{"id":4366,"date":"2011-07-08T13:37:58","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T17:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=4366"},"modified":"2011-07-08T13:37:58","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T17:37:58","slug":"the-apologetic-of-story-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=4366","title":{"rendered":"The apologetic of story, part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

I do two-part posts<\/strong> more often than I intend. Because fairly often I get to working a line of thought out in a post, to the extent that I lose track of the original point I wanted to make.<\/p>\n

And so it is with this topic.<\/p>\n

The thing I was actually excited to say (in the beginning) was this.<\/p>\n

Sometimes people react to my novels with the comment, “Well, there’s too much violence and weird stuff in them.”<\/p>\n

I have no objection to this (OK, I have a small emotional objection, but nothing I take seriously). This person is clearly not part of my intended audience, and I wish them well in their preferred style and genre, if any.<\/p>\n

Because I didn’t write my books for them.<\/p>\n

My books are written–primarily–for Christians who struggle with the questions of suffering and evil, and for non-Christians who might possibly be open to considering a Christian perspective on the Great Problem.<\/p>\n

That’s why Pastor Harry Gunderson in Wolf Time<\/a><\/i> is crippled, and has lost his wife. That’s why Father Aillil in the Erling <\/a>books<\/a> watched his sister raped and taken into slavery, and has never been able to find her again. That’s why he struggles with his own guilt for a crime of his youth.<\/p>\n

I don’t say this is the only legitimate moral reason for writing a novel.<\/p>\n

But it’s mine.<\/p>\n

Out of town this weekend,<\/strong> and then Norway Day at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Oh, and check my book trailer<\/a> if you haven’t yet experienced its awesomeality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do two-part posts more often than I intend. Because fairly often I get to working a line of thought out in a post, to the extent that I lose track of the original point I wanted to make. And so it is with this topic. The thing I was actually excited to say (in … Continue reading The apologetic of story, part II<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-writing"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}