we have learned from the Bible and from personal experience about forgiving others.

But how can we show forgiveness in our writing? Here are some ideas.

• The struggle of a family forgiving the person who killed a family member in a head-on collision.
• A sweet story of children having a dispute and mom coming in to teach about the silliness of holding a grudge.
• A short story of an animal “forgiving” their human for stepping on their tail.
• A policeman getting beyond their past and trying to help an ex-criminal straighten out their life
• A couple working out an argument.
• An elderly lady with memory problems struggling to understand what’s happening to her and trying to forgive her family for seemingly abandoning her
• A child learning to forgive someone for saying mean things.
• Use the parable in the Bible about the servant who was forgiven much, but wouldn’t forgive his fellow servant. Tell a similar story in modern-day to teach about receiving and giving forgiveness to others.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. How can you teach forgiveness through your WIP?

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
Colossians 3:13
King James Bible

Have a Blessed Day!
Ryana Lynn
Jude 22