On the Writing of Stories and the Like

I write. In fact, I write a great deal. All sorts of things, and all very poorly. I like to write little stories, especially; more often than not I find myself writing the same essential story multiple times, just with different names for the characters and places--but its core is the same as the one I first wrote. That doesn't make it any better of a story, but that change does...well...change it.

I have yet to get it right, of course. But I will never get it right--the story may change, evolve, be destroyed and rewritten by my hand yet, but it will never be truly "right". The Right story has already been written by the Hand of God. Anything that I--or any human--will do is only a faint shadow, an imitation perceived through a glass darkly.

In my opinion--which is just that, an opinion, so that's my disclaimer--the entire purpose of writing literature is to convey some aspect of Truth. A very good writer can convey Truth in the most obscure way, but it will be conveyed all the same--perhaps subconsciously, but the seed may be planted. If the purpose of literature is not to convey some Truth, then what is it? Entertainment, of course, is a very important aspect especially in fiction, but personally I cannot stand to read even a decent work of fiction that is devoid of the Truth. I simply find it...unentertaining, therefore defeating the purpose of entertainment in the first place.

There is, in fact, a book (or two or three; I don't remember what happened) that was rather popular a year or two ago. After reading some glowing and not-so-glowing reviews, I read the book itself. I managed to finish it, but in addition to discovering that a mythological race was, apparently, entirely atheist (because, the author said, his job "was to portray other points of view as well"--he says he is a Christian). This was disconcerting in part because this was the classic "enlightened" race, being all wise and such, serving in one fell swoop as both the trainers and mentors of the hero.

The thing is, if I wanted to read a book about atheist fairies, then I would read Dawkins or Hitchens (or even skip the lightweights and go straight to Nietzche). Even if I was an atheist, I wouldn't read "Sleeping Beauty" for a medical treatise on how no one can sleep one hundred years in a coma without nutrition. That's not the point. The point of fiction is not to portray other points of view, it's to tell a story. And, to me, the only point of telling a story is if you intend to convey something by it--and only if you want to convey Truth.

Even such terrible things such as the notoriously and somewhat rabidly anti-Catholic "The Golden Compass" gets one thing right--the existence of good and evil. The views of good and evil therein are exceptionally disordered, but at least something close to it is present.
Relativism is exceptionally bad for literature. Is there such a thing as a truly relativistic story? The only genre in which there are no demons to be conquered would be, I would say, the lightweight "romance" novels of today, but even some of those contain certain struggles which point to the ultimate struggle between good and evil. How would one write a book without good or evil?

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As summer approaches, and I look more and more for things to assist me--scholarships and employments and whatnot--I find myself looking increasingly for writing scholarships. There is something bizarrely appealing in the idea of being paid to write short little nothings to which I have no attachment; although I do recall being incensed once that a short story of mine was referred to as being primarily about "women and flowers". An amount of prize money, however, kept me from protesting too much.

At the same time, I have absolutely no idea to study Creative Writing in any way, shape or form, and my desire to write for a living is roughly equivalent to my desire to spend twenty-four hours locked in a ten-by-ten cell with Joan Chittister at Gitmo with jihadists surrounding (I exaggerate only slightly).

It's strange. Even the random tidbits I've written and kept for myself entirely, no matter how far divorced they may be from my own thoughts, ideas and actions, are very beloved little things. I can compare it roughly to being the owner and maintainer of a little shrub, which is kindly cultivated and watered, and though it is possibly the ugliest shrub in the world it becomes very dear to the gardener who helped it to grow. It does no one any good except for the gardener, but the good it does do for the gardener is tremendous.

For the most part, I am content to have essentially every little story I ever write stay in the nice little dark file cabinets and totes of my room, amidst dozens of half-scribbled sheets of paper and leaky pens. I do wish that it would serve some purpose--something useful, for a change!--but for the most part, there is nothing that can be done.

So, if anyone needs me, I'll be watering my shrub.

*photo courtesy of the Telegraph--image from "Becoming Jane". Decent as a movie, but a historically inaccurate biography.