March 17, 2019

WRITING ADVICE: “On Christ the Solid Rock…” I Need To Learn To Build My Stories

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right”.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

[I am reposting this today because it's still important and it made me think...again. It's less advice to those who read this; more advice to myself as I continue to figure out what I write about and why.]

A number of years ago, a church my wife and I were going to encouraged the entire congregation to read and apply the principles elucidated in a fairly thin, profoundly important book.

Unlike the What Would Jesus Do? movement, which was inspired by the novel IN HIS STEPS (as well as the concept of Christian Socialism) and the Prayer of Jabez “fad” which was entirely based on a single verse from I Chronicles, chapter 4, verse 10 (both of which the church we were in did…), this was less direction than observation. Doubtless the author, Reggie McNeal made money from the concept, but his program hasn’t seen near the sweeping faddishness of the other two. Mostly because it takes critical aim at the Christian Church as a whole.

Published in 2003 as part of the John Wiley & Sons Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series; and after reading it in 2005 and 2009, I picked up THE PRESENT FUTURE again recently. Sadly, I haven’t noticed any kind of profound changes in the Christian Church or witness since that time, but I did stumble across something that might help my writing.

As I’ve said before, I’m striving to create both greater consistency and more relevance in my stories. I’ve talked about how to create an ensemble cast, making my stories skinnier, and maybe even agree with myself about what the theme to my writing will be. Seems every writer I like has some sort of theme:

Lois McMaster Bujold: “…bias against the disabled, economic exploitation, and the role of women in society…old-school ideas such as faith in humanity and the desire to probe and do good in the universe…sheer humanity of her characters…” (Project MUSE)

Julie Czerneda: “…first contact, xenobiology…” (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction)

David Brin: “…the impact on human society of technology humankind…repairing the world, i.e. people have a duty to make the world a better place…working to improve the human condition, to increase knowledge, and to prevent long-term evils…humans as caretakers…importance of laws and legality…do what common sense dictates as good for all…” (Wikipedia)

Jack McDevitt: “…archaeology or xenoarchaeology…making first contact…a universe that was once teeming with intelligent life, but contains only their abandoned artifacts…novels frequently raise questions which he does not attempt to answer…to puzzle and intrigue his readers…” (Wikipedia)

Anne McCaffery: “strong women protagonists…the problems of living and gaining career success…” (Wikipedia); “gender, power and politics, duty and responsibility, tradition and innovation, self and society…family” (Anne McCaffery Discussion forum)

Michael F. Flynn: education, plans that go awry, how we interact with dying cultures and react to the new, extraordinary first contact…(deduced by reading), sometimes Libertarian (Prometheus Award, nominated and won)

Gene Wolfe: “to make [us]…feel cosmic, epic, large…why human progress may (or seems to be) failing.” (Ultan’s Library)

So what are the things that are important to me? What are my themes?

Guy Stewart: Education. First contact. Faith in God. How we interact with very alien thinking and meeting, domestication (see Jared Diamond’s GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL), technological solution to problems today (wholly unsuccessful right now); self-sacrifice as a missing component of today’s society;

So how does this all tie back to reading McNeal’s book?

A few days ago, I read this: “The central act of the Old Testament is the Exodus, a divine intervention into human history to liberate his people from oppression and slavery. The decisive act of the New Testament is the divine intervention of God into human history to liberate his people from oppression and slavery…In both Old and New Testaments all other mini-dramas and subplots relate back to this central theme.” (Chapter 1, THE PRESENT FUTURE)

As a Christian (that’s what it says in my banner above!), how do my themes tie back to the central theme of God?

I don’t know if they do. My published work is more-or-less silent on God, though in some, I hint that He’s important (“A Pig Tale”, “Teaching Women to Fly”, “Looking Down on Athena”, “Christmas Tree”, SIMPLE SCIENCE SERMONS FOR BIG AND LITTLE KIDS, “Test”…) Though Michael F. Flynn’s work (though I wasn’t reading critically) doesn’t seem to be overtly Christian. Gene Wolfe’s work is founded on his faith, though, again, it’s not overt. Others who are agnostic, atheist, humanist (Isaac Asimov springs to mind), Libertarian (Brin is, by his own definition, “a libertarian’s libertarian”, oddly enough, he’s only been nominated for the Prometheus award once…), Buddhist, Muslim, or any other varieties of faith or spiritual belief allow their beliefs to come out in their writing; so I suppose mine do as well.

What I need to do then, is lay down a clear foundation of Christianity on which to build my stories of Human/Alien interaction, education, and self-sacrifice then work to spin the foundation and theme into saleable works.

“That’s all?” ^raised eyebrow^


No comments: