A great suspense has a sacrifice that touches our heart.  It does’t have to be a physical death – it can be a death of pride, or hope, or a dream.  But a sacrificial moment reveals how your character has changed during the journey, and completes their transformation into a hero.

What is that Sacrifice?  A sacrifice is  thing your character can’t surrender/do at the beginning he can do at the end.

The Sacrificial Act is found by asking: What would your character do, or never surrender?  And then follow up with the question: What would make him do/surrender it?  

You must put this scene into your plot.

You know your character well enough by now to understand what he’d never do. The scene that must be included in your story, and your plot, is when he does it.

Sacrifice in a book makes the character instantly sympathetic.  Whether it’s their jobs, their freedom, their families, their children, or their lives.  And, if in a story the hero makes the ultimate choice to surrender something that is embedded into the fabric of his soul, then it moves us, and raises the book from interesting to impactful. 

Of course, the ultimate sacrifice is laying down one’s life for another.    Brave heart – gives up his life for his country.  Or Somersby, another weeper – he gives up his life to save his honor.    Saving Private Ryan, the hero (Tom Hanks) gives up his freedom to serve his country and it costs his life – wife, career, and then his actual life.  

But one’s life can be literal, or figurative.  The Patriot – Martin gives up hope for redemption.  Gabriel is his redemption. How about…Sophie’s choice?  I can’t even think about that movie without weeping.  In the end, she gave up her soul to save her son. Freedom Writers – she gave up her husband for the good of the school kids.   

But maybe it’s not something that happens in the course of the story.  It could be in the back-story: 

Let’s take Harry Potter – he has sacrificed his parents, and although it takes place before the beginning of the book, we understand the depth of it in the first book; when he stares into the mirror of dreams and he is able to see what he missed. 

Twilight, of course, Edward sacrificed his humanity; And in the Shack, the hero sacrificed his daughter.

Sometimes it’s not even a huge sacrifice, but a thousand tiny ones – in Marley and Me, he sacrifices his furniture, his freedom, and eventually, his heart as he watches his dog die. 

In all these cases, the sacrifice is used to make her hero more sympathetic and it’s used as a plot device –, the sacrifice of the past is recreated in some way in the story.

In Twilight – Edward also sacrificed his identity – he was afraid of telling Bella who he was because he didn’t want to become a monster in her eyes.  He’d become a monster – and doesn’t want to become a monster again.  He sacrifices his “humanity” when he admits he’s a vampire – potentially becoming the “beast” in her eyes.

And Harry’s sacrifice of his family is relived as Harry turns away from the mirror of dreams.

Frodo would never put on the ring. Never dare to keep it. Unless he was forced to choose between his beloved ring and destroying it. The ring had quietly wooed him by making him unique and powerful, and the adventurer he had always wondered if he could be. So, in a powerful, heart-wrenching scene, Frodo does what he would never do and must have the ring wrestled from him by Gollum.

 What would your character never do, and what happens when he does it? This scene completes the character journey, and makes for a powerful moment when the reader realizes just how far the hero has come, and how much he’s changed.  It’s part of his emotional journey.

Tomorrow I’ll show you some of the ways I’ve used sacrifice in my stories.

Susie May