Readers Learn Lessons Alongside Their Characters

Readers Learn Lessons Alongside Their Characters

Today I want to teach you that after a character has resolved a problem, readers ask:

What does the character know now that he didn't at the start of the story?

What lessons can he teach others about life?

Open Ended

What else has Opal learned? Think about Opal's relationships with particular characters. Are there other parts before this moment that hold lessons? What did she start the story needing to learn?

Share your thoughts.

You might have thought..

• People aren't always what you think they are.

• Opal can teach others that people can change. Opal changed. Amanda changed. The preacher changed. The tree changed. All of those things are changing.

• Opal has learned to fill her heart with other people, not just memories or lists about her mother.

• She's learned how to cope with her mother missing from her life.

• She's found a way to live without her mother, to fill the absence of her mother with friends and love.