A Writer's Mind

I was never much of a history buff.  I found it painful to try to memorize dates and names of events and people long buried in time and place.

I preferred stories of characters, real and imagined, stories filled with emotion, action and conflict.

I am certain that I would have taken to history at an early age if it had been taught that way, connecting me to the names and places in a way that captured my imagination.  It is through the stories of people's lives that I get to know them and I need that sense of being there among them to understand the rhythm and meter of their lives.

My first attempts at writing stories of my own involved mimicry.  My characters were drawn from the lives and personalities of the people I knew, my friends and family.  My main character would act the way I acted, and would say and do what I would do and say.

But that approach can result in something as dull and dry as my old history text books, not because my life is dull and boring (though it could be that as well), but because actions of characters become real when we understand the motivation behind them, and understanding one's own motives is hard work.

For me to connect with a character in a story, I need to believe in him or her.  No matter how outrageous the situation, or how fantastic the circumstances they find themselves in, if I believe in them and what they are trying to do, I am fully with them through the ordeal, routing for them, praying for them and biting my nails when they are in danger.

I never connected that way with the characters presented to me in the weekly readings in church until much later in my life, and the reason for that is simple.  I hadn't read The Bible.

Let me add to that.  I never read it as story.

Until I approached the stories of The Bible as I would a mystery novel or biography, I couldn't connect with the people in those stories.  They were just names in strange places, and what they did and said seemed totally outdated and out of touch with my reality.

I am not saying the transition from dull and boring to exciting happened over night, nor am I saying that all the stories in Scripture resonate with me today, but some do and that is a big change from the desert-dry readings of my youth.

For me, writing about them helps me get to know them.  Just as mimicking the behaviors of my friends by creating characters like them helped me to know them better, writing about Joseph (son of Jacob) helped me to get t know him.

Putting his story in my words, retelling his adventures from my perspective, brings him to life for me, and that helps him become a part of me.  For a writer carries around with him all the souls of the characters he brings to life on the page.  They become real and continue to speak to him whenever he chooses to call them up.

To a non-writer, this may sound a bit looney, I know.  But in that looniness, the barriers and pedestals crumble.  No one I write about or tell a story about remains unapproachable.  All are equal and all are friends.  I can speak of Job or Peter or Saul as if I had just had coffee with them at Starbucks and I listened to one or the other complain about how dry the scones are.

I think we create obstacles to our faith when we hold these people so high that we fail to see them as people.  If I can accept the concept that I should be able to see God in everyone I meet, since we are all made in God's image, then the opposite should be true as well.

I should be able to see us in God.  So, just as I can get to know the human characters in these stories, I should be able to know God, as a friend who might complain about the dry scones or burn his tongue on the hot coffee.

So, in this writer's mind are many mansions where any and all live, and all are there eager, willing and able to chat.  Care to join us?


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