Commit Literature

When I began writing my first novel in 1993, I made a decision that still guides my work today. I would not try to write “great literature.” I would instead content myself with a simple little story, but I would write it to the best of my ability, and work hard to improve my skills to assure that what I wrote, while no masterpiece, would at least reflect well upon my Maker. I believe the most important words a Christian can apply to any kind of work are these, which were written to slaves by a man in chains:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24) NIV

So I wrote slowly and painstakingly, carefully considering every word from many different standpoints. I sought out the opinions of intelligent acquaintances, and was never too proud to make constructive changes when suggested. Then, through a series of remarkable events (which I hope to write about one day in this column) to my very great surprise that first novel was published. But what surprised me even more was a comment made about that novel by an editor at a major newspaper. He said it “verged on committing literature.”

How strange it was to hear that word, when “literature” was the very thing I told myself I would not do.

Since those days Providence has seen fit to let me finish eight more novels, with six of those in print so far, and one memoir which may outlast them all. At the risk of seeming immodest, there have been several literary awards and many not uncomplimentary reviews, all of which when taken together have tended to imply that others see in me a puzzling habit of producing “literature.” This has caused me some confusion, for not once in all the years of writing—a million words or more—have I gone back on my original decision. Never have I consciously attempted literature.

Literature was for the academy. It was dense, impenetrable, lofty and apart. I simply wanted to tell unusual stories that might entertain readers, might enchant them through the characters and images brought to mind, and might perhaps leave them with a useful thought or two. How did that amount to literature?

For help in thinking through this question I looked to that ever-faithful writer’s servant, Webster’s. It turns out “literature” might not be the stuffy snob I once suspected. It is only “writings in prose or verse; especially: writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.”

Well. That didn’t sound so bad. In fact, this was a fair description of what I expected to read in every novel worth my time. It’s what one should expect from any gifted novelist who does his best to write “with all his heart, as if working for the Lord.” Indeed, now that I think about it, this is what every novel in the Christian Fiction genre ought to be: “excellence of form or expression, and ideas of permanent or universal interest.” For what is the alternative? Mediocrity of form and expression? Unimportant and uninteresting ideas? As an inheritor of the greatest story ever told, what kind of Christian storyteller would I be if I was satisfied with that?

Since I am indeed a Christian truly serious about the faith, I have finally decided to accept this fact: whether I try to write a Transcendent Masterpiece or simply keep on trying to amuse, my underlying goal must be to “commit literature” as it is defined above. If that is not my goal, if I am satisfied with less, then I am not writing for the Lord with all my heart, and in that case I would do best to stop writing altogether and seek some other kind of work.

In exactly the same way, whether you are a home schooling mother, a scientist, an assembly line worker or a lawyer, if you are a Christian you are called to work with all your heart as if working for the Lord. No job is too mundane for that calling; no task is too trivial. Those words were first meant for slaves, remember, written to them by a man in prison. I cannot help being a writer; this gift was given without asking if I might prefer another. Similarly, a slave by definition cannot choose his work, but in following St. Paul’s admonition he can most certainly redeem it. Perhaps life has assigned you only ditches to be dug, but in the way you dig them you decide if you are making literature or pulp. Every task, from the most denigrated to the most celebrated, becomes a form of praise and worship if it’s done with all your heart as if for the Lord. That choice is always yours.

Praise the Lord with excellence in whatever work you do, and prepare to be surprised when others call it something more than you dreamed possible.


Athol Dickson’s novels have been favorably compared to the work of Octavia Butler (Publisher’s Weekly), Daphne du Maurier (FaithfulReader.com, by Cindy Crosby, Christianity Today fiction critic), and Flannery O’Connor (The New York Times). His They Shall See God was a Christy Award finalist. River Rising was selected as one of the Booklist Top Ten Christian Novels of 2006, was a Christianity Today Best Novel of 2006 finalist, an Audie Award winner, and winner of the Christy Award for best suspense novel of the year. Winter Haven was a Christy Award finalist and a Romantic Times Top Pick. Both The Cure and Athol’s most recent novel, Lost Mission won Christy Awards in the suspense category, and Lost Mission is currently nominated for a Clive Staples Award. Athol lives with his wife in southern California.

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Guest Blogger ~ Ron Benrey, Part II

Ron Benrey is a widely published writer who has coauthored nine Christian romantic suspense novels with his wife Janet. Ron wrote two novellas independently and has written ten non-fiction books. His latest book, Know Your Rights, is an easy to understand guide to everyday law, will be published in December. Ron taught writing courses at the University of Pittsburgh. He currently teaches at major writers’ conferences on topics ranging from plotting and publishability, to Fiction After 50®, the fine art of becoming a novelist later in life. Ron holds a degrees in electrical engineering, management, and law. He’s a member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Ron and Janet live in North Carolina.

NJ: Ron delivered this keynote to the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in May, 2010. This is Part II.

Let Novel-Writing Teach You Christianity ... and Vice Versa, Part II

Once I felt certain that my model was a true two-way street, the inevitable happened. I’d apply the fiction-writing analogy every time I listened to a sermon. I’d often leave church with fresh guidance about writing novels. And cheerful feelings about a dull sermon.

The first tidbits I gleaned were fairly minor. A sermon about the lack of information about Jesus’ early years convinced me to eliminate all details, no matter how interesting, that don’t directly advance the story. And, a message about Judeans finding signs and wonders in the miracles done by Jesus drove home the point that showing is better than telling.

Then came my first high-powered epiphany. It happened when our pastor preached on Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” His message stressed that each of us was created for a purpose.

The obvious fiction-writing parallel is that every character I create must have a definite purpose. Every character, even the extras, must advance the story. Or heighten the drama. Or reveal a truth that reinforces the novel’s theme.

I’d only just wrapped my brain around this concept, when the analogy delivered another startling insight: As the creator of a fictional world analogous to God’s Creation, I should love my characters. This broad notion morphed into a sharply focused commandment. Don’t invent any characters you won’t (or can’t) love.

A while ago, I thought about writing women’s fiction because Christian publishers buy so much of the stuff. Well, I struggled mightily and wrote several angst-filled chapters. But I knew, really truly knew, that I’d never love those characters.

Delete! I felt wonderful afterwards.

My musing about lovable characters led me to deeper ponderings about story: We all know stories must move forward, and story movement can happen in plot events or in the hearts of characters who change during the progression of events. I began to wonder: Is Christ’s story plot-driven or character-driven? I finally decided the Gospels demonstrate an interesting hybrid. The Hero followed a complex plot line, but emerged with his inner natures unscathed. However, the men and women who interacted with Jesus experienced industrial-strength character arcs.

Will this work in a novel? I hope so. It’s the plotting scheme I’ve used in two new novels I’m planning.

At this point I have to issue a safety warning. Mostly to keep me safe. My next observation, which flows directly from the fiction-writing analogy, will annoy-off many Novel Journey readers.

Awhile back, our pastor sermonized on Ephesians Chapter One, Verse 5. That’s the teaching that God chose us for redemption before the foundation of the world. In my opinion, the unmistakable insight for novelists is we should know the destiny of every character before we write our first chapters. In other words, be an outliner rather than a seat of the pants novelist (what some call “instinctive writers”).

Think about it! Planning ahead is the way God manages his Creation. Perhaps it’s also the right way to create fictional worlds.

Enough controversy! Let’s retreat to the shelter of an obscure theological mystery, an aspect of the Biblical creation story that I call the enigma of Adam and Eve. I’ve always wondered why God didn’t zap the pair and start over with two humans smart enough to obey instructions? After all, His “investment” to that point was only a few hundred pounds of clay and dust, and two whiffs of His breath.

The fiction-writing analogy suggests an answer. Anyone who’s been to a meeting of a fiction critique group knows that novelists fight fiercely to not modify their creations. We wince at minor changes and we disdain major rewrites, even when key players go off the rails. We also strive to rehabilitate errant characters, because we do love them. We’re delighted when our prodigal creations begin to behave.

Coincidentally, I worked this out a few days before a guest pastor talked about freewill and humankind’s proclivity to disobey God. Naturally, I applied the analogy, because I (like most novelists) have run into heroes, helpmates, and villains who won’t cooperate, who seem determined to do their own things.

The reason, I think, is that we must give our lead characters a kind of freewill: Somehow, I have to keep Me the author out of the characters I invent, or else they will parrot my likes, my dislikes, my personality, my world view, my age, and my gender. I want female characters to act like women, kids to act like kids, and none of the men to echo me.

Because I simultaneously juggle dozens of plot and personality issues I have to assign each character to an individual part of my mind and let these “people partitions” (as I call them) run on “autopilot.” Like it or not, some characters will go astray. I think that’s how fictional freewill works. However, I’m open for other suggestions.

Recently, I used the fiction-writing analogy to examine a problem that is plaguing the novel-writing biz. The traditional route to publication has become so challenging, that some frustrated novelists are thinking about switching to something with greater odds of success. Say, responding to a Nigerian email scam.

Does the fiction-writing analogy have anything to say on the subject? Another big Yes, indeed. A recent sermon on covenant theology convinced me that those of us who create fictional worlds also make covenants with our characters. After all, they rely on us to uphold and sustain them.

Christianity affirms that the Creator of the Universe keeps his promises. However, Christianity also teaches that a creator can make a new covenant when it becomes necessary. And so, with apologies to Jeremiah:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Novelist, when I will make a new covenant with the characters I create, not like the covenant that I made to put them in local bookstores. For no longer do readers buy novels that way, but chiefly at Wal-Mart, Amazon, supermarkets, and airports.

And this is the new covenant that I will make after these days. I will write my characters’ lives on Kindles and iPads. I will embrace ebook publishing and Print on Demand. My characters will dwell securely at Winepress and Lightning Source. I will not bemoan the loss of the traditional publishing model, but espouse the new paradigm.

For no longer shall each reader find book reviews in newspapers, or browse bookshelves, and read blurbs on the back covers. But savvy readers shall say: “We know this Novelist for his website, for his blogs, for his Twitter Tweets, and for his other social networking.” I shall establish this new covenant so my characters will thrive and prosper. They will know that I am their Novelist, and they shall entrance my readers forever.

Hey! It could happen.

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Guest Blogger ~ Ron Benrey

Ron Benrey is a widely published writer who has coauthored nine Christian romantic suspense novels with his wife Janet. Ron wrote two novellas independently and has written ten non-fiction books. His latest book, Know Your Rights, is an easy to understand guide to everyday law, will be published in December. Ron taught writing courses at the University of Pittsburgh. He currently teaches at major writers’ conferences on topics ranging from plotting and publishability, to Fiction After 50®, the fine art of becoming a novelist later in life. Ron holds a degrees in electrical engineering, management, and law. He’s a member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Ron and Janet live in North Carolina.

NJ: Ron delivered this keynote to the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in May, 2010. He was gracious enough to allow Novel Journey to print it here.

Let Novel-Writing Teach You Christianity ... and Vice Versa

Much of what I know about Christianity I learned from writing novels. I agree that’s a weird approach to studying theology. But what has surprised me even more is Christianity returned the favor and gave me lots of great advice about writing fiction.

To understand how all of this came about, you need to know I was a stubborn non-believer for most of my life, someone who saw Christianity as foolishness (to use Paul’s word). I considered the Incarnation the most nonsensical teaching of all. I couldn’t begin to accept that a Jewish carpenter in a jerkwater Roman province was also God.

But one August afternoon in 1998, I had a weird idea. I could write myself into my own novel. Ron Benrey, the author, could create a literary self-portrait: Ron Benrey, the character. If I did that, Me in the novel would be fully Author and fully Character, at the same time. I realized that a fictional self-portrait is a nifty way to model the Incarnation.

All at once, my mind shifted gears. When I thought of Jesus as God’s self-portrait, the other Christian teachings I’d rejected stopped seeming foolish. In about 30 seconds, I rocketed from non-believer to believer.

I know that my ideas about literary self-portraits didn’t pop into my head by accident. They were precisely what I needed to grab hold of the Incarnation. However, the fiction-writing analogy upsets some believers. I’ve been told on several occasions that true creativity belongs to God alone, that only He creates stuff ex nihilo (out of nothing). Although we think of ourselves “creative,” novelists merely move around pieces of God-created stuff. Consequently (the naysayers claim) comparing human creativity to God’s is the very essence of wrong thinking.

I’ve found that most of the folks who reject my favorite analogy aren’t novelists. They’ve never put together a complex storyline, or tamed an unruly character, or squeezed a three-hundred page story into a one-page summary. Novelists may not be creators with a capitol C, but it sure feels like we create fiction out of nothing.

Happily, there are sound arguments in favor of the fiction-writing analogy. Exhibit One is a statement from Dorothy Leigh Sayers, the late British mystery novelist, the creator of Lord Peter Whimsy. Dorothy was also a highly respected self-taught theologian, much like her good friend C. S. Lewis.

She wrote, “It may be perilous, as it must be inadequate, to interpret God by analogy with ourselves, but we are compelled to do so; we have no other means of interpreting anything. Man measures everything by his own experience. He has no other yardstick.”

That’s why scripture is chock full of figures of speech: similes, metaphors, and analogies: God as a Father. The Kingdom of God as a mustard seed. God’s grace as the wages paid to workers in a vineyard. Jesus as the Lamb of God, and a king, and a vine.

Two of the most important figures of speech are God the Creator and God the Maker of the Universe. Dorothy notes they also have meanings that reflect our human experience. “If they didn’t, they’d mean nothing at all to us.” This is because, “The experience of the creative imagination is the only thing we have to go on when we formulate the concept of creation.”

More evidence for the defense comes C. S. Lewis. He wrote, “Shakespeare could in principle, make himself appear as author within his play Hamlet, and write a dialog between Hamlet and himself. The ‛Shakespeare’ within the play would of course be at once Shakespeare and one of Shakespeare’s creatures. It would bear some analogy to the Incarnation.”

I consider “some analogy” a perfect example of British understatement! However, I admit that Clive Lewis was right to be cautious. All analogies are limited. They break down if you push them too far. We’re not characters living inside God’s novel. Nonetheless, thinking of myself as a creator of fictional worlds has yielded a steady stream of mind-opening theological perspectives.

One of the earliest came during an unusually lively meeting of my fiction critique group. I don’t remember why, but the discussion turned to whether mystery fans are loony because they enjoy reading about murder and mayhem. Someone said: “Mystery novelists are even loonier, because we enjoy writing about murder.” Someone else said: “True! In fact, everyone likes fictional homicide except the unfortunate characters we create. Imagine how they’d complain, if they could.”

For example, a victim might say: “You invented me, then killed me off in my prime. Why do such a thing?” And then the murderer might counter: “You made me poison the victim ... and then you punished me for what I did. That’s not fair!”

While everyone else chuckled at the idea, and tried to invent snappy responses to their characters’ complaints, I thought about my fiction writing analogy. Back then, I was just beginning to study Scripture. I knew that a familiar Bible passage applied perfectly to the situation, but I couldn’t recall which one. Later that night, I tracked down Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

For the first time, ever, I truly “got” that creatures can never understand the mind of the Creator. But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to make sense of Christianity’s mysteries.

The Incarnation is the central miracle of our faith, but the Big Kahuna of Christian confusion is the Trinity. How can there be three divine “persons,” yet only One God? You’ve probably heard the maxim: “Try to deny the Trinity and you’ll lose your soul; try to understand the Trinity and you’ll lose your mind.” Some attribute that saying to Augustine of Hippo, although I think it was made up by some frustrated seminarian.

My original self-portrait analogy encompassed two out of the three persons. Is there a fiction-writing analog for the Holy Spirit? Yes indeed! Think of the “God-like” narrator in a third-person omniscient novel. The narrator guides the story, orchestrates the action, explains the heart and mind of every character. The narrator never appears, but is present behind the words.

If I wrote an omniscient novel with me as the protagonist, we’d all be there. Me the author/creator. Me the omniscient narrator. Me the rich, handsome, spectacularly lovable hero. (Clearly I’m writing a Romance.)

Of course, if the self-portrait model holds water, the Spirit analog should also be present in first-person fiction, and also in a third-person POV novel that doesn’t have an obvious narrator. He can be, if he precedes from Me the Novelist. I can send my Spirit analog to convict the lead characters, to comfort them, and to establish their all-important internal goals. And these days, I do send him.

My Spirit analog is at work in every story I write: poking, prodding, guiding, shaping the protagonist and the antagonist. And here’s another weird admission. I include my Spirit analog on my list of characters. I also give him specific tasks in my plot outline. Readers don’t know he’s present. Neither do the hero or the villain. But Spirit’s behind their consciences, their perceptions, their abrupt changes of heart.

This process of integrating the Spirit analog in my fiction writing went so smoothly, that months passed before I realized the self-portrait analogy had flipped roles. Christianity was giving me useful advice about writing fiction. I expanded my analogical experiments to see what else I could learn.

If you run the fiction-writing analogy backwards, a novelist seems to have modest powers of divinity, starting with transcendence. We’re outside “story time,” even if our novel spans a gazillion years. We can start writing at the end, or at the beginning. We can jump to any point in between. We’re also outside “story space.” We can switch locations instantly. The speed of thought is much faster than the speed of light. And once we get to the story time and story place of our choosing, we’re omnipotent down to our fingertips, with the power to make our will be done in our fictional worlds.

Whoa! I can hear you thinking: "Christian novelists ain’t so sovereign. We’re stuck with the “no-no” rules ordained by Christian publishers." In fact, nothing stops us from bursting the bounds of the Christian fiction genre when we write. However, remember that omnipotence doesn’t include the power to do things that don’t make sense, like squaring a circle, or committing a logical fallacy.

The term “Christian fiction” is a label for a specific genre. Like any other genre (say mystery, romance, or historical) there are rules that reflect reader expectations. An author who sits down to write a “Christian novel,” but ignores the requirements of the genre, produces a different kind of novel. Not wrong, mind you; but different. That’s true whether the author seeks a traditional publisher or plans to take an alternative route to publication.

Tomorrow, we'll bring you the second half of this post. You won't want to miss it!

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