Both as an editor and as a writer, I have to deal with the issue of theology in fiction. Even if a writer is not deliberately writing to espouse a particular theology, his or her own views do tend to percolate through. How much does it matter? What if the writer wants to speculate a little, especially about areas where theological thought is vague or divided, such as the afterlife or the world of spiritual beings? Must fiction be held to the same firm standard as nonfiction lest the weak be led astray?

Please note I’m not primarily talking here about the kind of fantasy that invents whole other worlds. I think people who enjoy fantasy understand that an invented world, even if it doesn’t play by exactly the same rules as the real one, can still communicate fundamental truths.

I’ve created a poll about our attitudes as readers. Please feel free to comment at greater length as well, since this is hardly a cut-and-dried issue. I’m really curious to hear what you think.

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I’ll be knitting
I’ll be knitting
I’ll be sitting and knitting all night
And I’m fretting
That my measurements won’t turn out right

It’s two colors
It’s two colors
My first sock and first colorwork too
And I’m thinking
That I’ve bitten more than I can chew.

(bridge)
Who is this dumb sock for anyhow?
It would fit a giant, you see
No time to rip out, got to get it done, got to get it under the tree!

I’m short-rowing
I’m short-rowing
I’m short-rowing and going insane
All this wrapping
And I’m dropping stitches like the rain.

Now it’s growing
Now it’s growing
And the pattern is really quite fine
And I’m wishing
That this sock was going to be mine.

(bridge)
Who is this dumb sock for anyhow?
It would fit a giant, you see
No time to rip out, got to get it done, got to get it under the tree!

Now I’m ribbing
Now I’m ribbing
And it’s giving me some hope at last
That this sock will one day be a thing of the past!

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of misuse of may and might—in the opposite direction from the misuse I’ve been accustomed to. It’s common to see might used where may is correct, but now I’m seeing an overcorrection in the use of may where might is correct. (For similar overcorrections, see previous posts, “Whom shall I say is calling?” and “I Object to Objective ‘I.’”)

Here’s the deal: might is (big-grammar-word alert) the subjunctive. In other words, it’s used to denote an improbable, impossible, or hypothetical condition. For example, in the past tense:

She might have been a world-famous writer by now if she’d started younger.

May, on the other hand, denotes an unknown but possible or probable condition. For example:

She may have exhausted all her best ideas.

In the present or future tense, the distinction is a little less clear; it’s more of a continuum than an either/or. Use may if the situation is more probable and might if it’s less probable.

Present tense examples:

He may be at home writing.

He might be at the local bookstore signing 3000 copies of his latest book.

Future tense examples:

Her book may get published if she works hard at it.

Her book might earn her a million dollars.

Get the general idea?

Just to be clear, we’re not talking here about the homonym, may denoting permission. That’s a whole other blog post (which I may write someday).

In other words, I loved it.

I can’t say I altogether agree with its premise.

Agnes Sparrow is a whale of a woman, too fat to leave her house. She also has a very dark secret buried deep in her past. But she seems to have a mission for prayer. Lots of her prayers have been answered miraculously for all kinds of people in her little town of Bright’s Pond. Now the town wants to honor her by adding her name to their Welcome sign.

All the things that happen as a result of this decision got through my suspension-of-disbelief filter just fine. It’s the basic idea that God might use a woman with zero self-control and a huge unconfessed sin on her conscience to work miracles that makes me squirm a little.

You see, I come from a tradition that values holiness. We Orthodox Christians expect miracles to come through people who have grown unusually close to God through lives of voluntary asceticism or involuntary suffering bravely borne, through the zealous pursuit of righteousness in word, deed, and thought. People in whom the presence of the Holy Spirit often literally glows.

Not people who bury the physical evidence of their crimes in the basement and pop M&M’s all day to bury their feelings of guilt.

On the other hand, I’d be the first to admit that God is not limited by anything, not even His own habitual patterns, and it’s not impossible that He might choose to work through such a sinner as Agnes Sparrow. Stranger things have happened.

And if you can get past that, this is really a delightful book. The townspeople of Bright’s Pond are vividly and affectionately drawn at the same time they’re mildly satirized. The idioms of mountain-village Pennsylvania enliven the writing. And we can’t help but root for the narrator, Agnes’s long-suffering sister Griselda, as she attempts to find a way between caring for her sister and making a life for herself.

The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow is the first of a series of books about Bright’s Pond, and I look forward to reading more.

It’s The Opposite of Art by Athol Dickson, published last month by Howard Books. This book is both a literary triumph and a deeply moving statement of faith. It’s classified as magical realism, a genre dear to my heart because it acknowledges the deep mystery inherent in our lives as human beings in a fallen world.

The main character of The Opposite of Art is Sheridan Ridler, the greatest painter of his age. He is also, to begin with, a total jerk. Promiscuous, substance-abusing, utterly self-centered, he paints almost exclusively nude women but never paints their faces, because the paintings are not about them—they’re about him. When he gets knocked into a river early in the book, you can’t help but think he deserves it.

But then the miracle happens. He survives. Or, more precisely, he comes back to life after being drowned. And in the river he has had a vision—a vision of God, or in his terms, the Glory. Possessed by this vision, which fades almost immediately, Ridler disappears from his former life, leaving everyone to suppose him dead. He begins to travel the world in search of a way to recapture his vision so he can paint it adequately. Meanwhile, he can paint nothing else.

I can’t give you any more of the plot without spoiling too much. But I promise you will be riveted through all 384 pages, and you will find the ending as deeply satisfying as anything you’ve ever read.

And on top of all this, Dickson writes beautifully. If I’d bought this novel in print instead of ebook form (which I wish I had so I could lend it to all my friends), it could stand unabashedly on the shelf next to my other favorite volume of magical realism, Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin. If you’ve ever read Helprin, you know that’s quite a compliment.

Dickson’s characters are unique and compelling, from the initially unsympathetic hero to the extraordinary villain to the smallest bit player. His settings, which span the globe, are realized down to the smallest sensory detail. If you can’t afford to travel around the world, just read this book.

The Opposite of Art is about art, and it is art. It is proof positive that the highest quality in fiction can bear witness to Christ, even in our decadent age. This book stands as a challenge to all Christian writers to follow Sheridan Ridler’s ultimate example: to empty themselves, be filled with Christ, and create art that will live for generations.

On Thursday, Barbara Hardenbrook died. You may never have heard of Barbara, but in her own quiet way—as a teacher, a pastor’s wife, a mother, grandmother, and friend—she touched the lives of hundreds of people spanning several generations. She was an extraordinary teacher, one of those rare few who can understand and bring out the best in children from challenged to gifted. She was unfailingly cheerful, kind, generous, and wise, with her own brand of humor. It made you feel better just to look at her. Her effortless efficiency made her visionary husband’s ministry possible. She raised a son who would follow in his father’s footsteps and a daughter who would follow in her own as a pastor’s wife. In a very different way from Steve Jobs, but probably with greater eternal significance, she did work she loved, lived fully from her heart, and left an amazing legacy.

I had the privilege of knowing Barbara for almost twenty years. I never met Steve (although we briefly coexisted on the Reed College campus) but I have been an enthusiastic Apple user for about the same amount of time. The passing of the two of them has made me think.

In his 2005 commencement address at Stanford, Steve said he looked in the mirror every day and asked himself, “If I knew I were going to die tomorrow, would I spend this day the same way?” If he couldn’t say yes to that question over a period of time, he knew something had to change. I know Barbara also kept the remembrance of death in the forefront of her mind and lived as if each day were her last.

I’m sorry to say I don’t live that way. I spend most days doing things I “have” to do rather than things I love or things that will leave a lasting legacy. If I were to die tomorrow, I would die with many regrets—among them, that I didn’t spend more time with people like Barbara when I had the chance. That I didn’t start writing seriously when I was young, so that I might have had a chance of writing full-time today. That I’ve been held back from all kinds of adventures by fear. That I am not making any discernible progress in growing into the image of Christ.

My prayer this night is that these losses will lead me to live more intentionally, more fully, more joyfully, more lovingly. To live in a way that will prepare me for death. A way that will create a legacy worth leaving.

Memory eternal, Barbara and Steve.

A lamp is missing from your home. You must account for its disappearance. Make up a story. Take your time, I’ll wait.

Ready? Now, which of the following does your story most closely resemble? (Any minors reading this, please skip items 15 & 16.)

1. The lamp went on a trip in search of its brother lamp from the furniture store, which it hadn’t seen since they were both sold. The lamp found its brother at a yard sale in a neighboring state and is bringing it home soon.
2. You were practicing to see how far you could throw the cat. The lamp stuck its shade out to trip the cat. The cat was not amused.
3. You (if you’re a teen) or your teenager threw a wild party. The drunken guests had a contest to see who could walk the farthest balancing the lamp on his head. The lamp lasted 0.3 seconds. You trashed the remains.
4. Aliens landed in your backyard and abducted the lamp, believing it to be a representative of the planet’s dominant species.
5. Zombies stole the lamp so you wouldn’t see them when they come in the middle of the night to eat your brains.
6. You rubbed a smudge off the lamp and a djinn appeared. He informed you that you were the long-lost descendant of Aladdin. You’ll be leaving now to redeem your three wishes.
7. A small but brave band of hobbits fought a huge army of orcs in your living room for possession of the lamp, which contains the good power of the last of the wizards. The hobbits won and are taking the lamp back to the wizard.
8. The Darkness Squad confiscated the lamp. It is illegal, counterrevolutionary, and unmutual to have more light than your neighbors.
9. The lamp came to life and stalked you, finally cornering you in a closet. It multiplied into a hundred lamps, which shone so brightly in your eyes that your brain began to fry. Your muscular neighbor arrived in the nick of time with a baseball bat and smashed them all. But wait—was that a light in the corner? Oh no—a new lamp is growing from each fragment! AAAGH!
10. Your worst enemy took the lamp in order to booby-trap it so you’ll be electrocuted next time you turn it on.
11. International villains broke in to retrieve the lamp, in which they had hidden the detonator for a nuclear bomb big enough to destroy the universe. They caught you just as you were about to turn on the lamp, thus detonating the bomb.
12. You discovered the lamp was bugged when the FBI came to arrest you for subversive activity (you made a disparaging remark about Obombacare). They took the lamp as evidence.
13. The sheriff trapped an outlaw behind your house. Firing at the sheriff through two open windows, the outlaw hit the lamp instead. The sheriff took the lamp as evidence.
14. Your secret admirer took the lamp as a keepsake of the time he came over, ostensibly to borrow a cup of sugar but really just to look at you, and you turned on the lamp to find the sugar.
15. You and your lover knocked the lamp over in a bout of particularly steamy sex, which then got even hotter. Positively electric.
16. Your husband and his lover knocked the lamp over in a bout of steamy sex, which you walked in on. The lamp was his entire divorce settlement.
17. You turned on the lamp and found yourself in the court of Henry VIII, who insisted you become his next wife. Since there were no outlets there to plug the lamp into, you could not return. After three and a half days of marriage, King Henry had you beheaded as a witch. Your ghost returned to tell the story.
18. The lamp shone with such a beautiful bright light that first the next-door neighbors, then the people down the block, then people from all over the city were drawn to it. The crowds got too big, so the lamp left to fulfill its destiny of enlightening the world.
19. The lamp awoke to find it had turned into a firefly. The kids caught it and put it in a jar, where it died.
20. Once the lamp was. Now the lamp is not. Its puny light extinguished forever. And you ask why? Out, out brief candle!
21. You cannot lie, you did it with your little hatchet.

Have you picked your answer? Just one, mind—we’re all required by Official Book Market Law to specialize. Okay, here’s the answer key:

1. Picture book
2. Middle grade
3. Edgy contemporary young adult
4. Science fiction
5. Paranormal
6. Urban fantasy
7. High fantasy
8. Dystopian
9. Horror
10. Murder mystery
11. Thriller/suspense
12. Spy thriller
13. Western
14. Romance
15. Erotica
16. Women’s fiction
17. Time travel/historical/paranormal—make up your mind!
18. Inspirational
19. Surrealist
20. Existentialist
21. Memoir, possibly faked

Go forth and write your genre!

P.S. If your story was nothing like any of these but involved deep characterization, beautiful language, and a compelling theme, I’m afraid I have bad news for you. You’re literary.

But here’s the other side of the coin: For a story to be believable and engaging, the reader has to enter deeply into the character’s emotions. That means when a character—especially the protagonist—is tempted to sin, and even more so when he or she succumbs to sin, the temptation has to be shown as, well, tempting. If it isn’t, the reader will lose identification, thinking the character is weak or stupid or just plain bad. Whereas if the temptation is rendered convincingly, the reader may think consciously, “This character is acting wrongly and better get his/her act together quick,” but deep down inside the reader will know that he or she, given the same situation, just might act the same way.

So here’s the syllogism:

A) Good fiction must depict sin in order to depict redemption.

B) Good writing requires that readers feel what the character is feeling.

Therefore

C) Good fiction writing requires that we lead our readers into temptation.

Of course, if we really are writing about redemption, we also lead them out again. And if we honestly believe in what we’re saying, the redemption will end up being more attractive, more compelling, than the sin.

But does that end justify the means? Is it responsible to stir up lust, anger, greed, envy, in order to show them ultimately quelled?

Or is there something wrong with my syllogism?

What do you think?

I hope I’m not like that. But it has been brought home to me lately that I am extraordinarily picky.

I don’t mean picky in general. I’m not fastidious about food, or careful about cleanliness, or whiny about wine. I’m fairly accepting when it comes to people. What I’m picky about is words, and specifically, good writing.

A blog I follow (and have contributed to) is currently doing a series called “Would You Read On?” featuring the first page of a novel and asking readers to comment as to whether they would read any further. One recent page was from a published novel. All the commenters before me were enthusiastic, but the page left me cold. It wasn’t a matter of not liking the genre or the subject matter; what I didn’t like was the writing. It struck me as overdone, sensationalized, immature. (Later commenters noticed this as well.)

Books that get nominated for awards I find flat and uninspiring. I regard as puppet-like characters that reviewers describe as “realistic” and “well developed.” Novels that others call “life-changing” are, to me, only just good enough not to put down in ennui. Manuscripts I reject as poorly written are published elsewhere and well received.

So is it me? Am I so jaded and world-weary that nothing can please me? Have I set standards so unrealistically high that no writer can meet them?

I don’t think so. There are many writers whose works I greatly admire—and not all of them are dead. Some recent bestsellers and award-winners stand proudly on my shelf of all-time favorites. Harry Potter, for instance. Peace Like a River. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Gilead. Anyone who’s followed the reviews on this blog knows I can sometimes wax positively ecstatic over a book. When I love something, I can even be more or less blind to its flaws.

But there’s an interesting trend here. The books I embrace, rave about, read over and over, are mostly published in the general marketplace. The books that make me scratch my head and wonder what all the fuss is about are mostly published in the CBA.

And that makes me wonder: Do Christians, as a body (not maligning individuals here), have poor taste? Have they read so little in the classics and the truly-greats that they don’t recognize good writing when it leaps off the page and shakes them by the throat? Or are they just such nice people that they (a) value niceness over real merit in fiction and/or (b) don’t want to offend any other writer by being critical of their work?

I have a little sympathy with (b). I’ve forborne to review certain books on this blog because I liked and respected the author but couldn’t be enthusiastic about the book. But not reviewing something is different from reviewing it in more glowing terms than it deserves. The latter may preserve a friendship with the author (although it shouldn’t be necessary for that purpose), but it does a disservice to the reader looking for a really good read.

I’d like to challenge everyone to be a little pickier in what they read. Pick up a classic now and then and  study the writing. Think about what has made that book last through the decades. (I’m talking here about the kind of classics people still actually read outside the college classroom. Think Austen and Dickens rather than James Joyce.) Then take a second look at the books you raved about yesterday. Do they really deserve that praise? Or should you be setting your sights a little higher?

Then come back and tell me what you think. Am I Mrs. Persnickety, or just a defender of quality in the written word?

1. Apologies for not posting for so long. I went on writing retreat, then I spent a couple of weeks preparing for a presentation on Learning from the Masters (I’ll share some things from that here soon), then I had house guests for three weeks, then I had to get back into some sort of routine. Hence, the dreaded Silent Blog. School starts next week and I vow to do better.
2. New Theme! New Theme! Do you like my new theme? It’s actually an “update” of the previous one. I miss some of the flourishes of the old one, but I like this one because the text is a little smaller, the column is a little wider, and hence my overlong posts don’t look as overlong. And I think it looks rather elegant. Perhaps I’ll test its techno aspect by trying another poll. The previous ones didn’t work very well, but hope springs eternal. Here goes:

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