One Story’s Villain is Another Story’s Hero

I absolutely love writing. Everyone who knows me even a little bit can probably guess that. Clearly you know it, since I’m a blogger!

Anyway, I have recently been fascinated by YouTube videos about character development. Only a fellow fiction writer can relate to that sentence haha.

Here is a piece of advice I received a while back: Every character has their own plot going on. Each character needs to have their own goals, desires, and beliefs. That’s the only way to make them believable. Because, let’s face it, we are the protagonists in our life story, but we are not in other people’s.

Going even deeper than that, I had this sudden realization:

The villain in your story is the protagonist in another story.

Read that again.

The villain in your story is the protagonist in another story.

Not in your made-up story. In your everyday life. The person who gets under your skin. The person who has hurt you in the past.

They don’t see themselves the way you see them, as arrogant, hurtful, or mean.

And it’s important to realize that other people don’t see themselves the way we see them. In psychology, there’s a phenomenon known as Biases in Attribution. Basically, when we make a mistake, we are more inclined to blame it on outside reasons, such as having a hard day, getting over a loss, or not feeling well. But when someone else makes a mistake, we blame it on internal things, and we are more likely to think they are inherently bad or insensitive because we don’t know what’s going on in their minds.

I’m not saying that there aren’t evil people in the world. The person who hurt you does need to apologize. You have a right to be upset. But if you never hear the words “I’m sorry”, you still need to forgive them. Because if you don’t, then you must believe that what they did is unforgivable.

And as believers in Christ, we need to completely realize that nothing is truly unforgivable. The second we repent, Jesus forgives us. He died for us because of His never-ending love and grace. His heart breaks for us. We hurt Him the most, the One who did nothing wrong.

So if He can forgive us, certainly we can forgive the “villains” in our lives too, huh? That doesn’t mean we need to allow them to manipulate or hurt us again. But it does mean we need to let go of our bitter feelings and extend God’s grace towards them.

After all, if you are unintentionally being the villain in someone else’s story, wouldn’t you want them to forgive you too?

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

Mark 11:25