Chapter One: Kick the Allegory Habit (Editorial note: this puts my last four posts on writing for preachers in one handy place.) I write stories for kids, but really, I write them for myself. There, I’m being honest. Here’s some more honesty. I write the stories largely by feel, and later I think about what I’m doing. I suppose that could mean that the way I tell stories is largely ingrained, maybe through habit, or perhaps through reading other people’s... Read more
“Have the courage to conclude.” (Don’t recall where I read that, but it’s good advice.) Then there’s– “Begin with the end in mind.” (More good advice, if you can think that far ahead.) These things are easier said than done. (There’s another truism for you.) But what makes for a good ending? How do you know it when you see it? Ah, that’s the trick. I’m midway through my middle grade series, two books down and two to go, and... Read more
G. K. Chesterton once spoke of nature as our “little sister” and C. S. Lewis in The Discarded Image said that the biggest problem with the medieval model of the cosmos (besides being factually inaccurate) was its neatness. Things can get uncomfortably tidy and small when all the meanings are clear. But that’s not our problem these days. A reversal has occurred: the ancients had a better sense of what things mean, they just didn’t know how they worked; we... Read more
The movie mogul Sam Goldwyn once said, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.” Reading between the lines here he seems to be complaining about people using movies to preach politics, or whatever. Just goes to show that you don’t need to be a preacher to be preachy. Last episode I preached on the evils of didacticism in fiction. But does that mean we should settle for entertaining our readers and leave their edification to the experts?... Read more
(Note: this is the first in a series of forays on the subject of preachers and the aesthetics of good story-telling. I think 4 posts should do it.) I write stories for kids, but really, I write them for myself. There, I’m being honest. Here’s some more honesty. I write the stories largely by feel, and later I think about what I’m doing. I suppose that could mean that the way I tell stories is largely ingrained, maybe through habit,... Read more
In my last post I spoke about taking one of my sons to college. Well, he has been delivered into the hands of the folks at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. I am confident that he’s going to shine there. Today I get to talk about his older brother, the Wheaton grad. Caleb is on the staff of College Church in Wheaton and one of the things he’s worked on recently is something called, ChurchFolk. He and two other... Read more
I suspect that I’ll cry. The last time I cried was when we dropped his older brother off for his freshman year of college. I think that’s a reliable indicator that the thing we typically call rationality is a laggard. I hadn’t thought about the implications of leaving a son at school for the first time, I just felt them. I should probably say I knew them a a deeper level. It wasn’t irrational to cry, it’s just that I... Read more
It is impossible to know how many regular readers there are for this blog. But if you’re one of them, you may be wondering where I have been. No need to fear, I haven’t abandoned you. I’m busy these days making the final edits to the second book in my middle-grade fantasy series, The Fey Brand. (If you’d like to learn more about the series, you can read this review of the first book that originally appeared in, Gilbert!) I... Read more
I have a book on the shelf that I really should to return to the library. Seeing it there produces a pang of guilt every time, not enough to actually go to the trouble of mailing it back (yes, it was that long ago and that far away), but at least I’m virtuous enough to feel bad about it.* It is entitled, The Frenzy of Renown. It was a text for a course I took with Ralph Potter back in... Read more
Seemingly incompatible doctrines can actually reinforce each other. I’m thinking of Darwinism and gnosticism here. Whatever makes me suppose so? Allow me to ruminate a little. Darwinism, of course, is the theory of origins formulated by Charles Darwin. Conventional wisdom has it that Darwin gave us the theory of evolution. But the notion that new species evolve from other species wasn’t all that new. Darwin’s novel contribution was natural selection, the supposal that some species succeed while others fail because... Read more
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