At this time of year, some of you may be thinking about writing your own Christmas stories

An Outsider:

What’s interesting about some Christmas stories is that they usually include specific themes. It can be from a dislike of the Christmas season, such as with Scrooge in A Christmas Carole. Or a strong belief to be kind, like in the film Elf. In any form, the main character will embody the theme of being an outsider.

The narrative will force the main character to travel, meet new people and go on a mission that may be fantastical, a struggle, or an awakening. In the course of the protagonists journey, they will be able to find the resolve to complete their mission. As they continue their journey, all of the characters in the story will unite and show their acceptance of the protagonist during a climatic moment where the issues that have shown up during the course of plot are miraculously solved.

The theme of the outsider then reverses itself and becomes a theme of acceptance instead, showing that the character is considered to be a part of a community and is not alone anymore.

Fellowship:

This is an important part of the story as the reversal reflects the beliefs of Christmas by demonstrating how it’s a time to come together with strangers and show kindness with one another, and is why you see positive changes in a characters behaviour in many Christmas story narratives.

However, including these themes won’t give your audience an emotional impact on their own.

To do that, you’ll need to improve the relationships between the characters in your story-world.

Creating that requires including a mixture of comedic and meaningful moments between your characters which will have them bond together, develop their personalities and then your readers can form an emotional attachment to your story.

Figuring out the correct balance between the jokes and meaningful conversations will be up to you, but don’t be afraid to try out different versions to see one which works best.

Even if you need to rewrite parts of your work, you’ll still have a better understanding of how your story is structured. And it’ll give you more time to put that finishing touch on your wintry tale.

If you want to learn more about how to write stories, check out the story craft section of the website for more information and guidance.