Activity

The first character that came to mind was Edmund from Narnia. In the first book, he falls in with the White Witch and betrays his siblings. Edmund becomes cranky and selfish. Later on, Edmund is saved from the White Witch and feels horrible. He comes clean to his siblings, asks for forgiveness, and Edmund grows a lot as a person because of it. I’m not sure if that’s the best example of guilt, but it’s the first one I could think of.

If someone doesn’t feel guilty over their sins, they probably don’t have a strong relationship with God. I really don’t mean that judgementally. It’s just that, I feel guilty when I hear God’s voice in the back of my head speaking truth and reason when I am wrong. The stronger my faith grows, the more the voice in my head is present. It continues to tell me new things I need to fix. So, that’s why I think they must not have a strong relationship with God.

External signs could be irritability, anxiety, and (if you’re like me) binge-eating. You start telling more lies to cover up your guilt. Internally, you start feeling worse and worse about yourself.

Writing guilt into your stories can transform it immensely. It helps your characters grow and shows the process behind it. They have to first do the action, then admit the action was wrong, and then forgive themselves. Three steps that can have a lot packed into them.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t thought a lot about writing guilt. I answered the questions as best I could but I’m mostly going to learn from everyone else on this topic!