Red Velvet Cupcakes and Character Transformation

Red Velvet: Character Growth

I must admit, red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting is up there as one of my fave cupcake flavors.   I remember one time I determined to make a batch myself.  Before I knew it, I had cupcakes baking in the oven, but my fingers and my counter were stained red.  But whoa, those cupcakes sure tasted good!  And with that cream cheese frosting (I must confess, it was from a can, I wasn't brave motivated enough to make my own) it seemed like perfection.  I was so proud. 

Same thing with the characters in my current WIP.  I must admit, I am a little protective of them, since I love them and created them and all.  But I've known for a while there was something missing with one of my characters.  He seemed almost like a jerk because his life seemed too perfect.  Nothing was really missing in his life.  I did everything I could to make him seem like less like a jerk.  I tried to give him more of a motivation for doing what he does in the story.  But it seems flat.  Jerk-like.  And I tried to up the stakes, but that also fell flat.  And then, I realized what my problem was.

He didn't have a dark moment to stain his life and help shape who he is.  You see, every person has something that happens in their life that affected them negatively.  It makes them believe a lie about themselves: maybe that they're not good enough, or that they aren't worth loving, or that they'll always be a failure.  Their thoughts and their actions are tainted by that lie, just as my fingers and my counters were tainted by that red food coloring.

BUT, and this is important, something major has to happen in the story to bring that lie back to the surface.  They have to choose if they're going to continue down the path they've been going, or if they're going to accept the truth about themselves.  Hopefully, your character grows from this experience.  That, my bloggy friends, is the cream cheese frosting.  It covers over the lies they've been believing.  It creates all things new.  It provides healing.  Redemption.

You need both the dark moment from the past, the lie surfacing in the present, and overcoming the lie with truth to have a beautiful character transformation.  

That character I mentioned before?  He was just a plain chocolate cupcake, no red coloring and no frosting.  No wonder agents were rejecting this manuscript!  But I'm going through and adding in touches of his dark moment.  I'm rewriting the climax to show him dealing with his demons.  And I'm showing him learning the truth and experiencing victory over the lie he's been believing for so long.

Healing and redemption.  It's beautiful.  It's poignant.  It's something to savor.  

Is it something you have in your story?