AH: Broadcasting Foolishness
I was reading the other night and ran headlong into this quote by Jane Smiley: "If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness."
I think that's one of the most profound statements I've read lately. The other day I was talking to a friend about how my theology had changed since I really began to study theology . . . and how I once wrote a novel predicated on the idea that God has a permissive will and a perfect will, and that we can fall short of the latter and have to settle for the former.
"But I don't believe that any more," I said. "I believe that in God's sovereignty, everything I do, even my mistakes, are part of his plan. Why do we always assume that mistakes are bad? That tragedy is undesirable? Because God is going to use even these things to mold us into the people He wants us to be."
Those of us who've been writing for a long time often cringe when we think about our early books because our writing styles have changed--most of us tend to write tighter and leaner with experience. (I edited a book for re-publication the other day and cut out 9,000 completely unnecessary words).
But there are other things that change as well. Novels, like it or not, do put forth a world view; characters learn lessons and change in ways that reflect the author's view of life. So it's crucial that we get it right from an eternal perspective.
The responsibility could be overwhelming, if you thought about it very long or very deeply. Those of us who are believers are presenting and/or justifying the ways of God to man . . . as if He needed our help . . . and yet He chooses to use us.
Wow.
Jane Smiley says that a novel is an ontological construct, which is a fifty-cent way of saying that a novel says, "the world is like this." Smiley also says "as every novelist has a style, so every novelist has conviction" . . . and convictions can change. Which is a good thing, because, according to Smiley , "if the conviction simply dissipates or grows stale, the novels do, too."
So I'm glad I'm changing some of my convictions and adopting new perspectives. As I grow as a person and as a follower of Christ, my work will grow, too. But if I'm saying "God is like this . . .", I must take pains to speak the truth.
So . . . what have I done about the novel based on a premise I no longer support? I went back and skimmed it again . . . and found that the premise is so subtle, I doubt many people will pick it up. Plus, the book is out of print. And I've written a new book, The Novelist, on the sovereignty of God and how it works in our lives.
But the experience has reminded me of my responsibility as a novelist: to take every care to get it right.
Father, help us in our task and forgive us our foolishness. Make us better writers than we are, for your name's sake.
Amen.
Jane Smiley quotes are from 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. Angela Hunt quotes are from her computer.
posted by Charis Connection @ 6:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
As we walk through life, we are all learning. We are not robots that simply write what the master computer tells us, but we are writing based on the things we have been taught, the things we have experienced, the things we want and the things we fear. As we continue to learn, these things continue to change. I look back at some of the things I wrote as a teenager and think what was I thinking? I can't take it back now. I reached the audience I was aiming for.
I think that my writing has improved and I think that I understand things better now, but there is one thing that I had then that I never want to lose. I had a passion for the message, a belief that my words could stir people to action, that people could be convinced follow God's will rather than sitting around like bumps on a log. I think my writing is less harsh than it was then, but I never want to lose that passionate belief that Christians can make a difference in the world.
There are a few mistakes that I would like to take back, but there are also some things that when I look back at them I realize that what I said back then was correct and some of my thinking now is not. Sometimes it is nice to be able to go back and relearn the things we have forgotten.
The thing is, readers are growing and learning too. The nice thing about books is that they meet the reader where he or she is. Yes, you're perspective may have changed since then but perhaps your book falls into the hands of someone who needs to hear the message as you presented it then, which wasn't necessarily wrong but perhaps not mature. Yet that immature message touches that reader's heart and draws them to God. That's not a bad thing, anymore than our immature lives were the witness we had to offer at the time we lived them. The only bad thing would be if my witness, through my life or my writing, never changed because my maturity in my relationship to Him and my understanding of His ways never progressed.
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