what do you do with the "shoulds"?

[Torrias]

One problem I began running into, back when I wrote like I breathed, was SHOULD. I'd have things really flowing, then start second-guessing myself on matters of theology and morality. "Oh...That should actually work out this way, in order to demonstrate this principle." "This should be set up this other way instead, to be more in keeping with God's character according to His self-revelation" (in a fantasy world under our God, somewhat like Tolkien's Iluvatar but less standoffish). "How in the world do I explain X without compromising some theological point?" "Where IS the Savior in my world's history or hope, anyway? But I doooon't waaaaant allegoryyyyy...!" And before I knew it, the writing was bogging down and the creativity drying up.

For instance, one idea I've touched on and written two chapters for is a rather lighthearted, engaging, just-for-fun bit of vampire fiction in a sort of parallel world. The original notion was for the main character to eventually become a Christian even while undead. I started writing it deliberately with the knowledge that it had UNSPEAKABLY HUGE theological holes in it, it would never see print, and I'd draw tons of hate mail if it did, but who cares, it was fun. Then, against all my mental effort, I started inevitably thinking about SHOULD. And the first thing I'd actually been able to write freely on in years ground almost immediately to a halt.

Just wondering about any other Christian authors running into a similar problem, and if you've been shown some amazing revelation of how to approach it without feeling like you're misrepresenting God with your creativity.

[Kessie]

Yeah, I do that, too. I just remind myself that God's a lot bigger than my tiny ideas of him, and theology isn't even necessarily a good representation of him. Just write where the story wants to go and worry about SHOULD on your next draft. What usually happens, if you can just follow the story, is it'll go somewhere much more marvelous than the Should would lead you. SHOULD leads to tired old cliches.

This one author I'm fond of bows to Should a lot. All of her books have a similar plot and the same ending. It's disappointing because her writing is stellar.

I ran across this interesting verse in the Amplified:

Eph. 3:10
10[The purpose is] that through the church the complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety and innumerable aspects might now be made known to the angelic rulers and authorities (principalities and powers) in the heavenly sphere.

There's some serious unseen politics going on out there that we have no idea about. I figure we can tell all the stories about fairies and elves and goblins and trolls and werewolves and vampires we want to, and it won't be nearly as wild as the reality.

[Torrias]

That actually hits the nail on the head better than I even thought possible. Love the verse in Amplified, and your comment about it. Put a happy tear in my eye. I think it's going on my desktop.

[metalikhan]

Disclaimer: I'm probably coming at this from the wrong angle.

When I started writing, there was no such division as Christian writing vs secular. There were mainstream works that did/didn't have Christian content. Ever read any of Taylor Caldwell's Biblical history works (such as Great Lion of God or Dear and Glorious Physician)? How about some of Rumer Godden's works, such as In This House of Brede? They were mainstream published. In our own preferred genre, we often look to the icons of Tolkien and Lewis, but their works were (and still are) mainstream published. The list goes on.

So, when the division came, there were more opportunities to market to publications catering to the Christian market. But there also appeared an almost militant evangelicalism rife with shoulds and shouldn'ts about what a Christian writer produces. It varies according to the denomination (or non-denomination), and you'll still come across folks who think all fiction is evil (lies and vain imaginings!). Really, the only proper things a Christian writer should write are Bible commentaries, study guides, and devotionals. (I've been told this several times.)

Anyway, I already had some minor publications under my belt and had explored my own authorial gifts & talents before this division happened. There was no pressure to conform to a specific evangelical agenda. If a story required blatant Christian content, it got it; if it didn't require that, it didn't get any forced into it.

But for a while, I did try to conform to the shoulds. The first problem with it, however, was that the theological messages required to satisfy the shoulds varied according to who was test reading. Not everyone has identical interpretations, opinions, or hot buttons in their theology. There was no satisfying anyone -- and ultimately, I couldn't satisfy myself. It was no longer my writing. It was a clumsy Frankenstein of what other people said I should do. The writing suffered, the stories suffered.

It wasn't until I gave myself permission to embrace the liberty in Christ for my writing that it came back on track. Embracing that liberty meant trusting the Holy Spirit's guidance to use well the creative gift he gave me. It did not mean shackling the gift with this or that doctrinal shoulds & shouldn'ts.

Frank Luke mentioned in another thread to put in exactly the amount of blatantly Christian content as the story needs -- no more, no less.

In several older Anomaly posts from Jeff Gerke, he stated that some authors write for the edification of the church and some write for the mainstream masses. Is there any reason we shouldn't cheer each other -- our own brothers & sisters in Christ -- on in our different approaches to fiction?

As Christians, the main thing we should strive for is the highest quality we can do regardless of the target market. That means giving ourselves permission to write for the beauty and wonder of the story rather than the agenda someone tells us we should include.

Produce a great story. Let God handle how and who it touches. He's pretty good at that.

[Torrias]

A different angle and different information than I was thinking about, but those were some very solid and applicable points that I didn't realize I needed. At least part of my problem is wanting to feel I'm writing true to my own beliefs and not simply tossing down a bunch of mere entertainment--or worse, an obvious attempt at showing God to people--that will end up giving the wrong impression of God as I view him. But I'm now realizing I do also worry too much about what others will think of my implicit theology.

I'm unfamiliar with the works you cited, but that perspective on the subtle effects of the newer Christian/secular divide in fiction is nudging things in me. It's like the utterly unscriptural divide between "holy" and "secular" in daily life, and between "in church" and "not in church" (when we are the Church, not a building or a weekly event). I've long been drawn to publishing in the secular market with Christian undertones in my work, like Tolkien, but my writing has come to be too blatant in some parts; I can't imagine most secular publishers wanting to touch it because of that, and I'm not interested in striving to please Christian publishers. Oh well, it's up to God if He wants it published at some point.

Thanks; the things you've said have really sparked thought and new perspective.

[Bethany J.]

I worry that people will criticize my implicit theology or apparent "life application" too, so you're not alone at all. I try not to let the "shoulds" twist my story, though. If you're not intentionally writing allegory, I don't think you should worry about "shoulds". Just take the story where it needs to go. If your worldview is evident in your work truth will shine forth anyway!

Even Christ's parables would have huge theological holes in them if we picked them apart carefully.

[This Baron of Mora]

Ruffly going to agree with Bethany ("If your worldview is evident in your work truth will shine forth"), though I should note that what I write is pre-Christian and therefore more like the Hebrews if that makes since. I approach this like the Greeks with the muses, all writers are in some way inspired by God and the Holy Spirit therefore though the Greek might error in not knowing the One True God he can still succeed in writing a great work that nonetheless has true theology in it, ever more so to we that know the complete truth! I quote Chesterton, "Not facts first, truth first", thus was his approach to books and writing.

[lexkx]

Nearly everything that "should" be said has, but...

I have a friend, a fellow author, who has been given this wonderful speculative universe that I firmly believe explores specific aspects of God's grace and purpose for the living church in the last days. BUT, I also believe God is currently protecting this author's project from publication. Why would He do that? Again with my beliefs (which are not my friend's...), but I believe that the drafts that this author has produced so far reveal gaps in this authors theology that God himself has revealed so that He can address them. I could be very wrong about this, because I'm not anybody's Holy Spirit, but a part of why we write is to learn. God's creative process is so very enormous. He can handle our errors. He can even help us expose them so that we can learn to understand correctly.

As an example from my own work, I have a firm "no magic" stance. I will occasionally read a story with magic in it (secular or evangelical), but my relationship with God and my theology demand this very solid line in the sand where magic is concerned for the fruit I produce. And yet, I came up with a fantasy story that requires a king to be turned into a dragon for a period of years. Oh, no. Not gonna happen. Like you, I had to stop writing once I realized this was leading down a path I could not take. I wrestled with this for over two years while I worked on other projects. Why did I have to have a dragon? Couldn't I get around this some way? Until one day, the very simple truth of the story smacked me between the eyes... The king doesn't become a dragon. He *thinks* he's a dragon. This man is insane!

Seriously, from that realization the story bloomed from one bizarre little book into eight epic novels that tell a powerful story about sovereignty and faithfulness and the relationship between truth and reality.

I believe you are right, in not trying to force your stories into an evangelical allegorical peg hole. Your stories are unique to you, and need only reflect God as you understand Him. If you give Him room in your head, He will bleed onto the page just enough for the truth to be seen. For any who are looking. Trust that creative process between you and Christ, that He knows where you mean to reveal His glory. (Have you seen this? It's a fascinating take on the relationship in God's universe between creativity and idolatry that doesn'd address the question you ask, but I do think it explores the answer you seek =>http://www.qideas.org/video/power.aspx ) If He is your first audience, and the one your aim to please, won't the rest of the "shoulds" fade into proper obscurity?

[rjj7]

I think that after some thought, everyone would agree that there are valid and reasonable "shoulds" in fiction. You should not portray God as a cruel tyrant, for example.

Given that there are "shoulds" in fiction, the question is not whether we should be thinking about "shoulds" or not, the question is what constitutes a "should"? Different people will have different opinions, and I don't know that anyone has a 100% correct view. So it is up to the individual to judge for himself, after time spent in the word and prayer, and to proceed in faith.

However, I would counsel everyone to consider Romans chapter 14 and I Corinthians chapter 8. While we may be free in Christ to write many things that some would consider ungodly (any fiction at all comes under that category), we should not let our liberty become a stumblingblock to weaker brothers.

[Bethany J.]

Great thoughts, rjj7. What I personally meant by a "should" is: if a character or a situation represents something to me, shouldn't I force it to say something specifically Biblical about whatever it represents? For example, I have a fantasy story in which (at one point) the villains were a lot like demons, in that they were created good and fell from grace because of discontent and rebellion. Consequently, their creator began to represent God to me. Then I started feeling pressure to make their creator like God in a variety of ways, and the whole story started to "require" allegory in every aspect, and it was overwhelming. Finally I realized that individual elements of a story can represent things, without needing every single element to also mean something. Those are the kinds of "shoulds" I mean. It sounded like Torrias had the same dilemma. (And I had exactly that same problem about not having a savior figure in the story's universe! Haha!)

[Kessie]

Yeah, I worry about the female dark angel in my series being read as some weird take on Satan. And the "savior" figure is a human guy with superpowers.

Yeah, doctrinally, I'm screwed. But story-wise, it's great fun.

[Lady Rwebhu Kidh]

Sometimes I think I'm a bit out of bounds with my lack of 'shoulds'. As I've grown into my skills as a writer, I've come to realize more and more that my purpose and my goal never is to tell anyone something – never to teach, or make a statement. It simply never is. My goal ends up being...to show them something. To make them think. To let them think. To open something, and to let them end it again. I don't quite know how this is going to affect the theological perfection of my stories...but I do think it will, especially since I write fantasy and weird speculative so much. What if I don't want or need to show people complete accuracy in every part of the things that I think up or create – what if that's not the point? What if...I actually end up writing books that I know most of my Christian peers and mentors will disagree with...books that even I will disagree with...and what if that's my point? What if...?

I don't really know where I'm going with this. But I think about it a lot.

[Torrias]

Aug 15, 2013 9:47:32 GMT -5 lexkx said:

(Have you seen this? It's a fascinating take on the relationship in God's universe between creativity and idolatry that doesn'd address the question you ask, but I do think it explores the answer you seek =>www.qideas.org/video/power.aspx )

You perfectly described that video's applicability for me. Personally, I'd highly recommend it for absolutely any Christian with any calling whatsoever (it did not seem like 18 minutes, I would've been happy with twice the length if he'd needed that for making his points), but it's particularly close to home for those of us in creative (or coercive) fields.

And this has turned into a wonderful thread altogether.

[Bethany J.]

Wow, that video is absolutely fascinating. I don't agree with everything he says (for example, I don't think poverty is always the result of injustice...and did he say that God created Jesus??) but wow, there is so much to chew over here. Thanks for sharing, lexkx!

[Ranger Varon]

I take most 'shoulds' and place them in the same box as algebra 2. Important and useful to know, but not necessary for what I'm doing right now. What I draw from when I write isn't specific theological points, which are narrow and focused, but rather the Truth of God and the way things works that are always real no matter which universe I end up writing in. No need to explain why many of the things that were given to the Israelites, or other aspects of the Bible in a universe that isn't ours.