I write because I like to explore what characters do in challenging situations. What are their choices and why do they make them? Putting characters to the test like this is endlessly fascinating to me.

I think it’s interesting that my ability to tell a story wasn’t very good until I had my own challenging circumstances. I mean, I understood characters arcs and narrative arcs and the building blocks of story but I didn’t have, exactly, the emotional development to really understand what challenges meant. Until my daughter was born very ill, I’d had the usual troubles: batshit crazy parents, nutty professors, asshole bosses.

But it wasn’t until I held my newborn daughter in my arms and understood that I was not yet the person who could be her mother – that I would have to become that person – did I really understand what character tests are.

Before it was like checking boxes on a list. How does this character meet these challenges? (a) with a firm belief in themselves (b) with some doubt (c) with weeping and gnashing of teeth.

After, it was much more character-centered and nuanced. How would this character respond to this challenge and how is that different from what another character would do? How does this challenge change the character, for good and bad? And—this was something missing before—how do the other characters react to the challenges and to the changes.

I don’t say you have to have horrible things happen to you to improve your writing but it helps.

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Jennifer Lawler has been a writer-editor for more than twenty-five years and has published more than forty novels and nonfiction books. She is the founder of the online education company Club Ed LLC