Beyond the Mere Words

Am I Being Too Obvious?

Looks like I’m actually listening to my own advice for once, I’m tapping this out from a different spot than usual and perhaps getting a new perspective in the process. Ain’t it grand?

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Being a Christian myself, I read a lot about Christianity as a whole. Whether it’s the more serious and scholarly works or the increasingly broad genre that is Christian fiction. This being a blog focused on writing, I’m naturally going to focus on the latter.

Fiction is a great way to get a point across, or show the truth of something. It’s a wonderful tool to help people understand things in a different way. And using fiction for Christian purposes is no exception – Jesus Himself spoke in parables, after all, which are a form of story.

How does one go about doing so, though?

I’ve read a range of Christian fiction, and though I’m no expert I’m starting to see what works in my mind and what doesn’t. Recently I read the first of a trilogy aimed towards young adults with Christian themes. It wasn’t all that bad, and it was decently written, but about halfway through I realized what was rubbing me the wrong way about it.

It was far too obvious. I could see clearly exactly what the author wanted me to get out of the book.

There’s a fine line to walk when Christian authors write about themes of their faith. Many these days follow the pattern I saw in the book I recently read – making their point rather obvious. This can be good for a few reasons – it makes it clear where the author stands, for example, and that’s always a nice thing to know. But there are downsides to doing so as well, and I think a lot of Christian authors tend to ignore those.

Part of the beauty of fiction is that what an author has in mind while writing it and what a reader gets out of it may be two separate things. A reader may see subtle things the author didn’t think about and draw a new conclusion from them, and in the same manner, may overlook something the author hoped they’d find. Making things too blatant takes away the reader’s freedom to interpret it as they see, in part – they’re told that THIS is what I want you to get out of it. It feels more like force-feeding than allowing one to draw their own conclusions. And when a lesson is taught or a truth revealed, it’s far more effective when the one learning makes the connection themselves, rather than being told outright.

So too does it make the work more forgettable. Every time a reader reads a blatant book, they’ll see the same thing over and over and over again. Whereas with a more indirect and subtle approach, they’ll be able to pull something new out of the book every time. The book, in essence, grows along with them, and as they learn new things they’ll be able to see new things within the less in-your-face book as well.

I can hear opposing arguments already… those that don’t want to run the risk of people missing what they’re trying to say, those who say they feel ‘cheated’ when they discover themes they might not agree with that they didn’t notice at first. I’ve seen the Chronicles of Narnia, some of my own favorite books, bashed numerous times because of this fact – people love them as a child, then see the Christian themes Lewis wrote into them as they grow older and feel like they’ve been ‘tricked’ into reading a Christian book.

But here’s the thing. Regardless of whether you feel ‘tricked’ or not, whether you agree with them or not… at least it gets you THINKING.

This is the heart of the matter, I think. A reader should be able to put down a book once they’ve finished reading, and yet still have it running through their minds. The best books are those that leave you with things to think about, and an obvious book simply can’t allow you to do that. It becomes all the more important in a book of Christian fiction, I think. Every person’s walk is different, and an obvious book feels more like a force-feeding than a gentle leading as I feel it should be. I don’t want a book that beats me over the head with the obvious – I want a book that I can think about, wrestle with, draw new conclusions out of it, /work/ to really understand it as best I can. That is the sort of book I will keep on my shelf and will come back to time and time again, rather than read it once, think ‘That was a good story,’ and then promptly let it gather dust on my shelf or give it away.

We are writers, and we write to make our voice heard. But if we shout too loudly, nobody will listen to the heart beneath it and only hear the words themselves. If we speak gently, though, taking our time and not smacking somebody upside the head with it, we shall be heard more willingly, and give people the chance to not only hear but to /feel/ as well.

I’ve written a few pieces that contain a lot of themes pertaining to my faith, and some are far more obvious than others. But however overt I make them, I do my best to leave those who read them with something to /think/ about. The end of a story shouldn’t be the end of what one learns from it. I can’t say I’ve always succeeded, but it’s always on my mind when I write – will this be a piece people REMEMBER, or will it just be one that’s read once, and then promptly left to collect dust?

I hope it’s the former. Because only then will I really be an author, taking my experiences and voicing what I have seen in them and what I have learned from them to the world, and challenging other people to think about the world as I do, even if it’s not the way they might see things. Otherwise, I am only another voice shouting helplessly to the wind.

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