Tag Archives: storytelling

Religion, Writing

‘If you don’t tell them a story…”

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[The following is the text of the sermon I delivered at the chapel at the Free Lutheran Bible College/Seminary this past Thursday,]

And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’” (Luke 8: 9-10, ESV)

Dr. Sebastian Gorka tells a story about when he was writing his book, Defeating Jihad. When he’d finished it, he showed it to his wife and asked her what she thought of it. As a writer myself, I know what he wanted to hear. He wanted her to tell him it was the most wonderful book she’d ever read, and it would certainly be a bestseller and change the world.

But she didn’t say that. What she did was ask, “Is that all there is?”

He said yes. Here were his facts and his arguments. What was there left to say?

She told him, “You need to tell a story. Nobody will listen to you if you don’t tell them a story.”

So he went back to his word processor and he wrote an introduction. In that introduction, he told the story of a young man who’d been in the underground in Communist Hungary, back in the days of the Soviet Union. He was betrayed by the famous English traitor Kim Philby, and arrested by the government. Imprisoned and tortured.

Then, in 1956, the Hungarians staged an uprising. The man was released from prison, but he knew the Communists were coming back. He made plans to escape to the west. When he left, he took a friend’s 17-year-old daughter with him, at that friend’s request. The man wanted his daughter to live in the free world. They made the very dangerous journey across the border, and ended up in England. Later he married the girl, and they were Dr. Gorka’s parents. He says that whenever people talk to him about the book, they never want to talk about the main text. They ask him about that story.

“Nobody will listen to you if you don’t tell them a story.”

If God had asked my advice, back when He was planning how He’d reveal Himself to Mankind through a book, I’d have told Him to give us a book of Systematic Theology. You start out with a chapter on Epistemology – the science of how we know things. Then I’d suggest a chapter on Trinitarian Theology. And a chapter on the Incarnation. A chapter on Soteriology, the theology of salvation. At the end, a chapter on Eschatology, the Last Things. Everything organized, like the books I used to stock up in the bookstore for seminary classes. I’d want it laid out neatly, with headings and subheadings. Charts and bullet points would be nice, too. Think of all the theological arguments we’d be spared!

But for some reason – and theologians marvel at it to this day – God did not consult me on the subject.

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Reading, Writing

Author’s notebook: The helpless hero

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Photo credit: Luis Villasmil. Unsplash license.

Yesterday I reviewed a mystery novel by Peter Rowlands. I praised the prose, but thought the plotting and characterization below par. Still, I bought the next book – which I’ll review, I imagine, tomorrow. Tonight I want to comment on something that struck me as I read that second book.

Author Rowlands, as I see it, is still learning the craft of storytelling – as am I, to be honest. One weakness in this book is his overuse of plain luck in order to get the hero out of trouble. On two occasions in this story (so far) his hero has been at the mercy of genuine murderers, but has been saved by the timely appearance of chance passersby.

This is one of the big problems with that species of hero I might call “the helpless hero.” In some ways it’s a great strategy to make your hero an ordinary guy (or gal) with no particular skills or experience with violence. It raises the dramatic tension nicely. The reader identifies with the character and thinks, “What would I do in a situation like that? Could I survive?” (Honest answer: probably not.)

But that’s also the problem. How does he survive? Your James Bonds and Orphan X’s possess training and well-honed instincts for self-defense and survival. But your helpless hero twists in the wind. Rowlands chose to solve that problem, in this book, by resorting to dumb luck twice. My own rule, in reading and writing, is, one dumb luck escape per customer, per story. Any more than that is pushing credibility. Real life offers numerous instances of repeated lucky breaks – and unlucky breaks. But fiction isn’t as strange as truth. You can’t push your reader’s credulity. He paid good money for this book (unless, like me, he takes advantage of free promotional offers).

One work-around that’s become popular – and I’ve commented on it more than once in reviews – is bringing in what I jokingly call “the psycho killer friend.” He doesn’t actually need to be a psycho killer, of course. Probably better if he’s not, come to think of it. But he needs to be physically strong and skilled in fighting. It helps if he’s ruthless too, and condescending about the hero’s moral scruples. At some point in the past, your hero will have pulled a thorn from his paw or something, earning his undying loyalty. This PKF can be on call for  those times when your hero knows he’s going somewhere dangerous. He might even be savvy enough to shadow your hero on his own initiative, when his experience tells him his friend is being foolhardy. A nice twist can be introduced if you remove the PKF’s protection as you’re building up to the final confrontation, forcing your hero to work without a net. (Best not to save your one budgeted lucky break for the climax, though. The effect of that is kind of anticlimactic.)

Another acceptable solution is to have the authorities (usually the police) secretly keeping tabs on your hero, ready to appear, like the US Cavalry, in the nick of time, to the hero’s (and hopefully the reader’s) surprise.

Any other suggestions?

Writing

Happy endings, tragedy, and futility

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Photo credit: Kevin Erdvig @kjerdvig. Unsplash license.

Occasionally, I think. Even more occasionally, what I think makes sense.

Today I was thinking about stories. Or “story” as a subject. I’ve written about it here before.

I have a theological view of stories. I noticed first, long ago, that the basic structure of plot (hero faces challenge – hero must overcome repeated, escalating failures to achieve goal) works because it mirrors the basic structure of our lives. This is the art of living. Stories tell us how to live. (A bad story is a kind of crime, because it teaches wrong lessons that could get people hurt.)

Later, I thought larger. The universe, it seems to me, is a story. Christians don’t believe that life is an eternal cycle, as many of the pagans did. We believe that history is a narrative. It has a beginning and an end. Tolkien declared that the Resurrection was the “eucatastrophe” (the happy, unexpected turn of events) of the story. The final happy ending awaits.

I had the thought, this morning, that all stories with happy endings are, in some sense, Christian. Even if they’re profane and filthy. They still have a holy structure. Sacred bones, you might say.

But then I thought, what about tragedy? Is tragedy un-Christian?

No. Tragedy is (according to Aristotle) meaningful. The hero’s ending may be awful, but it means something. The tragic hero may deserve his fate (like Macbeth) or may be the innocent victim of Destiny (like Oedipus). But his death is significant. It arouses pity and horror. It enriches the spirit. There’s meaning in tragedy.

What is not Christian is the story of futility. The absurdist tale. I’ve run across a few in my time, and I hate them. One that comes to mind is “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” which I watched on Netflix. I can see the story’s value as a corrective to the conventions and tropes of the Western genre, which get turned on their heads one after another. But the final conclusion is emptiness. Another was “No Country for Old Men,” also by the Coen Brothers. I’ve heard it described as a Christian story – and maybe it is at some intellectual level too deep for me – but I saw it as a story bereft of hope.

I’m trying to work these thoughts into the book. Means a few last-minute adjustments.

Religion, Writing

God as Storyteller

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Photo credit; Mike Erskine. Unsplash license.

Consumer warning: I’m about to do a think piece. The management assumes no responsibility for any mental damage that may be sustained by those who rashly read on…

Gene Edward Veith posted about “God as a poet” today on his Cranach blog (I’d link to it, but it’s behind a pay wall). I commented about my own theory, becoming a conviction (wisely or not), that God is a storyteller.

In my case, the idea goes back quite a long time, to when I was learning to tell stories (something I learned relatively late in life). How a story involves taking a (usually likeable) main character, giving him (or her. Or it) a problem, then having them try to solve it. Their attempt not only fails, but makes the problem worse. Repeat as needed, escalating at each stage, until they either a) succeed, or b) fail in a significant way.

And then I noticed that that is precisely how life works (something I haven’t actually learned yet, in practical terms). We face problems, we keep trying, learning what works and what doesn’t as we go, until we find something that works. Or else we die.

And I thought, “Hey, life is like a story. I’ll bet that’s why stories are such a universal human phenomenon.”

And then I got all metaphysical. “Maybe stories reflect reality because God is Himself a storyteller. Scripture certainly presents the history of salvation as a narrative. A narrative with a Hero and a plot.”

And then I thought, “Maybe that answers the ancient question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” If God has shaped all creation as a story, then bad things would have to happen to good people. Because that’s how stories work (see paragraph 3 above). Every writer knows the struggle of creating a character you like, and then subjecting them to torture – for the sake of the story.

Another commenter at Cranach suggested that this trivializes suffering. I can see how they might think that. I seem to be saying that God lets children die of cancer, or live in abuse, just to tell a story.

But that objection depends on two assumptions:

One is that stories are trivial things. If, as I am coming to believe, the creation itself is a story, then it’s the farthest thing from trivial. I’m not deprecating reality – I’m exalting Story.

Secondly, it all depends on what you think of the Storyteller. Whether He’s going to tie all the loose ends up in the end. Whether He created His characters in love, or just to amuse Himself.

I believe that the Storyteller began His story – “Let there be light” – with loving purpose. And He’ll wrap it up by fulfilling His loving promise: “Yes, I am coming quickly!” And then comes the Wedding Feast, and they live happily ever after.

Authors, Religion

Sharing Your Remarkable Story

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You have a story of faith and God’s work in your life. “And if people don’t take us seriously,” says Aaron Armstrong, “that’s still good news worth sharing.” He briefly describes the struggle his wife has experienced and links to a couple versions of her remarkable story.

“For years, whenever she or both of us have told the story of how we came to faith, we’ve seen people stop speaking to us, back away slowly as if we were whacked, or (in one instance) convert to an entirely different religion.”

Fiction

We Tell Ghost Stories In Order to Control Our Fears

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“One of the primary experiences ghost stories deal with is fear,” Chris Yokel explains. “Many literary critics recognize that the management of fear is one of the important explanations for the existence of the ghost story. Julia Briggs in her book Night Visitors says, ‘Both the recital and reading of stories of the terrific unknown suggests a need to exorcise in controlled circumstances, fear which in solitude or darkness might become unmanageable. By recounting nightmares, giving them speakable shapes and patterns, even if as compulsively as did Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, we hope to control them and come to terms with them.’”

Do we control our fears when we tell stories of indomitable evils, of horrors that cannot be held back, or of despair that literally eats at us? How much do our stories define for us this “terrific unknown”?

Religion, Uncategorized

The Story We Tell Ourselves

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Derek Rishmawy describes an idea he teaches young men and women who think they’ll ditch their biblical morality for a season in order to have fun.

I always tell my students they need to be aware of the myths and stories they tell themselves about reality, because the story you think you’re in determines the character you become. Neutral time is a particularly popular story. It goes something like this:

I’ve been a good kid in high school. I’ve done my homework, been to Bible study, and didn’t mess around too much or anything. Now, though, I really want to go out and enjoy myself a bit. The “college experience” is calling, and I can’t be expected to go and not let loose a little bit. I mean, I really love Jesus and my faith will always be a big part of my life, but you know, I’ll just go off for a bit, maybe a semester or two, have my fun, and then be back around. You’ll see.

Where else in real life does this exist? Would they tell the Lord to his face that they’ll mock him with their actions for a time and then come back? This is easily the beginning of a story Old Scratch often tells. It begins with the suggestion that morality doesn’t matter and can be left aside for a time and builds to the declaration that Jesus never cared about you because if he did, you wouldn’t be in this immoral mess.

Fiction

Trash Planet Vacation, a WALL-E Draft

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Early drafts of Pixar’s wonderful movie WALL-E were very different from the final film. The key robot wasn’t playing Hello, Dolly everywhere, but “leading a Spartacus-like robot revolution.”  There was a Planet of the Apes vibe to the storyline, and the writers hoped to make the entire film dialogue free. For a time, they threw around alternative titles, like Trash Planet, but eventually they worked a fix for their original title and along with it, a better story.

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Fiction, Reading

Koontz on stories

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Today is Sissel Kyrkjebø’s birthday.

And no, I didn’t send her a present. She didn’t send me anything last year, and I do have some pride.

I’m currently reading Dean Koontz’ Mr. Murder, which I’m finding even more excruciatingly suspenseful than his usual stuff. Koontz has adopted the wise policy in recent books of making his heroes blue-collar workers, a tactic that’s both fresh and realistic, and I salute it. In this older book, though, he falls back on the conventional author’s timesaver of making the main character a fellow author (saves research). But it gives him the opportunity to make some dramatically appropriate comments on the idea of Story Itself. Here the hero, Martin Stillwater, talks about it with his wife:

He said, “You and I were passing the time with novels, so were some other people, not just to escape but because… because, at its best, fiction is medicine.”

“Medicine?”

“Life is so d*mned disorderly, things just happen, and there doesn’t seem any point to so much of what we go through. Sometimes it seems the world’s a madhouse. Storytelling condenses life, gives it order. Stories have beginnings, middles, ends. And when a story’s over, it meant something, by God, maybe not something complex, maybe what it had to say was simple, even naïve, but there was meaning. And that gives us hope, it’s a medicine.”