The Future of Writing

“The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.”*

That is no less true in the world of writing and publishing than in politics or business. What will be the hot topics of the next year or decade? Few predicted two years ago that we’d see a huge resurgence of such backlist books as  Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, Albert Camus’s The Plague, and A Journal of the Plague Year (1722!) by Daniel Defoe.

Should we try to be current or should we aim to be evergreen? When trying to figure out what to write next, it can be a difficult question. In general, I think we should avoid the current or trendy unless that new fad happens to hit our sweet spot—something we already have some experience with, interest in, or knowledge of.

A corollary is that we probably shouldn’t worry whether our interests are in favor or not with the reading public. We should write about what interests us. You can’t fake enthusiasm. Your passion will capture readers.

Roger Burlingame wrote in 1946: “A few years ago there were resurrections of the Brontës, Anthony Trollope and Jane Austen, whose novels of manners presumably belong to an area on which the door had definitely shut… So it is never safe to say that a book or a genre is dead or fatally dated.”** And the Jane Austen revival seems to have had remarkable staying power even to this day.

If something out of date or passé interests you, don’t worry about it. Write what you care about. Write with excellence. And see what happens.

—
*This phrase or variations of it have been identified as a Chinese or Danish proverb, and also attributed to Mark Twain, Samuel Goldwyn, Nostradamus, and others. But it likely originated with physicist Niels Bohr. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/

**Roger Burlingame, Of Making Many Books, (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University PRess, 1946, 1996), p. 328.

Originality Is Overrated

I long to be creative and fresh, offering new ideas and new ways of saying things that are arresting and stimulating. When I see a painting that is startling in the new perspective it offers, when I watch a movie that exudes inventiveness, when I read a book that is original and captivating—I am invigorated, and yearn to do the same.

Yet if I go just a bit deeper into these creative efforts, I invariably find that they begin with something decidedly unoriginal. They begin with “something borrowed.” Shrek is one of my favorite films. It offers a fun, revisionist twist on many fairy tales . . . but there it is! The movie borrows fairy tales and gives them a new take (ogre as hero).

Whole genres even borrow from prior genres. Don’t many sci fi books and movies owe a great debt of gratitude to the old Western? What is different is combining two genres into one.

The past (Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Cervantes, Austen, Achebe) offers inspiration for the future. So we should immerse ourselves in the past, mine the past, and consider how the past might serve us by giving it a twist or by mingling pieces which have not been connected before.

But there is another advantage. The past can give our writing a heft, a substance, a weight that we can’t generate on our own. If I can effectively employ Tolstoy’s motifs, themes, images, or language, my work automatically begins to rise.

Don’t worry about stealing. Everyone does it. All the greats themselves borrowed from others. Michaelangelo borrowed from the Romans. Milton borrowed from Dante. George Lucas borrowed from Kurosawa. Kurosawa borrowed from John Ford.*

It’s impossible not to borrow. Yet we don’t want shallow imitatations; rather our aim is to build anew on the old.

—
*See Andrew T. Le Peau, Mark Through Old Testament Eyes (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2017), pp. 13-16.

Screenshot: Lucasfilm, The Mandalorean

Dante and Darth Vader

With the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante this month, I read his Inferno for the first time. Much was as expected, yet I was surprised as well.

I knew that in the book Dante is taken on a tour of hell with the ancient Roman poet Virgil as his guide. The best-known line, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” greeted me as it greeted Dante on entering the underworld. There he found descending circles of the damned for such sins as lust, greed, violence, fraud, and betrayal.

Dante was not only a poet but a political figure in Florence around the year 1300. So he achieves a certain measure of revenge while in exile by writing his epic and describing the gruesome punishments of his enemies. He and Virgil also meet other political, financial, and religious notables from that era of Italian history.

What surprised me was that they also encounter not only those from ancient Greek history but also from Greek mythology. At first this seemed to be an odd syncretism, a strange mixture of two religions. On reflection, however, I think this was Dante’s attempt to integrate everything into his Christian world view. For him, even pagan myths must submit to the Christian story.

It would be like integrating the Star Wars universe or the world of Harry Potter into a biblical cosmology, where Darth Vader and Dumbledore both find themselves under the sway of a powerful Creator God who nonetheless uses sacrifice to resolve all storylines, reconcile all things, renew hope, and make everything right.

Christian theology, as it should, often sees history in God’s hands, how he oversees and guides events for his purposes. We also need to read, see, and hear artists tell stories that show how all the tales of human imagination reflect and bow to the Great Story.

That is a journey for which Dante acts as our guide.

—

Dante image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay; Darth Vader image by Voltordu from Pixabay

Mr. Ryan’s Class

Propped up on a desk in the front row of the room, thirty-something Mr. James Ryan sat silently surveying my high school English class. I was a junior on the first day of school. The first minute of class. We quieted down waiting to see what he would say. Would he introduce himself? Tell us about class requirements? Have us open a book?

“Are there any questions?” he began.

We were even more silent now. Questions about what? What was he talking about? We were confused. At least I was.

After waiting a moment and hearing nothing, he said, “Ok, then,” and with a wry smile that impishly suggested we had had our chance and wasted it, he began.

Many people have had a teacher or coach who had a major impact. Someone who believed in us when we didn’t believe in or even know ourselves, someone who made a subject captivating that we previously thought was dull as a spoon. Mr. Ryan would become that teacher for me.

Over fifty years later I still remember things he taught us, ideas and practices that have continued to affect my life as a writer and editor.

Consider vocabulary. He exposed us to a wide range of words each with a nuance of meaning that made literature and writing richer and deeper. Memorizing word lists sometimes seemed tedious. But he showed how word selection matters. It can make a huge difference in the power of a paragraph.

Overwhelm is such a great word, he told us. It is a combination of “over” (as in turn over) and “helm” (as in the tiller of a boat). To be over-helmed, then is to be capsized, to be in danger of drowning. Think about how you might use that word, he urged. Not to talk about a delicious new ice cream flavor or when we missed the latest episode of Batman. Instead, we should use it when our world or our perspective on something important has been turned upside down, when we are at least momentarily out of control.

Tone was another key topic he introduced us to—how a piece of writing works on you at a deep level. More than just the ideas or information, the tone can make a piece powerful, memorable, significant. For fifty years I have tried (not always succeeding) to develop tone in my writing and help authors do the same.

That’s where the chapter on tone came from in Write Better. That’s where I learned of the magic and weight of words. That’s where my lifelong journey into creativity, ideas, and story took hold of me. From Mr. James Ryan.

Who was an influential teacher, coach, or relative in your life?

—

Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

Comparisonitis

All of us have our insecurities. Perhaps those of us who are writers are above average in this regard.

We hesitate to write. We then hesitate to show anyone what we have written. Then we are reluctant to submit it for publication. Then we doubt anyone will like it if published. Finally, we are distressed that our publisher seems to have promoted another author’s book more—and more successfully—than ours!

That way madness lies.

Over a hundred and twenty years ago, Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, also suffered from this common malady. In 1899 she wrote to her publisher,

I do not think I have been fairly treated as regards the advertising of “The Great Inclination.” The book has now been out six weeks, & I do not think I exaggerate in saying that it has met with an unusually favourable reception for a first volume by a writer virtually unknown. . . . I have naturally watched with interest the advertising of the book, & have compared it with the notices given by other prominent publishers of books appearing under the same conditions. [Others] advertise almost continuously. . . . If a book is unnoticed, or unfavourably received, it is natural that the publisher should not take much trouble about advertising it; but to pursue the same course towards a volume that has been generally commended, seems to me essentially unjust. (117-18)

This letter, excerpted in Roger Burlingame’s Of Making Many Books, is but one of many such examples the author found in Scribner’s correspondence files. He discovered several cases in which Author A would write complaining that he got less advertising that author B. Yet Author B made the same complaint regarding Author A!

Comparisonitis has plagued humanity not just for a century but for millennia. None of us is immune. Sadly we have no magic cure.

One discipline may ameliorate the condition, however. I mention it in Write Better. Gratitude. Remembering to give thanks for all we have been given can redirect our focus from what others have that we do not. We can tamp down our lesser angels by regularly, daily, asking what good things are in my life or what was a highlight of the day.

Certainly we are better off giving energy to our writing than to our insecurities.

—

Image by MorningbirdPhoto from Pixabay

Volleyblog

When my granddaughter decided to try out for the school volleyball team, she asked her uncle (who has been a volleyball coach) for some tips. He not only gave her some pointers on skills but also on how to approach tryouts.

“You can’t always control where the ball goes,” he said, “but there are two things you can control—your attitude and your effort.

“You can cheer on the other girls. You can listen to what Coach says and do it immediately. You can decide not to get down on yourself if you make a mistake but instead try to do better next time. That’s attitude.

“Also don’t be afraid of the ball. Don’t stand there and let it drop in front of you. Go for it and hit the ball hard—even if it goes out of bounds. If Coach tells you to go someplace, don’t stroll. Run there. That’s effort.

“That’s what Coach will be looking for.”

As I listened, it seemed that was much like writing. We can’t control which publishers will say yes, which readers will write positive reviews, how many copies we’ll sell or how many readers we’ll get. And sometimes we can’t even control how skillfully and effectively we will write.

But we can control our attitude and our effort. We can cheer on fellow writers when they get something published, get a good review, or win an award. We can decide to listen to editors and writers who offer good advice about the craft generally or about our writing in particular. We can decide to not get down on ourselves if we don’t write as well as we’d like. We don’t have to be better than the next person. We just need to try to do better than we did the last time. That’s attitude.

In addition, we can practice hard. We can write thirty minutes every day, even if it is just journaling or only for our own enjoyment. We can stick to blogging regularly even if we don’t have thousands of readers but do it instead for the sake of practicing our craft. We can get good advice on the skills and habits needed to write better. We can keep submitting our work to others for input or for publication. That’s effort.

Spending energy on what we can’t control is like trying to put the wind in a bottle. Focusing on what we can control makes the difference.

—

Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay

More Amusement

A few months ago I posted on Andy Unedited some brief thoughts on re-reading Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. At the invitation of The Gospel Coalition, I extended those thoughts. This time I saw that it wasn’t the loss of our print culture that grieved Postman the most. To find out what did, you can click this link. Enjoy!

Why Do Editors Reject Bestsellers?

Why do some brilliant editors discover bestsellers and other incompetent editors miss them? From Emily Dickenson to Harry Potter, how could so many have turned them down? In his history of the Scribners publishing house, written 75 years ago, Roger Burlingame pulls back the veil on this mystery.* For many writers and readers, this will be a revelation. Editors will not be surprised at all. They will recognize their own experience in this account, affirming how true it is in our digital age as it was a century ago when moveable type still ruled.

When a book by a new writer becomes a best-seller, a body of legend grows about it. It appears that it was declined by a dozen stupid publishers until some genius saw its worth and brought the author from his garret into the daylight. It is not explained that the genius who discovered Author A, the week before let Author B’s manuscript slide through his fingers to another genius who may, indeed, be the very oaf who originally saw no prospects in Author A, but now is acclaimed as the discoverer of B’s masterpiece. Nor is it told how long and patiently both these publishers have labored with the beautiful lost words of Authors X and Y, upon whom, year after year, the public has inscrutably turned its back.

To those who know the facts beneath the legend, therefore, it is not surprising that good publishers waste so few tears over mistaken judgments of manuscripts. Over a long career any publisher can find in his record dozens of declinations of books which later brought fame and profit to someone else. If, in that career, he has built up a solid body of good authors who enjoy working with him and bring him a steady income, year after year, and if, besides, he has laid a backlog of departments producing steady-selling religious, educational, juvenile, subscription or technical books, he has spent his energies more wisely than in the restless search for big sellers. The proof of this is in his survival. Those publisher who have approached their job in this way have lived the longest, and the wisest young publishers in the field today are those who are steady building, regardless of brilliant, quick and sporadic successes.

The public, too, amused by the best-seller legends, is seldom aware of the peculiar reasons behind some declinations or of how beneficial to an author the rejection of a manuscript may be. A publisher whose list is full, say, for two seasons ahead, will reluctantly let go a book which seems sure-fire to himself and all his editors. He is already committed to the limit of his capacity. If, now, he takes on another large job, he knows either that he cannot do it justice or that, if he does, the books for which he has already agreed to do his best will suffer. . . . So, though it would be surprising to find an author pleased at a rejection—even when these things are explained to him—yet it is common enough, afterward, for him to look back over his manuscript’s stormy voyage and thank his luck stars that it came to haven at last in the place where the fullest measure of attention could be accorded it.

*Roger Burlingame, Of Making Many Books: A Hundred Years of Reading, Writing and Publishing (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1946; 1996), 61-62.

image credit: khamkhor, Pixabay

John Stott Remembered

Ten years ago today one of the great Christians of our age passed away. Here is what I posted on that day.

John Stott passed away today at the age of ninety. And it is as if a giant oak of the Christian landscape has fallen. As he has faded from public view in the last few years, some may not appreciate the massive effect this strong, humble leader has had. Not only in his native England, but in North America and across the world his beneficial influence was felt. In Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. Linda Doll and I looked back on his life’s work in this way:

As 2004 concluded and 2005 began, national recognition came in a variety of high-profile ways to the author who had perhaps defined IVP more than any other over the decades. In the November 30 issue of the New York Times, columnist and commentator David Brooks wrote a stunning op-ed piece on how and why John Stott was the person to listen to from the evangelical fold.

He commented, “Falwell and Pat Robertson are held up as spokesmen for evangelicals, which is ridiculous. Meanwhile people like John Stott, who are actually important, get ignored.” He went on to say what it is like to encounter Stott’s books (no doubt many from IVP).

When you read Stott, you encounter first a tone of voice. Tom Wolfe once noticed that at a certain moment all airline pilots came to speak like Chuck Yeager. The parallel is inexact, but over the years I’ve heard hundreds of evangelicals who sound like Stott.

It is a voice that is friendly, courteous and natural. It is humble and self-critical, but also confident, joyful and optimistic. Stott’s mission is to pierce through all the encrustations and share direct contact with Jesus. Stott says that the central message of the gospel is not the teachings of Jesus, but Jesus himself, the human/divine figure. He is always bringing people back to the concrete reality of Jesus’ life and sacrifice.

Shortly afterward, the February 7, 2005, cover story of Time magazine, “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America” also highlighted Stott. He was called quite justifiably “one of the most respected and beloved figures among believers in the U.S. . . . He plunges the rich royalties from his more than 40 unassumingly brilliant books into a fund to educate pastors in the developing word [sic].” (Of course, there is a significant theological difference between the developing word and the developing world. While Time isn’t always known for its theological astuteness, we add sic under the assumption that in this case the usage was inadvertent.)

Only two months later in a special issue featuring “The Time 100,” Time numbered Stott among the one hundred most influential people in the world. The piece on Stott, written by Billy Graham, noted their friendship that began in 1954, Stott’s influence in the Anglican Communion worldwide and his personal humility—his resisting appointment to the position of bishop, the use of his royalties to provide theological books to pastors and scholars in the Two-Thirds World and the simplicity of his living quarters in London’s West End. Graham concluded, “I can’t think of anyone who has been more effective in introducing so many people to a biblical worldview. He represents a touchstone of authentic biblical scholarship that, in my opinion, has scarcely been paralleled since the days of the 16th century European Reformers.”

John Stott was a world Christian before it was fashionable to be a world Christian. On five continents he was known personally and affectionately as Uncle John. Just as he was key to bringing an evangelical renewal to the Church of England, he brought clear, strong teaching and pastoral sensibilities to Latin America, Africa and Asia. Christian leaders all over the world looked to him as their mentor.

The world will miss him.

Reading the Times

For the last dozen years I have consistently avoided the news, and I feel I am a better person for it. In the spirit of Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Jeffrey Bilbro goes even deeper in his literary, social, and theological analysis found in Reading the Times.

Bilbro hits his stride in Part Two with his penetrating comments on time. That may seem especially theoretical, but it makes all the difference whether we are beholden to chronos time (chronology; quantitative clock time) or kairos time (often defined as qualitative moments of significance). The news is imprisoned by chronos. It isolates and disconnects events from their meaning and leaves us barren.

The author goes even further, saying that with kairos time “history’s true meaning emerges in the light of Christ’s life.” Our lives are not empty, trivial moments that are doomed to be forgotten centuries and millennia hence. Rather, quoting Paul Griffiths, “the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus lie at the heart of time. . . . Time is contracted by these events, pleated and folded around them, gathered by them into a tensely dense possibility.” Every laugh, every tear, every act of love is caught up in the kairos of Christ for eternity. Death is defeated. In Christ, nothing is lost.

How do we apply all this to the dilemma of our current hyper-contentious news environment? Bilbro, perhaps surprisingly, critiques the conventional wisdom that we need more fact checking and that we need to diversify our news feeds. I’ll let you read the book to find out why, but here’s a hint: it has to do with forming community.

In this way Bilbro offers more ways forward than Postman. “Instead of allowing the news to create our communities, Christians should seek to help their communities create the news.” This can begin with the simple act of walking our neighborhoods rather than isolating ourselves in cars or behind screens. On another level we can, for example, pursue redemptive publishing by reading, he suggests, things like Civil Eats, American Conservative, The Atlantic, Commonweal, Hedgehog Review and more.

This book is so much more than about the news. It is a rich and profound book about life. And you can easily find the time to read it with all the free time you will have from not following the news.

—
Image by Q K from Pixabay