Sunny the Sassy asked Jennifer A. Nielsen:

Hello! Thanks for your great advice. I have another question. In my current story 1 of my 2 antagonists does some pretty bad stuff to my main character but later on he has a change of heart. At first it's just because he's fallen in love with her but he does realize his mistakes later. I do want him to end up with my main character but I don't know how she can forgive him and how their relationship would work? Thanks!

Jennifer A. Nielsen Hi Calliope - That's a tricky element in a plot. To make it work, think of the plot as a bank account. If they are strangers at the beginning of the story, he has zero dollars in the bank with her. If the story begins and he does something awful, he has just withdrawn a huge debt - the worse his actions, the greater the debt. The longer that he takes to have this change of heart, the more the interest against him accrues and it will be even harder to gain her forgiveness. So whatever he does to get that forgiveness has to be greater than the debt he owes. There are ways to do this.

1. Show that he's a good person, even if he does something she considers bad. Maybe he has reasons she doesn't understand, maybe he's forced into it, maybe he had good intentions but was simply wrong. Maybe the bad things he does are the result of something going horribly wrong but that was never intended. Maybe he's saving her from something even worse.

2. Give her something from him that is worth holding on to, even despite the bad stuff. So she can see there is more to him than what she may have at first realized.

3. Understand that your reader will see him through the MC's eyes, so her perception will be their perception. So you have to make this antagonist at least sympathetic enough for your reader to be willing to give him a chance too. In other words, he needs her forgiveness, but he also needs theirs. So always keep your reader in mind too.

This is a very ambitious project. Good luck!

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