III. How it will be solved or what is learned.
Now that we have our characters in the heat of the moment, at the end of their ropes, stuck between a rock and a hard place (no more clichés, Jill!), we need to bring them through it using their own wisdom. No fair bringing in a hero to solve the problem or save the day. That would be BORING! It’s important that your character solve the problem himself. So, let’s see what out characters will do next.
Basketball boy:
Our hero sucks it up and faces his fear by asking someone for help. He studies hard and…gets a B! Oh no! So he has to sit out for a game until he can do an extra credit project to pull up his grade. Never let your character off easy, and sometimes it’s fun to throw in that last minute twist at the end.
Lizard girl:
She mopes about these problems as she walks home from her friend’s house and passes a petting zoo that is looking for a part-time volunteer helper. Volunteer! She needs money! After inquiring inside, she discovers that the zoo has lots of animals, but no lizards. She decides to donate her lizard to the petting zoo and volunteer there also. This way she still gets to see her lizard, the lizard gets a bigger cage to live in, and a lot of other people get to enjoy him too.
Tagger boy:
Midway between spray painting the wall, a woman runs out of the building wielding a broom. “How dare you paint my home!” she yells. Our hero and his buddies jump in the car and get away, but the guilt eats up our newbie tagger. Having friends isn’t worth getting in trouble and he feels bad about tagging that lady’s house. He works out his frustration on the canvas and paints a piece called, “Graffiti Hurts”, and enters it in the local art contest. His piece takes first prize and he realizes there are lots of ways to create art, and he prefers to do it the legal way.
Stay tuned. There’s one more part to this series on writing a short story.
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