Creating Fictional Characters—Part 8: Developing Characters throughout Your Story

We’ve covered a lot about creating characters. In this last installment in the series, we’ll cover developing your characters throughout your story.

If you thought you were finished with character development when you created that character chart or bio, you were wrong.

Just as people grow and change in real life, so must your characters. Not only do they grow physically, they grow emotionally and in many other ways.

Added 7/28/09: I just read a great post on character growth at Spunk on a Stick.

• Develop characters through stress and emotion.
  • Stress is mental tension springing from emotion—something we’re probably all familiar with in our own lives.
  • Emotion is liking or disliking, feeling good or feeling bad about something—another common experience for all of us.
  • Emotion gives the character direction, and direction is what makes us know the character is alive.
• Gain your reader’s empathy for your characters.
  • Characters showing emotion rouses our emotions—we feel with the characters. 
  • Consider your audience—what arouses emotion in one group (senior citizens) may not in another group (teens).
• Hook the reader immediately.
  • A hook is a scene early in the story that plunges the main character into danger and captures your reader’s attention and interest.
  • Create and raise the fear that something will or won’t happen (the bomb will explode or the girl won’t have a date for the prom).
• Change is danger.
  • Every story is the record of how characters deal with danger, but every change constitutes a danger.
  • Every change, no matter how minor, requires people or characters to adjust, to adapt, and there’s always the threat that the adjustment won’t be successful.
  • The initial change may seem trivial, but it leads to more change and more danger.
  • You, the writer, have to see the potential for impending doom in everything that happens.
• Emotion doesn’t have to be described intensely for the reader to feel it intensely.
  • The events themselves can create emotion because we are programmed to react to certain things with certain emotions. If the character hears strange noises in the house in the middle of the night, we fear an intruder and react emotionally as if the intruder were in our own living room.
  • Actions speak louder than words—instead of describing the emotion, show how the character manifests it in action. Rather than write “She was terrified,” write “She broke into a cold sweat and pulled the covers more tightly around her; her own heartbeat sounded louder than the crashing noises coming from the living room.”
• Remember, your main characters must have purpose and direction.
  • The character doesn’t have to recognize they have a goal. She may think it’s just common sense to keep a financial safety net in savings, not realizing that her goal is to never again live as her family had in her childhood, always one jump ahead of the bill collectors.
  • More emotion is generated when goal-oriented action is frustrated. Being faced with spending all of her nest egg to save her family’s home creates strong stress and emotion. 
• Characters must feel emotion to want change; the more emotion the character feels, the more emotion the reader feels.
  • First, feel emotion yourself—recall times when you felt intense emotion.
  • Relive the experience in your mind in detail.
  • Assign the feelings and reactions you experienced to your character. The feelings are the same even if the incidents are very different.
• Create and develop characters that readers like.
  • Readers identify with others like them— your characters must have traits and beliefs in common with the audience you’re writing for.
  • Your main character must be like your reader and more—someone who is larger than life who takes on a challenge over and beyond us.
  • Your character should be a person the reader would like to be.
  • The character must have that quality we all want: courage—the strength to fight on, win or lose.
  • Courage doesn’t have to spelled out in words; it’s revealed in action. It takes courage for a character to sacrifice her financial security to help a loved one or to stand up to evil. 
  • Build your characters through adversity.
• Make you main characters dynamic, just like people are in real life.
  • Reveal background and character throughout the story. Beginning writers often make the mistake of thinking they have to tell everything about the character as soon as he is introduced, boring the reader and not advancing the story.
  • Actions must be consistent—in character—as the story moves, but the character should change in some way.
  • Change will be gradual. Your main character doesn’t go from being claustrophobic to having no fear instantly, but she can get a little better with each incident until the fear is gone.
  • Change will be subtle in a short story. more dramatic in a novel, but characters must change.

I hope this series on creating fictional characters has given you food for thought and some practical advice to help you in writing fiction. I’ll close with a few more resources on character creation and development.

• Character Creation Articles at Fiction Factor
• General Fiction Articles at Writing-World (scroll down to the section on Characters)
• One Character’s Character at Enriched by Words
• Plotting and Developing the Novel: A Character-Based Approach

Care about your characters and give them something to care about. Make your readers love them or hate them, but never let the readers be bored by the characters.

photo credit: r.s.m.b. Sees

That’s My King

The late Baptist preacher S. M. Lockridge gave this powerful message when asked to deliver the opening prayer at a Baptist convention.

Creating Fictional Characters—Part 7: Giving Characters Goals and Motivation

Characters in your story must have reasons for their actions. In real life, we don’t know what people are thinking or why they do what they do, but in fiction, readers will accept the characters’ actions only if they believe the reasons for them. They ask “Why did he do that?,” and they expect an answer—from words and actions of the character at some point in the story.

Your main character(s) must have the desire for change. Characters who never change are boring. Fiction is all about change.

• Everybody wants to be happy.
  • Characters want happiness, a sense of self-worth or self-importance.
  • They want to avoid unhappiness and loss of self-esteem.
  • The specific situations and possessions that constitute happiness or unhappiness may be very different for different characters, but they—like real people—want what makes them happy.
• Everyone is afraid of something. 
  • What is your character scared of? 
  • What will he or she do to overcome the fear?

• Characters tend to lead the kind of life they enjoy. 
• They’re on a search for some combination of five things most people want:
  • Adventure – new experiences, excitement, thrills
  • Security – financial, physical, and emotional
  • Recognition – fame, honor, being known
  • Love – all kinds: romance, love of family, friendship
  • Power – authority, control

Your characters must have goals. They must want some specific thing to be different in their lives. Goals are essential to test your character to demonstrate he’s worthy of the readers’ attention.

• There are two kinds of goals.
  • The general goal is the character’s main overriding goal for the entire story: win the presidency, marry a rich man, solve the mystery.
  • The immediate goal is a smaller goal that must be met on the way to the general goal: various steps in the campaign for president, meet and attract a rich suitor, gather evidence and consider suspects.

Your characters must have drive, the “give a hoot” factor, an inner pressure, the  intensity of character’s desire to change.

• Characters have to care, to feel that their goal is important. If it’s not important to the character, it certainly won’t be important to the reader.
• Drive is the key ingredient of commitment, and the more committed your character is, the more readers care about him. 
• In real life, people “drift,” but drifting is boring; driving is exciting. Characters may drift at first but as the story progresses, they must have something they care strongly about, whether they realize it or not.
• Give your character something to care about, consciously or unconsciously. Fit him with a goal suitable to the direction you’ve given him.
• Threaten that goal, that something he cares about. There’s no story if the protagonist reaches his goal easily. Characters must face conflict, obstacles to reaching their goal, throughout the story.
• Establish reasons for him not to quit, not to give up—reasons for him to keep fighting and ultimately attain his goal.

Your characters’ attitudes are important in their drive.

• Attitudes are consistent dispositions that your character is reluctant to relinquish, whether rational or not. Attitudes are products of conditioning.
• Each character has many attitudes about different aspects of life and the world. Together they form the dominant attitude.
• Attitudes change in different circumstances.

Characters need both goals and motivation.

• Goals are what characters want to do or achieve or acquire: get rich, become a doctor, have a large family.
• Motivation is WHY they want to do, achieve, or acquire it: he grew up poor and other kids made fun of his clothes, she saw her mother die at a young age, he was a lonely and unhappy only child.
• The character may not know why he does something. Rationalization is coming up with an excuse, a reason that is believable, whether or not it’s true. We do this in real life—we buy a car because it’s luxurious, but we rationalize that we bought it because it’s got a good safety record and is a good investment.
• Readers must be convinced that the character’s motivation would lead to his or her actions. If readers don’t believe the character’s actions fit with his motivation, they won’t care about what happens to the character. And when readers don’t care about the characters, they don’t care about the story.

How do you give your characters goals and motivation?

photo credit: openpad

Thanks to June Commenters

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Creating Fictional Characters—Part 6: Putting the Right Words in Their Mouths

I’ve learned about dialogue since the first draft of my first novel. When I’d finished about half the book, a writer friend read it. When she returned the manuscript to me, she said, “Do you realize you don’t have one word of dialogue in this entire story?”

My characters talked—there was just no dialogue. I wrote things like Debbie asked Jake to fix her breakfast. He told her he’d be glad to.

I started writing dialogue but decided not to edit the first part of the manuscript until I finished the first draft. My mother, who was a reader but not a writer, said, “I don’t know what it was, but the second half of the book was a whole lot better than the first.”

In Make Your Words Work: Proven Techniques for Effective Writing-For Fiction and Nonfiction, Gary Provost says “Dialogue is real speech’s greatest hits.”

Listen to a normal conversation. You’ll hear a lot of nothing.

“How are you doing?”

“OK. How about you?”

“Can’t complain.”

This kind of conversation won’t move your story forward or reveal character. It will simply bore your reader.

Rather than a mirror of real conversations, dialogue is:

• Two or more characters talking with purpose, not just chit-chatting but talking for a reason
• Something artificial that appears real—realistic, not real, without all the uhs and you knows and boring information

To create dialogue that works:

• Use real speech rhythms
• Include implication and evasiveness as real conversation
• Eliminate the trivial and banal
• Include the unspoken (body language) as well as the spoken

Dialogue has several purposes:

• Characterize – to prove what you said about the characters is true
• Give information – but only information that would naturally be exchanged in conversation
• Advance plot – move action forward
• Convey tension – shortcut to conflict

Conversations in fiction can be described in three ways:

• Summary – brief description of what was discussed: John told Susie about his argument with Joe.
• Indirect dialogue – description of what was said without quotation: John told Sue that he and Joe had an argument and almost got into a fight. She asked what caused the argument, and John said … This is how I wrote dialogue when I first started, and even my mother thought it was boring.
• Direct dialogue – verbatim quote:

“Joe and I got into an argument at the pool today. I thought he was going to hit me,” John said.

“Oh, dear, “Susie said. “What in the world brought that about?”

Use direct dialogue for important conversations:

• Don’t waste direct dialogue on inconsequential discussion or exposition. If the reader already knows the information and the only purpose of the dialogue is to provide the information to another character, summary or indirect dialogue is probably better than dialogue.
• Set off dialogue with quotation marks with a comma between the spoken words and the tag.
  • If the tag comes after the spoken words, the comma goes inside the quotation marks: “I went to town yesterday,” he said.
  • If the tag comes before the spoken words, the comma goes after the attribution: He said, “I went to town yesterday.”
• Put each speaker’s words in a separate paragraph. Although it’s best to break up the dialogue so one speaker doesn’t give a monologue, if one character talks for a long time, break up his or her words into short paragraphs. In that case, put quotation marks at the beginning of the paragraph only and do not close the quotation marks until the end of the speaker’s words.

Use dialogue tags for attribution of speakers:

• Avoid using a tag if it’s clear who’s speaking. If there are only two characters in the conversation, each of them can speak a few times without attribution. The reader can follow a few exchanges between two characters without losing track of who’s speaking.
• Said is transparent and should be the tag used most often. Writers often think said is boring, but readers hardly know it’s there.
• Use other tags—answered, explained, replied, stated, etc.—sparingly. Dialogue isn’t improved by using many different tags; in fact, readers find it distracting.
• Never use a verb that is a physical impossibility—smiled, chuckled, grimaced, grinned. A character can smile before or after he speaks, but he can’t smile a word or chuckle a sentence. The title of the book Shut Up! He Explained: A Writer’s Guide to the Uses and Misuses of Dialogue (now out-of-print but available from used booksellers) shows the wrong way to write dialogue.
• Don’t add explanation or adverbs
  • If the dialogue is strong, you don’t need them: He stormed out of the room and slammed the door angrily. If he stormed out of the room and slammed the door, the reader can figure out he’s angry.
  • If the dialogue is weak, strengthen the dialogue: He left the room angrily is not nearly as strong as He stormed out of the room and slammed the door.
• Use action tags – beats: “Hurry or we’ll be late.” Toni gulped down the last of her coffee and tossed the plastic cup in the sink. “Today’s going to be a busy day.”
  • To complement the dialogue—in the example above the actions reinforce the words that Toni is in a hurry.
  • For variation—people talking are not disembodied voices. They are doing things as they speak, and so should your characters.
  • For pauses— an action tag varies the pace.

Give your characters distinctive voices. In Creating Characters: How to Build Story People, Dwight Swain writes

The words you speak, what you say and how you say, it reveal you as a particular person. … These are things the writer must think about, be aware of. If the words he puts in his story people’s mouths are out of character, he’ll be hard put to rise above them.

• Gender—in general, women strive to make connections and men negotiate to see who’s on top of the ladder.
• Age—a teenager is likely to use a lot of slang; an elderly person is apt to speak more formally.
• Education/literacy level—a high school dropout usually doesn’t sound like a college graduate. 
• Background experiences—where someone lives, events they have experienced, people they associate with all have a bearing on how they talk.
• Attitude and self-image—a self-confident person will sound different than a timid person with low-esteem.
• Favorite topics—your characters’ conversations will reflect their interests and activities. A race car enthusiast will sound different than someone who loves to read classic literature.

Different characters have different speech patterns.

• Characters can use slang or proper English, short or long sentences, complete sentences or fragments.
• Use contractions to sound natural unless the speaker is pompous or not a native English speaker.
• Don’t use strange spellings to signify dialect; use rhythms, word choices, and word placement instead.
• Don’t worry about proper grammar—write as the character would speak.
• Don’t have characters repeat the other person’s name. Normally when you are talking to a person individually, you don’t call them by name. On the other hand, if several people are in a conversation, you might call a specific person by name if you wanted to talk to him or her.

Characters talk to themselves:

• Interior monologue is what goes on in the character’s head: unspoken thoughts.
• Direct thoughts are shown in italics: The world has gone crazy.
• Use the Q trick—state the thought in the form of a question to avoid attribution: Had the whole world gone crazy?

Here’s an example of how not to write dialogue:

“Jane, do you remember that your father died last year and left his entire estate to your brother Carl?” Kay asked.

“Yes, Kay, I do.” Jane answered. “We suspected that Carl knew something about the mysterious secret in my father’s past and that he bribed our father to leave him the estate.”

“Your cousin Marvin agreed with us,” Kay responded. “Now it looks like we may be finding out what really happened, Jane.”

“Marvin’s mother was my father’s sister. They had a falling out years ago, and no one knows why. Have you found out something, Kay?” Jane demanded.

Leave a comment and tell me everything you find wrong with this poor example.

photo credit: Amy Jeffries

World eBook Fair

Everybody loves free, and you can download your selections from two million PDF e-books for free until August 4th.

The World eBook Fair makes it easy to find and download free e-books. The event is sponsored by Project Gutenberg, World Public Library, DPP Store, Baen Books, Ask.com, Internet Archive, MobileBooks, and MyeBook.

Now is a great time to stock up on free reading material.

Creating Fictional Characters—Part 5: Developing Background and Traits Using a Character Chart, Bio, Diary, or Interview

In previous installments in this series, we’ve talked about what the author needs to know about her characters. You should know things about your characters that you don’t necessarily reveal directly to readers—things that cause the character to behave the way he does. In some cases, you will show, not tell, your readers. In some cases, you will use the information to know what the character will do and to understand why.

Some important elements the writer needs to know about main characters that won’t always be told to readers (in no particular order):

• Appearance
• Lifestyle/Possessions
• Self-concept
• Relationships
• Habits
• Beliefs
• Traits
• Memories and feelings
• Motivation and goals

Writers use a variety of methods to define characters.  Some of the most popular include:

• Character chart: a chart that lists important information about the character, ranging from physical appearance to defining moments in the character’s life. Examples of character charts can be found at
  • Inspiration for Writers
  • Fiction Writer’s Character Chart  
  • Charlotte Dillon 
  • The Epiguide.com Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
  •  Read Write Think Character Perspective Chart
  • My character chart (in Word format that you may freely use and distribute) and a character chart-in-progress for Act of Faith, my work-in-progress
• Bio: a narrative of past including every important year and event or a variation, a slice of life, as a typical day. For examples, see
  • Poewar—10 Days of Character Building: Biography
  • Building a Character Biography
  • Poewar—10 Days of Character Building: A Day in the Life
• Diary: the character’s own thoughts. For ideas on using diary/journal entries to create characters, see
  • Paperback Writer: Eight Characters
  • Keeping Character Journals
• Interview: ask questions of your character and/or the people around them.
  • For ideas, read
    • Poewar—10 Days of Character Building: Interview
    • Poewar—10 Days of Character Building: Building a Character Using Multiple Perspectives
  • Sample questions to ask your character
    • What one thing in your childhood made the biggest impression on your or influenced you the most?
    • Who was the most important person in your life in your childhood? Who is the most important person in your life now?
    • What is your favorite color, TV show, book, leisure-time activity, possession, music, food…?
    • What is your job and how did you come to do that?
    • What is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you? The best?
    • Do you have a religious faith? If so, how important is it to you? What is your attitude toward religion?
    • What do you do best? What would like to do well that you can’t?
    • What is your earliest memory from your childhood?
    • How would you describe your family and childhood? Your present relationships? Previous relationships?
    • If you could do anything you wanted for the next month, what would you do? Who would you do it with?
    • Where did you go to school? How far did you go in school? How did you feel about school?
    • What are your hobbies? How did these come about?
    • If you could change 3 things in your life or about yourself, what would they be?
  • Sample questions to ask other characters about your character
    • How would you describe Character in one sentence?
    • What do you like best about this person? Least? Admire most? Least?
    • What is his strongest character trait? Weakest?
• Act the part: This idea came from a comment on an earlier post in this series. David at Birmingham Accountant wrote:

I’m a bit of a ‘method actor’ when I’m creating characters. I’ll step into their world for a day or so and try to behave, react and speak just like my character. Really helps me get under their skin to see how they’d behave in a variety of situations. 

How do you get to know your characters? Do you use a character chart, bio, interview, or diary? Do you put yourself in the role of character?

photo credit: TheeErin

Guest Post: 9 Ways to Promote Your Book Using Social Media by Beth Morrow

Recently, Beth Morrow at Writer-in-Progress interviewed me for her feature Story Behind the Story She agreed to reciprocate with a guest post here, and I jumped at the chance. Let’s welcome Beth and get ready to learn about promoting books through social media.

===========================================================

In the big scheme of things, I’ve noticed two types of social media impact writers more than any others: blogging and social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. You can bet I was thrilled when Lillie picked social networking for the topic of this post—I’ve been messing with social media in all its forms for years and enjoy the challenge of integrating it into my writing career. First, I want to remind you of the most important element of social networking:

The human element.

Finding new ways to connect with old friends and make new ones, including new readers, is exciting. The possibilities of what you can do and how the world sees you as a creative writer increases tenfold. Never lose sight of the fact that people want to connect with you as a person first, a writer second. Just as people in the world want to connect with you on a personal level, those folks linking with you via social media want the same. Be a person first, a promoter second.

Now, for the good stuff…

Each social media form has a purpose. Discovering what works for you in each venue is a process of trial and error. Here are my thoughts and observations on how many authors use social networking to promote their works.

Blogging

1. Post Regularly to Your Blog

Sounds ridiculously simple, doesn’t it? After all, there are so many free blog hosts (WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal), you can’t use the excuse of expense. Blogs require input and regular posting to keep readers coming back. There’s something about the author’s mind that fascinates the general public, so if you’re short on ideas, go with that. Your blog is also a great place to answer reader questions, start a book discussion or share updates on your current work-in-progress for readers anxious for your next release.

2. Use Your Blog as a Promotional Tool

The number of ways to promo your book on your blog are practically endless. Keep a running list of your book signings, links to your work on Amazon or other online venues, links to your reviews and mentions of your work on other websites. Host a contest to win one of your back titles, and don’t forget to mention when and where you’ll have upcoming interviews and public appearances. Give readers a way they can contact you via email and snail mail. If you‘re able, offer excerpts of your work. Remember to promote your blog through email signatures and on business cards. Getting all this information into your blog is work upfront but in the long run, directing new readers to your site requires nothing more than sharing your link.

3. Use Your Blog To Socially Interact With Other Authors

Some of the best comments and emails I’ve received from readers of my blog are from writers who appreciate the interviews of other writers I host on my blog. I enjoy interacting with other authors willing to respond to my interviews because my questions all center around the process of creative writing. Ask other writers with whom you’ve established a basic writing relationship, either online or in real life, if they’d be willing to write a guest post for your blog. You can give them the topic, suggest one or mutually choose one. In return, offer to guest blog for them and allow them to post links to their website, blog and published works as part of their bio. If they don’t have time or aren’t interested, politely thank them, don’t hound them.

Facebook

4. Create a Fan Page for Yourself and/or Your Book(s)

Fan pages allow people who like your work to keep up on your releases with one click. While I’ve seen some authors create their individual page as a fan page, most choose to create a fan page for their books. Creating a fan page makes contacting folks who follow your books as simple as posting a message to your fan page. Facebook does all the legwork of getting it to the members. Can’t beat that for efficiency!

5. Link Your Blog to Facebook

With the Networked Blogs application at Facebook, you can make your blog posts do double duty as Facebook status updates. You can also link your blog with those of other friends and writers. Do a search at Facebook for the “Networked Blogs” application. It will walk you through linking your blog and inviting friends and fans as readers.

6. Announce Release Dates via Events

Using the Events program within Facebook, add your book releases, book signings and upcoming appearances to the calendar. When the day of your event arrives, all of your Facebook friends will receive a reminder. Likewise, you can send a message via the Inbox to all your friends, but this gets annoying if you regularly clutter your friends’ inboxes.

Twitter

7. Get Involved

Twitter is overwhelming at first. The best way to get comfortable is to jump in and reply to the tweets of others. Build a few meaningful relationships then branch out as you gain confidence. It’s very easy to watch the Twitter world blip by so don’t waste time: tweet back!

8. Link to Your Work

Again with the cross-promotion. Retweet your blog posts (just a title and link is the norm), mention where you’re guest blogging (again with a link), announce releases and post excerpts (do this sparingly. Remember, people want you to come through on Twitter, not a publicity-seeking bot). In your Twitter profile, list your Facebook name, website and blog URLs. The more traffic you get to your webpage and your work, the more sales you’ll have.

9. Find Author Gigs

I’ve seen numerous tweets from people seeking guest speakers for their organization, other authors and journalists looking for interview subjects, PR folks looking for contacts on short notice. I’ve even heard of magazine editors seeking authors to write articles on content from their books. Your position as a published author will open doors in other areas you may never have considered. Always be willing to put yourself out there in the name of promoting your work.

The onslaught of social media is both a blessing and a curse. It’s hard enough finding the time to sit down and write some days–who wants to spend that precious time on a computer? On the other hand, social networking is free, effective and targeted to readers. Reaching new readers from the comfort of your couch—what could be easier?

About the Author

Beth Morrow is a freelance author, writing workshop presenter and social media junkie.  Visit her blog for writers at: www.writer-in-progress.com, join her at Face book (Beth Frazee Morrow) and follow her at Twitter (@Buckeye_BethM). She loves questions on social media, so don’t be shy.
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I know you’ll have questions for Beth, and she’ll be glad to answer questions left in comments. However, because of family illness, there may be a delay in her response.

photo credit: Tech Writer Boy.

What I Learned from a Blooper

The theme for this month’s group writing project at Middle Zone Musings is What I Learned From Bloopers, Mistakes, and Embarrassing Moments.

While I’d like to say I’ve never experienced any of those, you’d know I was lying. The hard part was deciding which one to write about.

When I was in physical therapy following a stroke, the therapists used what I understood to be a gate belt. It was a long canvas belt they strapped around my waist. At first, before I could sit or stand, the therapists used the device to transfer me in and out of the wheelchair. When I reached the point I could walk, they held on to the belt while I walked to keep me from falling. They could pull me back if I leaned forward or to the side because of my poor balance.

I was in the rehab center for a month as an inpatient and went back several times a week as an outpatient for many months after that. For most of that time, the therapists strapped on the belt when I started therapy, and it didn’t come off until the end of the session.

Gate belt seemed like a strange name for the device, and I wondered why it was called that. A locked gate to keep me in place, maybe?

Then I wrote a romance novel in which the heroine experienced a stroke and went through much of what I did. When my mother read the manuscript, she said, “I found a typo in the book.” She pointed to the page. “You spelled this word wrong.”

“What do you mean? Of course, I didn’t spell it wrong. G-a-t-e, gate.”

“No, Lillie,” she said. “It’s gait, g-a-i-t. You know—like walk.”

Oh …

From that experience, I learned that my vocabulary isn’t as good as I thought I was.    If I wonder about something—like why a medical safety device to help a patient walk is called a gate belt—ask.

And I learned that even if I called the device the wrong name, it still did its job. I never fell in therapy, and I learned to walk again.

The video below shows a young lady in therapy walking with a gait belt.

Independence Day: Let There Be Fireworks

O ETERNAL God, through whose mighty power our fathers won their liberties of old; Grant, we beseech thee, that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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