Mary E. DeMuth is an expert in Pioneer Parenting. She enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families left no good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). Mary has spoken at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, the ACFW Conference, the Colorado Christian Writers Conference, and at various churches and church planting ministries. Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, and planting a church.

Great novels have relatable characters—characters who breathe and cry and scream and holler and laugh...

It’s never easy when you read the single-spaced, multi-paged letter from your editor telling you what changes you need to make to your manuscript, especially the first time. I guess you could say I was a substantive-edit-letter virgin. But the thing my editor said that really struck me and knocked me on my backside was this: My main character (Mara in Watching the Tree Limbs) was not responding emotionally to the trauma she was enduring.

Of course she was! She was being normal. Everyone knows that when little kids are traumatized, they often shut down, not displaying appropriate emotions. But as I wrestled with my editor’s right-on observation, I started to understand something.

Great novels have relatable characters—characters who breathe and cry and scream and holler and laugh. They invite you into their fragile emotional landscapes. And as they do, they pull you into the vortex of the stories.

But in the realization, I shuddered. No, Watching the Tree Limbs was not my story, though parts of Mara’s troubles echoed mine. But in some ways, Mara was me. How? She did not display negative emotions.

I grew up in a home that didn’t allow me to show negative emotions. When I was sad, I learned it was not acceptable to be needy or to spill tears. I soon learned that to be accepted, I’d have to save my crying for my pillowcase. When I was angry, I’d have to go somewhere else to shout my rage. (I remember one time hollering at the top of my lungs in our horse barn while I shoveled manure.)

So here I was, creating the same home for my character! I wouldn’t let her emote! I wouldn’t let her have normal anger when life spun out of control.

I had to make peace with this.

In one of the most healing ventures of my life, I went back through the manuscript and added the emotions I was never allowed to show. In that, I grieved. As I gave Mara my tears, I wept. When she questioned her circumstances, I relived my own. Getting it all out on the page in black-and-white changed me utterly. Because the truth sets us free. Always.

My original scene, before changing it began this way:

She twisted and turned in her sheets, entangling her sweaty self in them like a cocoon. She closed her eyes and longed for an adult embrace—of a fond touch from her mother or her father. For a moment, one tiny moment, she willed her parents into existence—parents who would hold her like the sheets held her now. Instead of fighting against the percale, she slowed her breathing and begged for sleep.

The scene ended there. But look how I expanded it, giving Mara emotions:

She twisted and turned in her sheets, entangling her sweaty self in them like a straight jacket. She closed her eyes and longed for a hug—of a fond touching from her mother or her father. For a

moment, one tiny moment, she willed her parents alive—parents who would hold her like the sheets held her now. Instead of fighting against the bedding, she slowed her breathing and begged for sleep.

As she started to fall asleep, a tear trailed out of her eye. She wiped it, but another one came. Then another. Before she could wipe them all away, a sob burst from her chest. She smashed her pillow to her mouth, suffocating her wail. Heaving chest, watering eyes, aching heart—all these combined into a display of weepy helplessness. She ached for Nanny Lynn to come back from heaven, to swoop down like a cowbird to rescue her from General. But no matter how much she cried nothing would change. And this made her weep all the more until she heard footsteps.

Aunt Elma appeared in her doorway. “You crying? What for?”

Mara heard a tinge of tenderness in her aunt’s voice. For a moment, she wanted to spill everything out. “I’m sad.”

“Mara, how many times have I told you that Nanny Lynn, she ain’t coming back, no matter how much you boo-hoo.” Aunt Elma walked over to her bed and bent low. In a rare show of motherly attention, she smoothed the covers over Mara and stood. She shook her head.

Mara could see her wet eyes. She misses Nanny Lynn as much as I do. Maybe she’ll understand if I tell her about General. Maybe that’s love behind her eyes. “I know, but—”

“No buts about it. Get over it. I want no more tears about her. She’s gone. You should be over her by now.” She turned abruptly and shut the door behind her.

Mara slipped her thumb in her mouth, thankful she hadn’t spilled her words, worried if she didn’t plug her mouth, she would.

Can you see how adding that emotional response brought you closer to the character? How it made you root for her?

Not only did adding her emotional depth strengthen my novel, but also the process changed my heart. I never knew that writing a book would be one of God’s instruments to heal me. Some of us naïvely think we’re called to write for the sake of other people. But I have found that God uses my own words to bring me farther along the healing journey.

Mara, I thank you.