This post is part two of my ‘Building a Second Chance Arc’ series—where I share how I craft redemptive character journeys filled with wounds, growth, and grace. If you love stories about healing and emotional transformation, you’re in the right place. Be sure to read part one, The Wound That Starts it All.
Collision
Every second chance story has a moment when the past and present collide. Until now, your character has lived behind emotional walls—protecting themselves from failure, shame, loss, or betrayal. They may feel very secure where they are, even successful. They may live a content life. Maybe they have settled into their job and are content with their progress. Perhaps they’ve found a relationship that doesn’t challenge them, but at least it’s a relationship. Or maybe they’ve convinced themselves they aren’t meant for love. What if they say, “Not everyone gets a happily ever after. Some of us are just meant to be — content.”
But then something shifts.
It’s not just that change becomes possible—it becomes unavoidable. The character may have been hoping for change, waiting for the day it happened. They may know the time has come to make a choice. Or it may slap them upside the head with surprise, or another trauma. It might be a double dose of the ugly they have escaped. Do they even want it? In any case, they are squeezed into a situation that makes them uncomfortable and they can’t prevent the change from occurring. If they try, they endanger a crucial part of themselves, or someone else.
Change disrupts the status quo. Call it being shaken out of your comfort zone, if you will. I don’t know about you but I tend to like my comfort zone. I don’t usually look for things that make me uncomfortable, or ones that upset my personal apple cart..
What Is the Catalyst in a Second Chance Story?
The catalyst is the emotional or circumstantial disruption that shakes your character’s carefully constructed protection and exposes what’s missing.
It’s not the ‘happy place’ for our character.
It could be
- a knock at the door.
- A child they didn’t know existed.
- A return to the place they swore they’d never go.
- A letter, a death, a reunion, a betrayal.It is the moment that says: “You can’t keep living like this.”
It’s the moment that asks for or requires more.
It’s often coming face to face with the very thing they’ve avoided or the thing they thought they had overcome.
Or it could be something that never crossed their mind.
- Rylie (Remember Not) is forced to face her past when a perceived stalker grabs her.
- June (Last Wish) comes face to face with her life’s decision when Michael returns to negotiate the lease on her store.
- When her parents suffer a hit and run, Charli (If You Followed Your Heart) must navigate a world she fought to leave.
Desire for Change: The Shift from Survival to Longing
Up until this point, your character has been surviving. Managing. Deflecting. Now something touches the tender place they’ve kept hidden—and they want or are compelled for more.
- Michael (from Last Wish) returns to town for business but finds himself unable to walk away from June—even after he finds she’s hidden the one thing he’s wanted most from life.
- Grey (If You Followed Your Heart) drifts into Meadow Lane, just looking for a place to sleep and some work. But something about the place—and Charli—stirs the desire to be known again.
- Katy Rose (Many Lives Ranch) thinks she’s found safety in a new job, but when she sees Blake again, everything she buried comes rushing back—and suddenly her past needs a reckoning.
Why This Step Matters in the Arc
Without a catalyst, your character has no reason to change. The wound would stay safely hidden, the protective patterns remain intact. Their life would remain status quo and they would remain mainly in their comfort zone.
But the second chance story requires your character to want something:
- A clean slate.
- Restoration of a relationship.
- A sense of wholeness.
- A place to belong.
- The return of or to something they lost
- An identity
- Vindication
- An answer
That desire must override the fear that has kept them stuck.
Writing Tip: Give the Catalyst Emotional Consequences
The best catalysts aren’t just plot twists. They’re deeply personal.
Ask yourself:
- What would force your character to question the life they’ve built to protect themselves?
- What would make them want to reach for something more?
- What makes the cost of staying the same too high?
Kristi (Where the Wild Ones Roam) must choose between trusting a rancher or lose the shot at true love.
Lizzie (What’s There to Love) must choose between earning her fathers love and loving herself.
A Movie/Classic Example
Elizabeth Bennet in the movie Pride & Prejudice (2005 or any version)
The catalyst occurs when she reads Darcy’s letter—and realizes she was wrong.
Up to that point, she has protected herself with wit, judgment, and pride.
The letter cracks her emotional certainty and makes her question herself and conclusions. Her face as she reads it shows her longing and shame colliding.
This moment doesn’t change everything—but it makes change possible. She wants the truth now, even though it hurts.
The Playground
This step, the catalyst, gives the author the most opportunity and platform for angst in the story because it requires gut wrenching, life changing decisions—the kind of decisions that cut open a persons protective shell leaving the vulnerable to injury, shame, and judgment. Can the character manage the change? Is it a one and done opportunity or a process? Must the character leave behind who they are to become who they will be next? Or will they fall back into the complacency of their comfort zone? These questions are an authors playground.
What comes next
In the next post, I’ll share how my characters begin the hard work of stepping into change. This is where second chances stop being emotional theory and become active choices—risky, vulnerable, beautiful. This is where growth begins to take place. It’s the actions-speak-louder-than-words stage.
Thanks for coming on the second chance journey with me.
Blessings to you,
Barbara Ellin Fox
BarbaraEllinFox.com
