“Being a Christian doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and rainbows.”
This from my eleven year old girl who’s sitting next to me (in the front seat!!) as we drive home from a successful shopping trip in search of her first bra. The puberty ride is beginning for this wee one next to me and I feel the chink-chink-chink of the chain pulling our coaster to the top of a substantial hill. Heaven help me.
Her observation came from my out loud musing as I drove. I’m getting ready for my first ever writer’s conference. In Christian fiction, there seems to be a fine line between contemporary realism (stories that feel like maybe you read about them in the paper, or know the person that experienced what you’re reading) and beyond the pale (images too dark to erase from your mind’s eye, leaving a “scarred for life” feeling when you finish reading).
My first novel is gritty. Bad things happen to good people. Details are in there, ones you can’t un-see. The conundrum I’m chewing on is how far to go, how much detail to include? Does leaving them in betray the reader? Or does it create a soft way for the reader to experience something that might make them more compassionate toward someone who really has experienced something similar?
Life is dark. If it weren’t, the light wouldn’t be noticed; it would just blend in with the rest of the everyday. And my daughter’s comment is spot on. Living in a life with Christ as my savior doesn’t mean I will now be free from trials, liberated from pain. It’s Jesus on the cross that brings hope to even the darkest day, and the darkest parts of a story. None of it ends here.
Her brilliant insights continued…
“Mama, the real question is, is there more hope than dark parts in your book?”
It was then that tears welled in my eyes, camouflaged by my sunglasses. I’m impressed by her depth of understanding, by how clearly she sees the need for dark in light, by her point-blank encouragement, a role reversal we haven’t had much.
I like to think the novel I’ve written is more hope than dark, that the dark creates a void filled with God’s love and the hope that comes along with it. The review from a judge in an early contest said otherwise. She said she felt betrayed that I made her read the grit that is central to the beginning of the story. I shared that with my daughter.
Her encouragement: “But that was just one judge.”
Sunglasses don’t cover tears that shine your cheeks and drip off your chin.
Next week at the conference I’ll pitch the book to the agent I’ve been stalking, hand over my glossy One Sheet, make myself look more professional than I feel. I’ll hopefully tuck in my nervousness and amateur status, impress her with my confident pitch, and walk away from the fifteen minutes with the promise of a future conversation, the first step in the publishing journey.
I’ll keep you posted.