Taking the Plunge into Novel Writing

I wrote this post in January 2009..five years ago and five years younger! I used one of my favorite quotes of Flannery O'Connor as a jumping-off point. Let's take the plunge...

People without hope do not write novels. Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system. If the novelist is not sustained by a hope of money, then he must be sustained by a hope of salvation, or he simply won't survive the ordeal. --Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners.

This is my favorite quote about novel writing. There's a touch of hyperbole in O'Connor's words (I still have my teeth!) but not much. A story owns the writer, not just for the hours set aside for tapping on computer keys, but while we sort lights from darks and wander down grocery aisles. We forget to eat, and yes, personal hygiene suffers. What's more, to write authentic fiction, we are forced to wrestle with God, dig deeper into what we believe about him and how he interacts with us and the world, and hopefully see him with fresh eyes.

Novel writing is not for the faint of heart!

But a deeper truth in O'Connor's words shakes me: Novelists plunge into reality. In our stories, we can rearrange topography, give an alien extra arms, or allow mythical characters into the landscape, but we cannot, must not, rescue our characters from their fallen natures or transfer them to a fall-less society (La-La Land), or save them from meaningful struggle. They will fail, not in a contrived, acceptable-to-Christian-culture way, but in a way that makes our own skin itch. That's when grace shows up.

Does this mean every novel should portray the underbelly of society?

No, but we disrespect our readers if we mishandle the human condition, both its nobility and frailty. After all, the Bible is wrought with counterexamples. Think of David; he committed adultery and sent the husband to certain death, and yet, he is the apple of God's eye. Peter denied Jesus. Judas betrayed him. Thomas forgot. Even Jesus struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane. The faith life is messy!

Now, it's your turn. Have you read a novel lately where the author plunges into reality and does it well? Tell us about it.

Fear of Fiction? A guest post by She Reads co-creator Ariel Allison

Lately I've been thinking about fear as it relates to fiction: both the writing and the reading. A

note showed up in my inbox two weeks ago from a

woman who wanted to know how She Reads could recommend a novel that wasn’t published in the Christian marketplace (this month’s selection, THE VIOLETS OF MARCH by Sarah Jio). She was appalled that the author (a Christian) chose to take

her work to the general market, appalled that there is mild language in the story, appalled that it has steamy content. It bothered this woman to no end that we would put our stamp of approval on a book that depicted the ugliness of human behavior. How could we encourage readers to “be entertained by sin?" She ended her note by saying that she would not read this novel, that she would encourage every Christian she knows to avoid it, and she prays that God will forgive us for what we have done. First I laughed. Then I groaned. Then I closed my e-mail and wandered away. I eventually responded (a post for another day) as graciously as I could. The truth is this woman has never read the book. She does not understand the power of story. She is afraid. I get that. What I don't understand is why we as believers nurture this kind of fear

in ourselves and in our readers. Why we seek out only those books that are safe. Or, in many cases, why we write them. (All the while, I might add, touting the merits of Lewis and his unsafe Lion)

About twenty years ago my father handed me a novel by an old Scottish storyteller named George MacDonald. In the years since I've collected many of his books. He reminds me of my father (the blue eyes and the wild beard and the high Scottish nose), now dead eight years. MacDonald posed a question in his novel that has stayed with me since that first reading:

"Do you love your faith so little that you have never battled a single fear lest your faith should not be true?"

Do we love our faith so little? As readers? As writers?

"Where there are no doubts, no questions, no perplexities, there can be no growth into the regions where he would have us walk," MacDonald goes on to say. Fear is not unique to readers it seems, but writers as well - particularly those of faith. Fear that if we tell our stories with unflinching courage they won’t get published. Fear that if we use strong language we will offend a reader. Fear of telling the truth. Fear of asking hard questions that we can’t answer.

Better to play it safe, right? Take the easy route? Slap a bonnet on it?

Writing honest fiction is a messy job. Flannery O’Conner says in her classic, Mystery and Manners:

“The fact is that the materials of the fiction writer are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction. It’s not a grand enough job for you.”

I wonder what would happen if every writer of faith battled her “doubts, questions, and perplexities” right there on the page? Would we not produce fiction that is brave and true and terrifying? Flannery O’Conner did this very thing on her deathbed, as she wrote PARKER’S BACK, the story of a man tattooed on every part of his body except his back. In reality it is her story of questioning God’s sovereignty as she died of lupus. We see her surrender in the character of Parker, a man who first stands barefoot before a burning tree profaning the name of God (hello symbolism!) to a man who has a picture of Jesus tattooed on his back. Painful,

dirty, human stuff right there. Terribly unsafe.

The world needs us to take our fear by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. Take Sarah Jio for example. She had the courage to tell her story in the wild and unsafe way it deserved. And because she did not pull her punches she later got an email from a reader who ended an emotional affair with an old boyfriend after finishing THE VIOLETS OF MARCH. This woman didn’t want to live with the same regrets and heartbreak as one of the characters in the novel. Would she have felt so compelled had she not witnessed that “ugliness of human behavior” on the page in front of her? I doubt it very much

My question for you today: as writers of faith what are you afraid of? And will you have the courage to battle that fear in story form? We very much need you to.

Shouts and Whispers

Lately I've been reading Shouts and Whispers: Twenty-One Writers Speak About Their Writing and Their Faith, edited by Jennifer L. Holberg. It's a candid glimpse into the faith of authors such as Walter Wangerin, Jr., Jan Karon, Bret Lott and Madeleine L'Engle, and it's comforting to know that even seasoned, admired authors deal with angst.

In the chapter titled 'Whispering Hope,' author Doris Betts begins with Flannery O'Connor's quote, "To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures." But whereas O'Connor's larger than life characters and often violent stories make their case, Doris asserts that a whisper can be just as effective in communicating the author's faith.

Most of us fall somewhere on the scale between the shout and the whisper, all the while trying to be true to our calling and not lose our own unique voices. We incorporate bits of what we believe into our writing, and we trust that somewhere there are people who need to hear what we have to say and are open to hearing it because of the distinctive way in which we've said it.

Ms. Betts says it this way: "Most writers set out to tell a story, knowing that who they are and what they believe will whisper its way in just as they do in one's daily life; their personality and beliefs will sink below the word-surface like a stain; they will be inside events the way the peach seed grows inside the peach." (pg. 40).

God can certainly use the overt statement of faith as well as the spiritual truth that is deeply embedded and disguised in story. In my writing, I stand back to see where spiritual insights need to be enhanced or tugged to the surface a bit more, like the dominant thread of a tapestry. To be realistic, the faith element must be organically part of the story, arising from the character's struggles and beliefs and and not viewed as an agenda. That is the type of book that most appeals to me, and the one I am most comfortable writing.

How about you? How do you incorporate your faith into your stories?

Getting Dirty for Christian Fiction

Time for a giveaway! I'll put your name in the hat for Seeing Things if you've commented on any of the Novel Matters posts this week. We love hearing your erudite voices.

If you missed Wednesday's post by Latayne (brilliant!) and the comments by our readers (also brilliant!), take a minute to enjoy a very thought-provoking discussion on the parameters we either self-impose or are imposed on writers by publishing houses or the market.

Believe it or not, this discussion has been going on for quite a while. Prior to 1964, the year of her death, Flannery O'Connor wrote an essay on the aim and purpose of fiction. The essay was included in a collection of her work posthumously, Mystery and Manners. She wrote:

Ever since there have been such things as novels, the world has been flooded with bad fiction for which the religious impulse has been responsible. The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality. He will think that the eyes of the Church or of the Bible or of his particular theology have already done the seeing for him, and that his business is to rearrange this essential vision into satisfying patterns, getting himself as little dirty as possible.
Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners

You have to love Flannery O'Connor. She calls out writers who shirk their responsibility to know the world they live in. I love her chutzpah.

I have to ask this question: How do we get "dirty" and honor God at the same time? (Notice I didn't ask how to please every reader at the same time.)

We look to Jesus.

No one saw the world more concretely than Jesus. A whore washed his feet with her tears. He not only made wine, he drank it. He touched leprous skin. He invited himself to a tax collector's house for lunch. And, I'm thinking, he heard naughty words there. Caked with blood, spittle, sweat, and dirt he took the nails for us. Gruesome. Violent. Definitely off-putting. That's crucifixion, the purest act of love.

To follow in the steps of Jesus, to write in a God-honoring, "dirty" way, we must see the world--as best we can--as Jesus sees it, with empathy, detail, and love. And so it is for the Christian writer to observe and portray the beauty and brutality and pain and suffering and redemption all through the eyes of love.

There will always be someone imposing rules. It's our nature. It's much easier to operate with rock-solid parameters. I believe our calling is higher. Our writing--and everything else in our lives--is a product of our relationship with Jesus--subject matter, theme, genre, word usage, voice. Every element is fruit of the faith with put in Jesus, the manner in which we allow ourselves to be loved and love so shallowly in return. Before art and through art, we love Jesus.

It takes a great deal of courage and a solid foundation of faith to look at the world as concretely as O'Connor suggests and as Jesus modeled. I pray for that courage and faith daily.

Can the kind of fiction O'Connor is advocating happen in today's CBA market? Who is getting "dirty" writing fiction for the CBA today and doing so artfully? How have you gotten "dirty" in your fiction? Is Flannery O'Connor, well, wrong?

Fiction is Dusty Work

Are you new to Novel Matters? Wonderful! We welcome you with open arms. You may feel intimidated to comment on other blogs, but that shouldn't be the case here. We depend on your voice to add spice to our "dish." If you need an incentive, we select the name from those who comment for a monthly prize. This month, we're giving away Latayne C. Scott's latest edition of her Mormon Mirage. We're all ears!




The fact is that the materials of the fiction writer are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty than you shouldn't write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you. -- Flannery O'Connor
~
A lukewarm main character is incredibly dissatisfying. Life happens to them. They don't engage the menace. They stand back and wait to be rescued. I know this. I plot and develop characters with this in mind, and then, in the first draft, I invariably wimp out. My main character faces a milksoppy obstruction, not a knee-knocking malignancy.
~
I honesty thought I'd written an engaged character in Lucy, the heroine of my WIP. She starts her quest with only modest equivocation and then spurs her "horse" onward.
~
Then I took a long, hot shower. And, for me, there is no better place to discover the flaws of my writing. I'm too possessive of my words to delete them before my very eyes. Oh, the agony!
~
Back to the story...Lucy faced a menace in my first draft--Is my ambiguity driving you nuts yet?--but her monster wasn't bloodthirsty enough. Losing the battle only meant a modest setback, not catastrophe. I had to up the stakes for her to truly reach hero status.
~
But that meant getting really, really dusty--feeling revulsion, fear, helplessness.
~
I rewrote the weak pages, and the story is stronger. I'm excited about returning to it, not only to fulfill my daily word count but to find out what happens to Lucy, to see what amazing things she'll do to overcome her nemesis--real or internal or both.
~
I don't think Ms. O'Connor spoke exclusively for writers of fiction to portray the underbelly of humanity. She was speaking to authenticity, and authenticity has its transcendence too. I think of Alcott's Little Women. Their menace was the Civil War, the possible death of their father, and the loss of all they knew and held dear. And yet, they loved, forgave, and created. Louisa May Alcott got dusty.
~
Having said that, let me acknowledge that the Christ follower has another layer of authenticity to portray--that which ought to be. What ought to be provides the best possible source for internal conflict, but our readers also want to see how this sense of "ought to be" plays out in the human experience.
~
Pardon my meandering thoughts today. It's Sunday. Company's coming. I have no business trying to write a cohesive blog for such amazingly thoughtful readers as you. My apologies. Hopefully, I have given you some ideas to tickle your creative souls.
~
Have you read something lately in which the author allowed him- or herself to get dusty? What hinders you from getting dusty? Is it harder to write underbelly or transcendence? How do you balance the "ought to be" in your fiction?

A Plunge into Reality

Before I start my post, just a reminder to enter the contest to win Sharon K. Souza's Lying on Sunday, a great example of what I'm writing about today. All you have to do is comment on a good friend, a strong theme in Sharon's writing. The winner will be announced on the 30th.

Now, let's take that plunge...

People without hope do not write novels. Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system. If the novelist is not sustained by a hope of money, then he must be sustained by a hope of salvation, or he simply won't survive the ordeal. --Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners.

This is my favorite quote about novel writing. There's a touch of hyperbole in O'Connor's words (I still have my teeth!) but not much. A story owns the writer, not just for the hours set aside for tapping on computer keys, but while we sort lights from darks and wander down grocery aisles. We forget to eat, and yes, personal hygiene suffers. What's more, to write authentic fiction, we are forced to wrestle with God, dig deeper into what we believe about him and how he interacts with us and the world, and hopefully see him with fresh eyes.

Novel writing is not for the faint of heart!

But a deeper truth in O'Connor's words shakes me: Novelists plunge into reality. In our stories, we can rearrange topography, give an alien extra arms, or allow mythical characters into the landscape, but we cannot, must not, rescue our characters from their fallen natures or transfer them to a fall-less society (La-La Land), or save them from meaningful struggle. They will fail, not in a contrived, acceptable-to-Christian-culture way, but in a way that makes our own skin itch. That's when grace shows up.

Does this mean every novel should portray the underbelly of society?

No, but we disrespect our readers if we mishandle the human condition, both its nobility and frailty. After all, the Bible is wrought with counterexamples. Think of David; he committed adultery and sent the husband to certain death, and yet, he is the apple of God's eye. Peter denied Jesus. Judas betrayed him. Thomas forgot. Even Jesus struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane. The faith life is messy!

Now, it's your turn. Have you read a novel lately where the author plunges into reality and does it well? Tell us about it.