Into the Fire

If I asked you what your favorite book of all time is, could you answer definitively? I know I couldn’t, but perhaps you can. What makes it (or those) your favorite(s)? Is it the writing or the message? Chances are if you loved the book, you loved the story, and if you loved the story, you loved the way the author told it.

You might ask is this a “chicken or the egg” matter? Well, for me, the chicken came first: God created things in their mature forms. Procreation came later. So, in the creation of a novel, you might only have a few words to begin with, maybe one character, although not completely “fleshed” out, and you might not have any idea where the story is headed as the words come pouring through your fingers, but ultimately you will have created a story when you’re finished. Most stories will have a beginning, a middle, and an end of some kind—even if the tale’s told in flashbacks, or with an omniscient or first person POV, or a leading conclusion. And something about that story and the way it was written will clamp onto your heart and mind and possibly never leave your memory.

Something tells me, though, if all you do in the course of reading a novel is admire the writing, then maybe the story hasn’t quite fulfilled its purpose. I don’t think a story should be examined when it’s being read for pleasure. Maybe if there’s a sticking point that grinds the story to a halt for you, you will diagnose the problem right then. When the writer makes a mistake like that, the reader begins to fret about the details and forgets the concentration on where the story is leading him. It has nothing to do with tempo or pacing but rather something interjected that doesn’t fit or something left out which detours a reader and causes him to search for it—maybe even subconsciously. All the reader might realize is something’s not right, and they’re unpleasantly distracted by it.

Writers yearn to improve their craft, to get better in all areas of creating. I think sometimes we reach a plateau where we must attain a certain level of satisfaction and come to the place of being content with our work. The alternative is to be discontent. I’m convinced once we have “our voice”, we’ll be hard pressed to acquire another one, and maybe that’s because the one we have is the one God has given us. Please don’t misunderstand me here—we can get better at many things, but if we are in fact writing for God and because of God, He has a plan, a voice, a message, and His desires for our writing must be at least tantamount to our own, ultimately surpassing them. Sometimes we fuss because someone else is so much more clever, robust, detailed, or intellectual in their writing, and our fears and specific inferiorities rise up and demand us to perform differently, perhaps with more precision, imagination, a more striking and deeper vocabulary. But, hard as we might try to implement change in our styles or plot lines, we can’t seem to get to where we’d hoped to travel on the writing journey—ending up in the style where we’ve seemed to find our zone.

If you’ve looked at my “about” section, you’ve read that Johnny Depp is my favorite actor. One of the reasons for that is because he is rarely the same character twice (Captain Jack Sparrow notwithstanding). I admire his God-given talent. His wealth of imagination and the ability to portray such diverse people on the screen is downright mesmerizing. Conversely, not so with most authors. They are who they are, and that’s one of the reasons we have them as our favorites: we like their style, their stories, and we look for their books on the shelves because we want the pleasure of reading their work again.

So is it the message or the writing for you? When someone reads your work, what do you want them to enjoy the most? Do you want them to be able to recognize your style and acquire a taste for it? Do you want what God has given you to write to be the reason they search for a book of yours?

Father, we can only be who you have made us to be, but we can always come before you in the Name of your Son and ask for you to make us better at what we do for you. You are the Creator, and you give good and perfect gifts to your children. You increase our faith when we ask, and you impart wisdom to us when we seek it from you, providing we don’t doubt your dispensing of it. You are so gracious, so generous, so compassionate as we struggle to serve you and desire to bless you. Help us, Lord. Help me. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.