When my sister and I were growing up, we helped our mother with the holiday baking. My brother and oldest sister were both in the military.
That meant every year my mother would spend hours in the kitchen preparing a sweet, culinary care package to ship out to places throughout the country as my siblings waited to receive some homemade love in a little brown box.
Cut out sugar cookies covered in colorful royal icing, thumbprint cherry cookies, oatmeal cookies bursting with golden raisins, and snickerdoodles I would only see at Christmas time.
Everything had to pass the MOM test before it could go in the box.
You would think my stomach would have ached with the taste testings of so many sugary delights.
You would be wrong.
We actually weren’t allowed to EAT any of those cookies.
Not one.
They were for the ones in faraway places, while the burnt, BROKEN pieces were just as flavorful as the rest.
The next time you start to create perfect characters for your stories, realize it’s the broken and flawed personalities that connect with your readers, not those demigods on Mt. Olympus. Broken people like…
The ditzy neighbor that’s a little bit OCD.
The strong, leading man that tears up at sad movies.
The work driven female that can’t seem to complete any home projects.
Take time for another look at your stories and see how you can break those perfect characters into more realistic people. And don’t worry whether a flawed main character will be welcomed by your reader. They may be broken, but they’re are ALL just as sweet!
I hope you have an awesome day today because you deserve it!
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STAR CATCHER YOUNG WRITER’S CONTEST
*** I’m WAIVING THE ENTRY FEE!!***
It’s now FREE to send your short stories in for a chance to be published in an anthology. 25 winners and 25 prizes! Tell all your young, writerly friends from ages 10-18 to check out the contest rules by clicking on the STAR CATCHER YOUNG WRITER’S CONTEST tab above.
Hurry…entry deadline is Friday, November 15th!
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Best selling, award-winning author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a ‘ninja’ writer of children’s picture books, chapter books, young adult novels and inspirational essays by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books, and the host of WRITERLY WISDOM, a resource series for writers. Donna is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and Children’s Book Insider. She is a lover of dark chocolate, going to the beach and adding to her growing book collection. Donna’s latest chapter book series is called HISTORY’S MYSTERIES. Book One, Ship of Dreams, is available in eBook and print form from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and other online retailers. Also, coming to the Titanic Museums in Branson, Missouri, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Book Two, A Chocolate Train Wreck, was released in November.
