045E – What Writers Can Learn From the Easter Story

Since this episode is coming out on Easter, I thought it would be fun to look at what the Easter Story – and the story of the entire Bible – can teach us about writing a great story!

I start with the end – writing a story where the reader is asking, “How can the hero possibly get out of this situation?” Writing an ending that makes sense is important for readers, but other elements of the story must also be excellent.

How can we use foreshadowing in a way that the reader can look back and say, oh, that makes sense, I get it now. You never want your reader to feel you cheated and created an ending that pops out of nowhere.

We know it's important to understand the goals, motivations, and conflicts of the hero, but also of the other characters, including the villain of the story. Not only that, but making the reader feel like they understand why the villain is doing what they're doing, making the reader feel almost-conflicted and a little sympathetic to the villain, that will increase the reader's connection to the story even more.

I talk more about all this and more – like having a character represent “evil” rather than a nameless evil or “big corporation” or “big government” as the evil, inter-family and other interpersonal conflict, political intrigue, paranormal and supernatural elements, an interesting setting and culture – all of these things make the story more fascinating from beginning to end.

The overall story from Genesis to Revelation is full of mixed genres and all kinds of great story elements. We can learn how to become masterful storytellers by studying this masterpiece story!