Anne Shaw Heinrich’s work has been published in numerous outlets, most recently, Writer’s Digest, Education Weekly, and Ms. Magazine, as well as The New York Times bestseller The Right Words at the Right Time, Volume 2: Your Turn (Atria 2006) and Chicken Soup for the Soul's The Cancer Book: 101 Stories of Courage, Support and Love (2009). Her debut novel, God Bless the Child, was the first in The Women of Paradise County Series published by Speaking Volumes. House of Teeth, the third book in the Series, releases in June 2026. Learn more at anneshawheinrich.com.
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Pushing Your Characters to Their Tipping Points
When someone snaps and it seems like the break comes out of nowhere, those of us who have made a good number of trips around the sun know that such outbursts actually come from somewhere and everywhere.
We understand overflowing buckets, and know how untended boiling water boils over, but we’re often startled if in the room when a person buckles under pressures, both seen and unseen. We’re uncomfortable, sometimes defensive or offended. If we’re interested, we can guess at the factors that brought on the boil. To do so is an act of humanity that the collective we should probably consider more often.
One of the things I enjoy most about writing fiction is the chance to take those deep dives with characters and find ways to help readers consider the many factors that result in moments of unbearable tension. One of my favorite such moments takes place in God Bless the Child, the first novel in The Women of Paradise County Series.
By the time readers get to the scene, they don’t know everything that has happened to the primary character, Mary Kline. Not even close; but they do know that she’s in way over her head, having taken in Pearl Davis, a vulnerable girl who has given birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. Mary believes herself to be the child’s mother until she sees the undeniable, biological truth:
“ …I do indulge in forbidden emotions, like love and lust, and envy and anger. I exercise my rights as a part of the animal kingdom. Female animals often take on the role of mother to abandoned infants of another species. They feed these babies, hold them, love them, clean them, and naturally feel territorial…
…Once, when Elizabeth was about seven months old, I hauled off and slapped Pearl as hard as I could. Mother and Daddy were already at the store, so it was just us three girls. I’d put water on to make hot chocolate. The teapot whistled, so I left the girls in the parlor. When I returned to the doorway with a tray of hot chocolate, I saw the thing I dreaded most…
…Pearl stood there in her long nightgown, holding Elizabeth to her cheek. She was humming soft mama songs in her baby’s ear, swaying the instinctive mother-sway: back-and-forth, back-and-forth, foot-to-foot. She was a natural. Elizabeth snuggled into her mother’s neck, looking more contented than ever. I froze.
That sweet scene frightened me. Would I be relieved of my duties? Would Elizabeth and Pearl abandon their captain with a mother-daughter mutiny? Was I to be confronted with a natural and understandable coup?...I would not allow it. I put the tray down on the coffee table and snatched Elizabeth from Pearl. I gently laid the baby on a blanket on the floor and worked myself back to my feet, finally reaching eye level with Pearl. She smiled dimly, that smile I’d grown so sick of seeing. I hated the simple stare she gave as she watched me lavish her baby with my love…My slap had more heft than I intended. Really. It was a full and jealous swing..I should never have slapped Pearl…She was just a confused child. Bewildered by all that had happened to her, she trusted me, and I guess that’s why I slapped her. Pearl was counting on me to make things right, but I knew nothing about this situation would ever be right.”
Letting Mary describe what happened here was really valuable. Even she seems surprised that she’s behaved so irrationally, so violently, to someone she thinks she loves. The reader knows that Mary is not really backed into a corner. The only other people in the room are a baby and a childlike young woman, but letting the reader inside Mary’s head, we see all that she thinks she has to lose. The slap is an act of desperation, and it is just one of many surprises this character reveals throughout the book.
In Books Two and Three of the Series, Violet
is Blue and House of Teeth, readers
get a chance to be with a little boy-turned young man named Jules Marks, another primary character who gets pushed to the brink more than once. He’s quiet, intelligent and has come to understand in spades just how cruel and kind the world can be. He’s been beat up plenty, but still fancies himself protector of those he loves.
When Jules learns that his own father, the feckless Lem Hauser, was the one who put a tattoo on the lower belly of his only friend, Violet, he makes a move that seems out of character. He comes to the confrontation committed to a verbal spat, but his father’s cruel taunts push Jules to a new brink that turns physical:
I hated him. I hated every last thing about him.
“Now, Jules, I hate to tell you this, but I got there first, you know. I saw that before you ever did. I saw that before your little gal let me work on her. I saw that clean and white as a brand-new sheet, my boy.”
He laughed some more, nearly choking on the dark tobacco juice sloshing around in his mouth. The childish, but powerful nature of his laugh stung. He wasn’t taking me seriously. I lunged for him. I caught him off guard, and we both tumbled to the ground. I could feel the dust on my teeth and the smell of his wet tobacco breath. My body was on top of him. I started swinging as hard as I could. His ballcap had fallen to the ground, so I could see his greasy black hair, slicked down with pure meanness. I landed some good punches and kept swinging until he stopped me and pushed me off him. The push was hard enough to knock down the burn barrel…The air between us bristled. Hungry dogs barked in the distance. My face throbbed…
“Hey, Jules, you come back any time and wrestle with old Lem. Anytime, Sir.”
Angry tears started to pool behind my eyes.
I didn’t want them to drip down my face until I’d put more distance between us.
They started falling anyway.
Writing this part of Jules’ story challenged me, not because I thought the attack on Lem wasn’t justified. After the willful neglect and cruelty that this character and his five little sisters have endured, he deserves to throw a punch and have it land. Lem’s involvement with Jules’ only friend, Violet, pushes an already distressed Jules over a very natural edge. Showing readers this break makes a character who is beyond heroic by any standards, more believable and layered.
The layers matter to me as a writer. Making decisions about how and when and who will reveal new pockets of humanity in a story is my idea of a good time, but there’s more to it. Giving fictional characters room to grow and to be fully human has the potential to do work beyond the page, and I think that has more value in the long run. Is it possible that by reading and writing stories that lay bare more than one truth, we expand our capacity to extend similar considerations to the people who live and breathe around us? To this, I say yes, yes, yes.
Jules Marks and his five little sisters can finally relax. Their feckless parents from Shakey's Half are doing time in the Paradise County Jail, and their Uncle Larry, Aunt Sally and Aunt Clarice have swooped in to give them the safety and security they deserved all along. As they settle into the closest thing to normal they’ve ever known, their neighbors and classmates are quick to remind them not to get too comfortable. Poulson’s only dentist makes a generous offer to help the Marks children fix their long-neglected teeth, but many folks object to the free treatment they receive. Meanwhile, Jules is figuring out how to be a man as he holds onto an ugly secret involving his dear friend, Violet Sellers. When cancer strikes the family, Jules decides to right a wrong that’s gone unchallenged for far too long.
You can purchase House of Teeth and the other books in The Women of Paradise County series on Amazon.
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