Change of Fortune

I was surprised to read the first few words of the opening sentence of Debbie's post on Wednesday: "I learned a new word ..." because that's exactly how I planned to begin this post. I learned a new word ... Great minds? Absolutely. I love Debbie's new word, prevenient, love its implications, especially as it pertains to grace. When I think of God's prevenient grace in my life, think of all the things he kept me from and kept me through, I'm overwhelmed. I mean that in the truest sense of the word. David asks in Psalm 8:4: "What is man that you are mindful of him?" I echo his question, but I tend to personalize it when I ask: Who am I, Lord,  that you are mindful of me? Casting Crowns answers that question in one of my favorite songs, Who Am I? It never fails to move me to tears.

So prevenient was Debbie's new word. Mine is peripety, defined as: A sudden change of fortune or reversal of circumstances. More to the point, it's the hinge on which the reversal turns. I love that word, love how it rolls off the tongue, like serendipity, which is one of the coolest words in our language. While peripety is new to me, I can imagine our own brilliant Dr. Latayne -- and she is brilliant -- using it in everyday conversation. In fact, she's written an excellent book on faith as the hinge that changes everything in the life of Sarah and Abraham: The Hinge of Your History: The Phases of Faith.

I came to know the word peripety through Beth Moore's Bible study on the biblical book of Esther. My daughter Deanne facilitates a women's Bible study at her church, which recently went through the series. Deanne loaned me the set of DVDs with the admonition, "Watch these." So like the dutiful mother I am, I began to watch them. After one or two sessions, I understood why Deanne felt so impressed to recommend them to me. I'm not sure I've ever gone through a Bible study more pertinent to the circumstances of my life than this series on Esther. Two lessons into it I started over again and told my husband we needed to go through it together. We are, and it's speaking to him as deeply as it's speaking to me.

Session six of the study, which covers Esther 6:6-11, is where peripety came into play. Since this post isn't meant to be a Bible study, I won't go into the details, but I highly recommend the series. Seriously.

Among the many areas where peripety applies to my life, I've thought a lot about how it applies to my writing. I've shared before about the long and difficult journey my path to publication took. Long. And Difficult. Twenty years worth. I stood before a brick wall with no doors or windows, no way over or around, when it came to publication. I know many of you can sympathize. And then one day I received a large postcard in the mail advertising the upcoming writers conference at Mount Hermon. I thought, Wow, I would love to go, but it's not possible. I was scheduled to be in Atlanta with my husband that week, to help with a missions conference he was participating in. Tickets bought and paid for, hotel booked. So maybe another time. That's what I told myself, and yet I couldn't throw the postcard away. I left it on the kitchen island, where it sat for several weeks, where I was drawn to it over and over again.

Then one evening Rick picked up the postcard, which I hadn't even mentioned to him, and said, "I think you should go to this." I said, "I'd love to, but it's the week we're to be in Atlanta." Without hesitation he said, "No, I think you should go. I'll take Mindy (our other daughter) to Atlanta." And so I went right in and registered. I can't tell you how excited I was, or how nervous. I applied for a spot in the first fiction writers' critique group with Gayle Roper and submitted my chapter to her online. There was room for only 12 writers, and this was less than 3 weeks before the conference. A long shot? Yes indeed. Surely all the spots had been filled. I couldn't believe it when I received an email from Gayle late one night saying I was accepted. Another writer named Kathleen Popa was in the group. Our friendship began even before we met at Mount Hermon as we read each other's chapters in advance of the conference and recognized a kindred spirit in one another.

While I was at the conference I met editors who liked my writing, whose encouragement gave new life to my hopes and dreams. While it was still 2 years before I received a contract, it was the event that caused a reversal in my circumstances, and that postcard was the hinge.

Peripety.

To this day I don't know why I received it, or how in the world I got on their mailing list. I just know the remarkable difference it made in my life. It was the first link in a chain of events through which I've been so blessed. I met an editor who took my book to committee ... who offered a contract ... which helped me sign with an agent ... who had the idea of bringing a group of literary authors together to blog ... which put Bonnie, Debbie, Katy, Latayne, Patti and me together, authors from different states, different countries in fact, most of whom didn't know each other ... out of which Novel Matters was born ... which forged a deep and important friendship between 6 women of like mind ... and brought you into my life.

Peripety,

Not only is it an important element in the lives we live, it's an important device in the fiction we write. And to maximize its impact the pivot point of the peripety should be a seemingly insignificant event, rather than a point of highest dramatic tension. Like me receiving that postcard. Which changed everything. As it says in the Esther study guide, "A peripeteia swiftly turns a routine sequence of events into a story worth telling" (attributed to Boyd A. Luter and Barry C. Davis, Focus on the Bible). And isn't that the goal of every novelist, to write a story worth telling?

The term peripety is generally linked to dramatic literature, such as works by Shakespeare, but by definition every good novel should have a "sudden change of fortune or reversal of circumstances," whether negative or positive. How might peripety be applied to: David Copperfield, The Great Gatsby, or Lord of the Rings? Where does the sudden change or reversal of circumstances occur, and what is the hinge that precipitates it? What are your ideas?

The Great Romance

I've really enjoyed the discussion about romance we've had since Patti's post last Friday started us on the topic. I loved the clip she posted from You've Got Mail, which is high on my list of movie favorites. I love all the comments generated by the posts of the past week, and have added titles to both my reading and movie-watching lists.

To conclude the discussion, at least for now, I'm posting a book review of one of my truly favorite movels about romance. Actually, it's a trilogy I'm reviewing: Black, Red & White by Ted Dekker. The trilogy is speculative fiction, a thriller/fantasy, so why in the world would I promote it as romance? I'll get to that.

For those who haven't read The Circle trilogy, I'll tell you what the back cover copy says about each one.  Black: The Birth of Evil. "Black is an incredible story of evil and rescue, betrayal and love, pursuit and death, and a terrorist's threat unlike anything the human race has ever known. A virulent evil has been unleashed upon the people of the earth, an unstoppable force bent on the destruction of all that is good. Only Thomas Hunter can stop it, and he has been killed. Twice."

Well, I was already quite a fan of Ted Dekker's writing, but when I read that back cover copy I knew Black was a must-read for me. I'm sure I read the opening pages three or four times and still couldn't figure out what was happening. It was my faith in Ted that kept me going, because I knew when the confusion cleared up it would be so worth it. But that's not entirely true. I'd have kept reading regardless, because the story didn't just draw me in, it sucked me in. I had to keep reading.

I had the privilege of seeing Ted Dekker as the keynote speaker at Mount Herman Christian Writer's Conference a few years ago. What he spoke about bolstered my determination to not give up on my dream of publication. He said the world of writing is like a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid you have a large number of people who want to be published. Move up the pyramid a bit and there will be a smaller number of people who will actually write to be published (a little author humor there). Move closer to the top of the pyramid and you have a much smaller number of people who will hone their craft and persevere until they are published. I left that conference knowing I was going to persevere until I realized my dream or died trying.

I read Black -- devoured it is more like it -- then had to wait several months for Red to be released, and several more months for White. The upside was that I read Black a second time just before Red came out, and read Red a second time just before White came out. Then I read White a second time ... um ... to keep things in balance.

Here's the back cover copy for Red and White:

Red: The Great Pursuit. "The mind-bending pace of Black accelerates in Red, Book Two of Ted Dekker's ground-breaking Circle trilogy. Less than a month ago, Thomas Hunter was a failed writer selling coffee at the Java Hut in Denver. Now he finds himself in a desperate quest to rescue two worlds from collapse. In one world, he's a battle-scarred general commanding an army of primitive warriors. In the other, he's racing to outwit sadistic terrorists intent on creating global chaos through an unstoppable virus. Two worlds on the brink of destruction. One unthinkable solution. Enter an adrenaline-laced epic where dreams and reality collide. Nothing is as it seems, as Black turns to Red."

White: The Great Pursuit. "Thomas Hunter has only days to survive two separate realms of danger, deceit and destruction. The fate of both worlds hinges on his unique ability to shift realities through his dreams. Now leading a small ragtag group known as The Circle, Thomas finds himself facing new enemies, never-ending challenges, and the forbidden love of a most unlikely woman. Enter the Great Pursuit, where Thomas and a small band of followers must decide quickly who they can trust -- both with their own lives and the fate of millions. Dreams and reality quickly bleed into each other as time runs out. And neither the terror of Black nor the treachery of Red can prepare Thomas for the forces aligned against The Circle in White."

So again, what does that really have to do with romance? Well, just as the incomparable Lord of the Rings trilogy is, to my mind, the best Christian allegory ever written (I know, the debate continues over whether Lord of the Rings is an allegory at all. To me, it is) so too The Circle trilogy is a thrilling allegory about the love of God. In the trilogy it's referred to as the Great Romance. My family (all of whom read and loved the trilogy) and I fall back on that phrase on a regular basis. It's a succinct way to remind ourselves and each other of the deep, abiding, unquenchable love of God. As the story so beautifully drives home, "From the beginning it was always about the Great Romance."

What book(s) can you think of that at first glance would never fall into the Romance category, but when you get to the heart of it, it's about little else?

Fictional Phenomenon - It's Just Divine

Gene Roddenberry, Hollywood screenwriter and creator of Star Trek, once said, "No one in his right mind gets up in the morning and says, 'I think I'll create a phenomenon today.'" Fiction author Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, would probably agree with him, yet these two writers created story worlds and characters who have become deeply ingrained in our culture. Will they be considered to be some of the greatest writers of our time? Possibly not, but characters like Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and James Bond will live on in the imaginations of fans.

Sharon posted about the amazing recent popularity of The Shack and Twilight, and made the observation that perhaps story trumps craft. I would agree and go a step further to suggest that, in addition, story world trumps craft. The proof of this is in the vast proliferation of fan fiction. Fans refuse to leave the richly textured worlds that their favorite authors create--along with the characters--and continue with their own stories in order to perpetuate that story world. The Lord of the Rings would also fall into this phenomenon category. The hippie catch-phrase, Frodo Lives, showed up as early as the 60's and 70's on t-shirts, buttons and graffiti, but even today, the story sells in book form, on DVDs and online gaming programs. Forty years later, fans are still churning out fan fiction starring their favorite characters in Middle Earth.

I began the first book in the Twilight series, just to see what all the hoopla was about, but the teen perspective didn't hold my interest. I get the forbidden allure of the brooding Edward --perhaps Meyer's answer to 'Mr. Darcy' as a vampire. However, I did get a taste of the story world and I can see how it could easily become a brooding character in itself. If I were a teen, I would probably be camping out at Barnes & Noble at midnight waiting for the next installment to arrive.

So, while story world could help explain Twilight's shot to stardom, what about The Shack? I pushed through The Shack in anticipation of the out-of-the-box personifications that had caused a major rift in the Christian community, and I have to say that I think Divine purpose was responsible for its meteoric rise. Does anyone remember a sleeper movie about a dedicated Christian who refused to compromise his ideals, called Chariots of Fire? In a surprise upset in 1981, it took 4 out of 7 academy awards, including Best Picture. (I'll never forget the look of utter shock on Warren Beatty's face when Reds lost the Oscar.) Now, I only compare the two to illustrate my belief that God is in control, because Chariots was extremely well done. It had stiff competition, just like The Shack, but the story was divinely inspired, rising to the top like cream over big-budget movies such as On Golden Pond, Reds and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was found winsome and worthy in the eyes of the Academy judges, and had something to say at a time when we desperately needed to hear it. There is no way to predict such divine phenomenon.