Dancing Priest

Every Writer Needs a Plan, Right?

February 15, 2018 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

The inspiration for my three novels, Dancing Priest , A Light Shining, and Dancing King, was a song. The story was gradually written in my head, and only there, for four years. When I began to pound the keyboard, it poured out – gushed, actually – for almost 250,000 words. Eventually, I shaped the equivalent of two novels from that original manuscript and had enough to write the third. But the story arc for the series was set by 2006.

Along the way, the outlines, drafts, and ideas developed for five more novels using the same characters, ranging from a 4,000-word treatment to a 70,000-word manuscript. Somewhere in there two entirely different novel ideas popped up, one becoming a 60,000-word manuscript and the other a 1,000-word summary. And the ideas for three more novels in the Dancing Priest series have been rattling around my head, following the same process as the original – creation in my mind as I go to sleep at night.

Did I mention the 30,000-word novella?

This is not exactly what I would call a deliberate writing plan. Including the three that are published, this would mean a total of 14 books.

It makes my head hurt just to think about it.

I look at these manuscripts, these words, and the characters waiting in the stage wings, and I’m not sure if there will even be another act. I’m working on the fourth novel in the series, but I’m plagued by all the usual doubts.

My plan will likely be something like “just plow right on ahead.”

For most of my professional career, I worked for a company where this absence of planning would have been anathema. Planning means control, and whether they realize or not, all corporations were created with the idea of reducing uncertainty by creating or extending control. Control your market. Control your environment. Control your raw materials. Everything is a process and has a plan. Measure the results of your plan. Repeat.

Corporations took a function like mine – communicating with the great, messy, unruly, uncontainable, obnoxious, and unwashed public – and expected it to control that environment. (“Tell the reporter not to ask that question.” “Tell Twitter to remove that tweet.”) Result: #totalfail. The communications revolution we’ve been living since the creation of the worldwide web has, if nothing else, proven that no one can control anything. In fact, it’s not about control any more, if it ever really was. (Watch what happens when you tell corporate executives that it’s not about control; it’s about letting go of control. Result: #careerfail.)

The way I’ve written my novel manuscripts likely compensdates for the writing rigidity I experienced at work. Now I let inspiration move me. In one form or another, there are likely some 500,000 words of published and unpublished manuscripts, with at least that many words to go if all of these books ever see the light of day.

Yes, I need a plan. And I need to take to heart some words I’ve read about planning your writing.

“Some stories can’t be written now,” says Charity Craig in On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts (co-authored with Ann Kroeker). “They don’t fit together, or they compete…Or maybe the stories refused to be written. Either the story is not ready, or I’m not ready to write it…having a plan doesn’t mean having all the answers.”

Having a plan doesn’t mean having all the answers. That may be one of the most encouraging things I’ve read about writing. Ever.

Top photograph by Matt Artz via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Writing: What I Learned from a Gargoyle

February 8, 2018 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

I was attending a two-day writers’ conference. I didn’t know a soul. I hadn’t heard of any of the speakers, the writers, the agents or the editors attending. I hadn’t heard of the books by attending authors for sale on the display tables. I had nothing to make small talk about.

High anxiety time for an introvert like me.

I’d signed up for an editor’s critique of my work in progress, the prologue of what became my first novel Dancing Priest. I’d also signed up for a pitch session with an agent and a group reading-and-critique session.

The editor was encouraging, perhaps even more than encouraging. She wanted to know what happened to the characters. She liked the story. She was positive.

The agent was not. He was looking for the next Twilight manuscript and touting the merits of a novel about a late-night radio host who happened to be a werewolf on the side. I am not making this up.

But it was the group reading and critique session that was worth the price of the conference, at least for me. And it was something I inadvertently taught myself.

Twelve of us, all unpublished writers, gathered around a large circular table. The session was led by a gravelly-voiced woman from New York City who scheduled two smoking breaks (for herself) and who talked like a jaded agent suffering in the book business for 150 years.

We had to bring two copies of our writing with us, one for the agent and one presumably for each of us to read. That turned out to be half right.

The agent received one copy, and the person sitting to our right received the other copy. We were going to read our neighbor’s manuscript. When the agent explained that, with a mischievous smile, 12 faces around the table looked suddenly terrified. Someone else was going to read my words. Aaagh!

Of course, if we were published, someone else would always be reading our words.

That didn’t lessen the terror. It’s one thing to read your own words aloud. It’s quite another when a total stranger is going to read your words aloud, the words of your work in progress that you were, of course, still working on and weren’t quite ready to have someone else read and what am I doing here I feel sick and I better leave before it’s too late.

We passed our manuscripts to our neighbors on the right. I quickly looked over what my neighbor had given me to read. My heart sank; it was bad. Poor sentence construction. Grammar mistakes. Misspelled words. An earnest look on her face said this was the most important thing in her life. She hugged the manuscript to herself before she reluctantly gave it to me to read.

The story started with a gargoyle atop a local cultural institution’s building. The gargoyle decided to come alive by throwing pieces of itself on the sidewalk below. (I thought the manuscript might be a great fit for that agent and his werewolf.)

The readings were rather perfunctory. We were all somewhat unnerved at the idea of reading each other’s words aloud. Eleven of us played it safe and read in mostly monotone voices. I didn’t. I knew I had to do something to save the writing sitting in front of me.

I read it like poetry. I used a mildly dramatic voice, with inflection and emphasis and emotion.

When I finished and looked up, I saw the agent staring at me. She knew exactly what I had done; she had followed along in her copy of the text as I read the words aloud. She knew I had taken Charlie Brown’s pitiful Christmas tree with its needles almost gone and turned it into something his sister Lucy would be proud of. The author sitting on my left was wide-eyed at how her words sounded aloud. “I think he read it better than I wrote it,” she announced to the group.

I realized what I had done – I had taught myself a lesson. And the lesson was about voice and emphasis, about how reading aloud was a very different proposition than reading silently, even with the same words. I taught myself something about point-of-view, and that a manuscript might benefit both by adding poetic elements and by being read aloud.

“At some point, we can make room in the world, and in our lives, for the presence of other writers,” says Charity Craig in On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts, co-authored with Ann Kroeker. “Why not? We will sit next to them at conferences, see their names on Facebook, find their comments on our blogs. We’ll recognize their work in the publications that rejected ours. We will buy their books. And find ourselves in their words.”

Craig is right. I found myself in the badly written words about a gargoyle coming to life atop a building.

Top photograph by Pedro Lastra and bottom photograph by Antenna, both via Unsplash. Used with permission.

What I Learn from Readers (Part 3): Required Reading

January 18, 2018 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

I was learning a lot from the readers of my novel Dancing Priest. Some had read it as the kind of story they’d like to be part of, being used by God in the ways the novel described Michael Kent, the main character, and even some of the minor characters. A pastor had discovered what he called the best explanation of lifestyle evangelism he’d come across.

And then there was the reader who worked for a big, well-known software firm on the West Coast.

I’d corresponded with this man before. We followed each other’s blogs, and we had corporate career experiences that had much in common (good and bad). I didn’t know he had bought Dancing Priest, but he had. And one day, about three months after it had been published, he sent me a note.

“I’ve read your book,” he said. “And I’m moved beyond words. Do you know what you have here? It’s almost an operating manual for how young men should act and behave. It should be required reading in every high school in the country. It tells young men how important nobility, character, and courage are. There’s nothing in the culture today – movies, books, TV, nothing – that does that. Not a single thing. And it’s desperately needed.”

I didn’t write Dancing Priest to be an operating manual. What I had heard from a few readers (including my wife) was that Michael Kent seemed a mite too perfect; he needed some flaws to make him more real. This particular reader (a man) saw the same thing but saw it as a positive, an example of noble behavior that young men could aspire to.

Yes, like with the other readers, I went and reread my own book, trying to understand what he meant and what he had found. (I think I reread that book so much I could almost recite the dialogue and narrative.) And I found it, in many of the same places I had found other readers’ discoveries and in some new ones as well.

But would young men respond the same way this adult man thought they should and could?

A partial answer came a few weeks later. A family of four – husband, wife, and two teenaged sons – had all read the book within days of each other. The wife had read it first and urged it upon her husband, and then he, in turn, urged his sons to read it. It was the wife who wrote to me with the boys’ response. “They inhaled it,” she said. “They said they had never read anything like this, and they loved it.”

Perhaps my friend in the software business was right.

Writing a novel involves a lot of time, focus, and sometimes pain. You think you know what’s in your own book, and then some readers come along who disabuse you of that notion. You tell the story, and the readers decide if it’s written on their hearts.

Previous:

What I Learn from Readers of My Books – Part 1

What I Learn from My Readers (Part 2): A Pastor Buys a Bunch of Books

Top photograph by Christopher Jolly via Unsplash. Used with permission.

What I Learn from Readers (Part 2): A Pastor Buys a Bunch of Books

January 11, 2018 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

To say I was surprised when I opened the email is something of an understatement.

The message was from a pastor, a well-known pastor of a very large church in the upper South. Somehow, he had gotten a copy of my novel Dancing Priest and read it. And then ordered quite a few copies for his church staff. And then he sent in a second order, for quite a few more copies, for his elder board.

Authors like to hear about orders of their books for multiple copies. Take my word for it.

He was writing to ask me to draft a guest post for his blog. Specifically, he wanted me to write about lifestyle evangelism as described in Dancing Priest. “Your book contains the best description and example of lifestyle evangelism that I’ve ever come across,” he wrote.

My book? My novel? Dancing Priest?

I was so taken aback that I almost forgot to be excited about all the copies being ordered. I had to think for a moment. What was he talking about?

I started looking through the book, and then reread it a second time (I’d be interested to know if other authors have had this experience – being driven back to read their own books because they’re surprised by what readers have found).

I began to find examples of what the pastor was talking about. How Michael Kent treats the cycling competitor who treats him so shabbily. How Michael is not ashamed of hosting a prayer group at the Olympics. How Michael’s faith is translated into his actions. How Michael responds to the half-brother who had treated him horribly years before.

And then there was the rather obvious example of Sarah Hughes. It’s one whole section of the book. Sarah is not a believing Christian. That is one layer of the conflict in her relationship with Michael, because he’s not only a believing Christian but preparing to enter the Anglican priesthood and planning to enter the mission field. They break apart, because his faith and her lack of it is too great an obstacle.

Sarah will come to faith, but it will be by a very different route than what was Michael’s experience. In fact, this was the specific section the pastor had in mind when he wrote to me (I finally asked). And Sarah’s story of finding faith in the book is modeled very closely on my own experience. It’s the one part of the book that I can say was drawn largely from real life.

But it wasn’t deliberately written that way. I wasn’t trying to explain lifestyle evangelism. I don’t think I was even conscious of what that part of the story was based on until after I went looking for what the pastor was talking about.

As gratifying as it was, the pastor’s letter wasn’t the most surprising thing I learned from readers. That story is next.

Previous:

What I Learn from Readers of My Books – Part 1

Next: Required Reading

Top photograph by Annie Spratt via Unsplash. Used with permission.

What I Learn from Readers of My Books – Part 1

January 4, 2018 By Glynn Young 1 Comment

I can’t speak for other authors, but I’m always surprised – nicely surprised – at what readers have found in my books. I’ve learned that sometimes it takes a reader to show you what you done.

The writing of Dancing Priest happened over a period of years, but it followed a fairly standard trajectory. The idea for the story incubated for quite some time, and then the story line was envisioned in my head long before the first word was actually typed. I knew the story I wanted to tell; I knew who the characters were; and I knew all of the side stories that would be pulled along with the main story.

During the editing and publishing process, the draft actually changed very little from what I’d submitted, at least in terms of the story line. There was a considerable amount of editing, but the story line remained unchanged.

Once the book was published, my expectation was that readers would find that story line – they would find the story I wrote. And they did. But they also found more. In fact, they found more than what I had thought I’d written.

About three weeks after publication, I received a note from a reader. This is what it said: “Just finished Dancing Priest – one of the most compelling stories I’ve read. I kept thinking I want God to use me like this.”

I did a double take.

Wait, I wanted to say, I was just telling a story. I wasn’t trying to tell people how they should live, or what they should want for their lives. Where could that have come from?

And so, I went back and reread Dancing Priest, with the specific thought in mind of what the reader had written to me. I looked for examples or themes of how God uses people.

I found the examples. I found a lot of examples. The examples were so obvious it was almost embarrassing that I had missed them.

The story of Ian and Iris McLaren accepting guardianship of a child at less than an hour’s notice. The story of how Sarah Hughes comes to paint again. The stories of Michael holding his hand to the side of an injured young cyclist’s head, or treating a prostitute no differently than he treated anyone else, or accepting responsibilities far beyond what he thought he was capable of. Or repeating what he had learned first-hand from his guardians and accepting a child.

It was all rather unsettling. How had I missed this in my own book?

It took me some time to find the answer, and it was another email that helped explain it.

Next: Part 2 – A Pastor Buys a Bunch of Books

Top photograph by Ben White via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Are You Called to Write?

December 19, 2017 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

I follow quite a few writers on Facebook and Twitter, and I read their blog posts and articles. If a consistent theme exists in all of what writers, and especially Christian writers, say about themselves, it’s that they’re called to write. Christians writers say they’re called by God; others might refer to a muse, an urge, a belief, a feeling.

That theme of calling leaves writers like me in something of a quandary, much like the Christians who accepted faith as a child and can’t remember the exact day, time, and circumstance. I remember the exact time and place of my acceptance of faith – Jan. 26, 1973, about 8:30 p.m. in the basement of a lecture hall building at LSU. But to identify when I became a writer, or why, is not possible for me – it’s buried so far back in the mists of childhood as to be unknowable.

I read early and read often. The first book I remember buying on my own was Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion, spending 59 cents at the local dime store. I was 7. My reading habit was reinforced by the Scholastic Book Club at school and indulged by parents who encouraged reading. One of the earliest memories of my mother was her reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales to me when I as two or three; I still have the book.

But many children and adults enjoy reading without becoming writers. Reading alone can’t explain it.

To continue reading, please see my post at Christian Poets & Writers.

Top photograph by Ben White via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Dancing Priest

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