This essay illustrates and validates what I deeply love. In it Jonathan describes the value and necessity of story-telling in a concise, compelling way. I asked Jonathan if I could post this here (it originally appeared at his blog). –Sam

How Stories Do Their Work On Us

by Jonathan Rogers

Reading with my children has reminded me of a truth that years of adulthood had almost caused me to forget: that “story” is truer than “precept.” We adults tend to think that we arrive at the truth of a story by reducing it to two or three abstractions that the narrative embodies. The parable of the Prodigal Son is “about” grace and forgiveness.The Lord of the Rings is “about” courage and friendship. We listen with half an ear as the preacher reads the scripture lesson, because his sermon is going to boil it down to three basic truths anyway.

But our children know it’s the story that does the work on us, not the disembodied precept. If you don’t believe it, open up a book of Aesop’s Fables; skip the fables, and just read the morals at the end of the fables. You might just as well tell punch lines instead of telling jokes. The moral may summarize the story and bring it to a point, but the moral isn’t the point.

It’s not that abstract concepts or ideas are unimportant. Mercy, forgiveness, repentance, abundance—all the things that form the basis of Christian truth—are abstract concepts. But being mere mortals, we can’t really understand any of those things if they aren’t grounded in what we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. You can talk about grace until you’re blue in the face, but you aren’t going to come up with a definition that improves on the parable of the Prodigal Son: a father, arms outstretched, welcoming a rebellious and wicked son back into his home. And the word “friendship” doesn’t mean much unless you’ve seen a friend in action—Sam Gamgee, for instance, nearly drowning himself rather than let Frodo journey to Mordor alone.

The Habit of Understanding
The moral benefit of a story goes far beyond the “moral of the story.” Almost by definition, an avid reader is in the habit of understanding what it’s like to be somebody else. Whatever the moral of the story, reading sharpens the skills of empathy, which is not only a moral virtue, but a huge advantage in any pursuit. Habit Five of Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” boils it down: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Readers, you might say, are habitual understanders. A story allows a reader to join in the inner lives of its characters. Readers aren’t mere spectators or audience members. A well-written book allows them to experience what it’s like to be another person. And isn’t that the very basis of empathy and kindness? Isn’t it a key component of love?
Our natural tendency is to close in on ourselves, to be so concerned with our own interests, our own preoccupations that we find it hard to understand another person’s perspective. More than that, we find it very hard to understand our own selves.

Consider the case of David and Bathsheba. Because I tell stories for a living, one of my heroes is the prophet Nathan. He’s the one who had the unfortunate job of confronting David about his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah.

One has to be careful when exposing a king who has already demonstrated a willingness to murder in order to keep his guilt hidden. So Nathan made up a story. He told about a rich man with many flocks and herds and a poor man who had only one little lamb that he loved like a family member. When the rich man needed a lamb to feed a visitor, he took the poor man’s pet lamb rather than slaughter one of his own.

David was enraged. He vowed that the rich man would die for this injustice. That’s when Nathan brought the truth down like a thunderstroke: “You are the man.”

It was one of the great moments in the history of fiction. Cut to the heart, David repented of his sin. And Nathan the prophet lived to tell more stories.

Nathan’s story did what all great fiction does: it took David out of himself, and it gave him an emotional attachment to what it is good and right. Nathan didn’t tell the king anything he didn’t know already. David knew it was wrong to kill a man and take his wife. But he had built for himself a little world of self-justification and self-protection and self-indulgence that made it possible for him to ignore the moral facts of the matter. Nathan’s story took him out of that world and let him see what it looked like from the outside.

Loving the Right
As the prophet Nathan knew, it’s not enough to know what’s right. People have to desire what’s right before they’ll do it consistently. Stories have a unique ability to shape a person’s sympathies—to change what they desire.

I love the Narnia books. I think what I love most about them is the fact that they give us a chance to renew the way we feel about things we’ve known all our lives. If you’ve been paying attention in Sunday School, you already know all the theology in the Narnia books. They don’t give you new facts to chew on. They help align your feelings and desires with regard to the facts you already know.

Instead of giving you a lecture on the importance of staying warm, Lewis builds a fire and says, “Here—feel this. Doesn’t that feel good?” You can hardly help but love Aslan for the things he says and does. You can hardly help but desire what’s good and right and true.

A virtuous life is a life of adventure—of facing challenges, standing firm, rescuing the powerless, righting wrongs. A good adventure story dramatizes that adventure and makes it seem like the sort of life that nobody would want to miss out on. It doesn’t just tell the reader what’s right; it helps the reader towant what’s right.

Real life doesn’t always feel like a great adventure. Sometimes doing the right thing is rather dull. Great adventure stories remind us that in the end, the choices we make every day are the stuff of greatness. The world is changed by people who choose to tell the truth, to show kindness, to be courageous.

Our natural tendency is to burrow into our own little lives and so lose perspective on what really matters and what’s really true. Our good deeds start to seem irrelevant, and our bad deeds start to seem like they’re no big deal. We all need to step outside ourselves now and then—perhaps to try out another, better self, or perhaps, as David did, to see our own situation from another viewpoint.

Jonathan’s new book, The Charlatan’s Boy, releases today. Some of you are familiar with JR’s trilogy (Wilderking). If you have middle-graders who haven’t yet read them, may I recommend them to you? And now there’s more, The Charlatan’s Boy releases today! I sat down with JR in different states and he answered 5 questions for us. –Sam

1. Fact: The Wilderking Books are gold for children (and adults) on many fronts. Truth? Check. Goodness, Beauty? Check, check. Were you inspired to write the trilogy by any concern over a lack of worthwhile fiction for kids, or was your motivation simply to make billions of dollars?

I wouldn’t say any ‘concern’ about existing children’s fiction motivated me. I was quite ignorant of what was out there when I started writing the Wilderking books. I’m only a little less ignorant now. I will say I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much worthwhile fiction is out there–though there is plenty that isn’t worthwhile. Here’s the thing, S.D.:  I want people to like what I like. I think that’s a good enough reason to write stories. I have a particular vision of the universe, and I believe things would be better for all of us if more people shared that vision. I’m joking, but only half-joking. It takes a lot of work to write a book; in order to stay motivated to do that work, one needs an overblown sense that it’s important for people to hear what one has to say. The billions of dollars, that’s just a bonus.

2. What sets The Charlatan’s Boy apart from The Wilderking Trilogy?

Sadness. There’s a sadness in the Charlatan’s Boy that has no parallel in the Wilderking books. I’ve been dipping into Buechner’s book, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale. An amazing book, by the way. As Buechner argues, the grand comic vision of redemptive history is rooted in the reality of deep sadness and hurt  and danger from which we have to be redeemed. I think (I hope) the comic vision of The Charlatan’s Boy is more fully realized than that of The Wilderking–in part because the sadness, loneliness, and hurt are more fully realized.

3. What are two important things for aspiring writers to remember as they work on their craft?

First of all, let me thank you for the way you phrased this question. You didn’t say, “What are the two most important things…” You said “What are two important things…” Do you realize how much that takes the pressure off? I know lots of important things aspiring writers should remember. I don’t know which two are the most important. So here are two from the list:

a) Pursue your audience. Woo them. It’s not their job to stay interested in what you write. It’s your job to keep them interested. As a corollary, don’t try to impress your reader. That’s for sophomores. Try to love your reader.

b) Speak English. When there’s a word derived from the Latin or Greek and another word from the Anglo-Saxon and they mean the same thing, the tie goes to the Anglo-Saxon word. There are reasons to go with the Latinate word; just be sure you’ve got one, and it’s good a reason. Let your default be the Anglo-Saxon word. It’s true (I think) that something like 75-80% of the words in an English dictionary derive from Latin or Greek. But here’s an exercise for an aspiring writer. Pick a favorite passage from the King James Bible. Count the words in the passage, noting how many derive from Latin or Greek. Divide the Latinate/Greek words by the total number of words to get a percentage. It won’t be 75-80%. It won’t even be close. It may be as high as 25%. It will probably be considerably lower. That’s something for aspiring writers to put in their pipes and smoke.

4. What is your life for?

I don’t see how I could improve on the Westminster Confession: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” I do like John Piper’s suggestion that we glorify God by enjoying him forever. The ability to enjoy the good things that remain, by God’s grace, in this shipwreck of a world is a vitally important thing, I believe.

5. Tell us what makes your books, which are speculative in nature, so American. Why not just do another England-inspired fantasy?

I love British literature as much as anybody. I’ve got a PhD in British lit, for crying out loud. But when it came down to producing rather than consuming literature, it seemed important to me that I speak in my native tongue. There is a vitality, a vigor in American storytelling traditions. I’m an American [cue Lee Greenwood], an inheritor of that verbal and narrative legacy. It makes sense that I should make use of it.

Thanks, JR. As an American, who’s proud to be, I especially liked the part about Lee Greenwood.

Jonathan is also the author of a great little book on Saint Patrick called Saint Patrick. He lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife Lou Alice and their six children. Lou Alice is a peach.

Note: This was posted at The Rabbit Room recently. So, you may have seen it there. Do not read it twice. It’s like seeing yourself in time-travel. –sam

Last night I wrote a fable. It’s fabulous. And by that I mean it’s a fable.

With me?

Words really mean things. I want to be some one whose appreciation of this fact fuels more intentional investigation on word origins.

I only have one book on my shelf that I can think of right now about word origins in English. That book is pretty amazing (now I’m thinking of what amazing history the word “amazing” might have), but I ought to have more. I almost have aught.

I remember hearing Ken Myers talking to some fellow about how he was grading a student paper where it was said that a boat had “arrived half-way across the ocean.” The fellow was objecting to this use because the word “arrive” has in it the notion of coming ashore. So one cannot arrive half-way. It means to get there. Specifically to “come to shore.”

So, at Hutchmoot (the Rabbit Room conference) this idea of the power and origin in the original power of words arrived on the sandy beach of my mind. Courtesy of Walter Wangerin, Jr.

Walt (I call him Walt, because I was close enough to yank his pony tail –but I didn’t, amazingly) was amazing. <—– I haven’t looked that up yet.

I felt a thousand things as he spoke, which I feel incapable of putting into adequate words. I feel like a clever monkey trying to explain to Beethoven (who is deaf and dead) the joys of flinging poo. I felt validated, inspired, full, hopeful, peaceful, joyful and the list goes on and on like a long, long list.

But here is one thing. Walt knows words.

He inhabits language like the oldest local. He speaks as one with authority, as if in his naming the thing may finally –again– be itself. It was not that words were used by him, or that he was commanding with them. I can aspire to that. It was more.

He cooperated with words. Co-operated. He and the words were on the same side. He has arrived on their side after a long, literate life’s journey.

His relation of the history of schap (forever on the chalkboard of my mind) was a significant life event for me. Because, in so many words, he told me who I am.

I am a schap. A shaper. This is how he talked about storytellers.

And words are the tools of my trade. I will use them, care for them, add more to my bag and hope that one day I will do more than use them. I will inhabit them. Know them like an intimate friend. Partner with them. Conjure up with them a vision for those without eyes to see. And tell stories.

Like Walt.

Or, it’s more about connection than it is about self-expression. And, of course, it depends on what we’re after. If we want people (who are not our mothers) to read us, then we need connection way more than self-expression.

I’ve never read Yancey, but I like this video (below). Especially at about the 23:20 point where he expresses how difficult writing is. As Pete Peterson said on the Story panel at Hutchmoot: “Many people say, ‘I write because I can’t not write.’ I don’t get that. I can easily not write. That’s the easiest thing in the world to not do.”

Well, he said something like that and he took the words right out of my mouth, so I’m putting them back in just as I like.

It’s easy not to write. It’s painful. On the self-same panel, Jonathan Rogers explained that when it’s easy it’s not usually worthwhile.

“I’ve written books that didn’t hurt, and to tell you the truth, they’re not all that good.” Jonathan Rogers

Well, this might have been easy to write.

OK kids, back to Yancey.

At one point he advises writers, “Don’t do it alone,” and goes on to say that there are many creative people, but:

“…they’re all into self-expression…but you don’t make a living in self expression, you make a living by connecting with people who want to pay money…to say ‘this is worth my time.’”

Good point, Phillip Yancey. Good point.

Also, you have an amazing ‘fro.

I have shared this vidya content before, but thought it might be good to do again. I thought those thoughts with the thoughts in my mind.

Writers are a pretty pathetic bunch. Especially, perhaps, those of us who want to have a book published, but haven’t yet. We have these odd tensions that are unresolved, like so many guitar strings tuned to the point of snapping. I don’t know if this ever changes, but one thing we writers do is try to convince ourselves that it’s everyone’s fault but our own when we fail. The excuses erupt.

It’s the state of publishing, the “ecomony,” lazy agents, the stupidity of book-buyers (Twilight, Left Behind, choose your hated success story), etc. –whatever makes us feel like it’s not us. It couldn’t possibly be that I stink.

Sit near struggling writers and you will smell the distinct odor of burned martyr. The unvalidated genius at the stake. “It was too good for them!” he cries against the flames.

Of course, sometimes it’s true. I think I know of some cases, myself. (I mean, people really do buy teen-angst, vampire books like crazy.)

I don’t have much to say about this pathetic streak in us, just wanted to let you know that it’s normal if you know some one struggling with P.W.S. (Pathetic Writer Syndrome). So, hug your writer friends and tell them, “There, there…poor baby,” in a gentle way.

As for us, the writers? At best it’s an annoying thing we need to get over. At worst it reveals an idol in our lives that we need to let go of/destroy. Because rejection by a publisher (or agent) is not our personal hell and publication/success is not our personal savior. If we are thinking of this situation in a religious, all-consuming way…maybe it’s a worship issue. We are made to be worshipers. Ourselves, ensconced on a throne built of literary success, makes for a lousy idol.

Here’s a cartoon from Rachel Gardner’s blog. It’s a self-deluded writer’s perspective on things.

Though some of this “Bewail the state of things!” is grounded in truth (and seems to be, perhaps, increasingly true), I still think that if our work is good enough it can and will be published (perhaps by a small press –that option is increasingly attractive in many ways). But things do have to line up for us and we have to work really hard. And that’s not even factoring in the sovereign hand of the God who does things for his own glory and our good, including sometimes allowing (or even causing) us to fail.

Like most things in life, this isn’t easy. Whoever said it was easy is lying, or selling something.

At least that’s what it looks like from here. But what do I know? I’m not a success story.

Yet. But it’s legitimately not my fault. It’s, um….it’s…

“Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.”

Madeleine L’Engle

HT: Jeffrey Overstreet, amazing novelist

This is basically my “life verse” right now as a writer. -sam

“The most valid form of censorship is that practiced by writers upon themselves. Scrupulously revising or destroying all writing that fails to let readers vanish into the life of their language is every author’s duty. What we are morally obligated to censor from our work…is our own incompetence.…”

David James Duncan

HT: Abraham Piper

“In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. if we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there’s no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own, or God’s glory with our own.

“It is interesting to note how many artists have had physical problems to overcome, deformities, lameness, terrible loneliness. Could Beethoven have written that glorious paean of praise in the Ninth Symphony if he had not to endure the dark closing in of deafness? As I look through his work chronologically, there’s no denying that it deepens and strengthens along with the deafness.

“Could Milton have seen all that he sees in Paradise Lost if he had not been blind? It is chastening to realize that those who have no physical flaw, who move through life in step with their peers, who are bright and beautiful, seldom become artists. The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.

“My mother’s long life had more than its fair share of pain and tragedy. One time, after something difficult had happened, one of her childhood friends came to give comfort and help. Instead of which, she burst into tears and sobbed out, ‘I envy you! I envy you! You’ve had a terrible life, but you’ve lived!’

“I look back at my mother’s life and I see suffering deepening and strengthening it. In some people I have also seen it destroy. Pain is not always creative; received wrongly, it can lead to alcoholism and madness and suicide. Nevertheless, without it we do not grow.”

Madeleine L’Engle

HT: Ron Block

“Don’t do anything else until you’ve written five hundred words.”

Daniel Pink

Seven more Rules for Writing from Mr. Pink (if that’s his real name) here.

HT: Andrew “Red” Mackay

Some helpful tips on writing from Doug Wilson. To read the (very brief) details go here.

1. Know something about the world, and by this I mean the world outside of books.

2. Read. Read constantly. Read the kind of stuff you wish you could write.

3. Read mechanical helps. By this I mean dictionaries, etymological histories, books of anecdotes, dictionaries of foreign phrases, books of quotations, books on how to write dialog, and so on.

4. Stretch before your routines. If you want to write short stories, try to write Italian sonnets. If you want to write a novel, write a few essays.

5. Be at peace with being lousy for a while. Chesterton once said that anything worth doing was worth doing badly. He was right. Only an insufferable egoist expects to be brilliant first time out. (Emphasis mine -sds.)

6. Learn other languages, preferably languages that are upstream from ours. This would include Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon.

7. Keep a commonplace book. Write down any notable phrases that occur to you, or that you have come across.

I just grabbed the beginning of each. The whole thing (which, as I said, is brief)  is useful.

My advice to add: Turn off the internet.