Blog on the Lillypad
Monday, September 08, 2003
 | The purpose of Fiction is to introduce profound insights; Fiction cannot adequately persuade
Fiction relies on indirection. It enters the mind through the side doors of the senses and the emotions. Sermons, on the other hand, enter through the front gate of reason, relying on evidence, rational sequencing of ideas, and ramifications of mutually agreed upon premises. Because it succeeds through indirection, fiction's greatest moments come when it enhances, deepens, widens our experiences of what we already believe. Great fiction adds profound insight to our accepted ideas. |
We know from reading the Bible that the apostles and disciples were men of frailty as we are---people subject to sin. In C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, the apparent humanity of Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy add a dimension to that which we already know. We see them elevated to the level of royalty, but we also see that they are made of the same stuff that makes us. This insight into the ordinariness of all of us, apostles and disciples and modern Christians alike all a dimension to our understanding about what Grace has accomplished.
| Fiction makes a poor persuader. To get the reader to act, fiction has to hit those emotional chords very hard, so hard that emotion closes the gates of reason and takes over. It *has* been done. Many a young teenager has sat through the aged Fundamentalist film, The Burning Hell and been scared witless by it. In fact, they get scared so witless that they walk that aisle, pray that prayer, and sign the card. Obviously, if you put one image after another of people suffering in hell and dot the stream of images with a few sermon excerpts you'll scare a few kids into "making decisions." What you don't have is genuine conversion to Christ. And let the viewer get a little older, and you will find that you have produced a cynic who now recognizes that his or her emotions were played upon to evoke a desired action. This is why propaganda never becomes great literature: a sizable part of the intended audience outgrows it or gets wise. |  |
 | So even though some fiction can hammer the sensitive emotions of vulnerable readers sometimes, the effect of long term persuasion fails. Fiction helps us embrace what we know further. It adds the glow, the warmth, the glory to truths that we have comprehended. Additionally, Fiction adds the insights of genuine horror, sorrow, and that sense of tragedy to our knowledge of evil. But when fiction tips over too far into raw emotion, prompting a confused or half-formed decision, the fiction usually falls apart.
|
Certainly, if you get away with overwhelming the reader once, you won't be able to consistently overwhelm the reader. The mind will spring back long before the emotions do. A person who researches may grow weary and need rest. But the necessity of resolving a problem or question will bring the person back to the research. On the other hand, overly emotional stories or---even worse----stories that emotionally blackmail the reader, will kill the reader's ability to enjoy them. This is why so many readers of Christian fiction drop away from it. It's also why those Sunday School magazine stories never make it into hardbound collections. Christian fiction relies far too much on emotional manipulation of the reader, and this works only until the reader outgrows that manipulation or becomes cynical.
Christians are not to engage in emotional manipulation, ever. We have an honest God, and He expects honesty from us. Good sermons do not descend into sentimental stories or joke-telling or cheap emotional devices to bring out the hankies or evoke fleshly decision making. Sermons are there to evoke decisions. The means that God has ordained to convert souls on this earthis the preachng of the Gospel. Therefore, let every preacher fearfully examine his sermons and make sure that they preach the Gospel and do not entice the flesh by fleshly entertainment or sentimentality.
 | Similarly, good fiction does not try to call to action. It rests on truth and becomes the ornament of truth. And because fiction relies upon indirection, fiction is subtle. Now, some readers protest. What is so subtle about a Louie L'Amour character shooting it out with the bad guys, or the Doctor being stalked by a mind-eating machine that will drive him mad? Actually, these stories, even the more florid among them, are deftly handling Truth. We get so caught up in the taut predicament of the good guy with only five slugs left in his gun and a dozen outlaws out there that we forget it's not real. The idea of a "mind eating" machine that could actually move right through the walls of the enormous prison where Jo and the Doctor are being held captive by mutinying prisoners tremendously intrigued me as a young writer. Here was a story where the bad guys were also threatened----a story of graduated evil.
|
| What these slam-bang stories have that so much Christian fiction lacks is a subtle presentation of the most basic truth about good and evil: that good, however it is pressed by the complex and cruel devices of evil, will overcome. Louie L'Amour succeeds when he shows the smart sheriff outwitting the outlaws, using the darkness of night, his own steady nerves, and the fears of outlaws to get them to show themselves or shoot each other. The Doctor, spared momentarily because the forces of evil want to enslave him rather than immediately kill him, gains a tremendous insight that he shares with the viewer: the evil that is stalking them will never take allies but will kill them all. It will never indenture itself as an ally to the people who think they have reached an agreement with it, not when it can seize power and control. These far flung stories are more believable and have greater impact (especially on young minds) than so many Christian stories precisely because these dime-novel stories don't sermonize but let the reader see the actions of good and evil. |  |
What Makes Fiction Succeed
The Purpose of Fiction
The Structure of Fiction
The Design of Fiction
The Integrity of Fiction
The Limits of Fiction
