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Writing to Make Faith Attractive

March 1, 2018 By Glynn Young 2 Comments

It showed up as a comment on a blog post, and it stopped me in my tracks.

“Whatever your plan is…I do hope you continue this series of books. May God direct your thoughts and plans with His plan. I loaned the books to a friend of mine to read, and her comment was after reading the first one (Dancing Priest), ‘If I wasn’t already a Christian, this book would make me want to be one.’ That is a powerful testimony. Keep writing. There is power in the written word when it directed by God.”

A comment like that leaves you surprised, almost shocked, humble, and then almost fearful.

You ask yourself, “What is it I’m doing here?”

I’ve been known to answer that question about the novels I’ve written with “I’m just telling a story.” It’s a story that was on my mind and my heart for years – almost five years – before I typed the first word. By the time I began writing it down, it was almost uncontrollable. I couldn’t type fast enough.

I came to a stop at 250,000 words. I still hadn’t poured it all out.

The Dancing Priest series is now three published books. More may come. One is in process. But I read a comment like that and I tremble.

The books haven’t exactly been blockbuster bestsellers. I’d starve in about four days if I had to live off the royalties (and the royalties would cover only food for four days). But when you hear things like “the best description of lifestyle evangelism I’ve ever read” and “that scene, that scene of Sarah’s speech in the hospital, I cried” – and you hear them from men – you know something else may be going on.

At the end of 2013, I almost stopped writing. Two novels and a non-fiction book in three years, my mother increasingly ill and reaching the end of her life, absolute craziness at work, keeping up a blog, writing two weekly columns – it all nearly did me in physically and emotionally. When Michael Kent-Hughes says in Dancing King that giving a sermon physically exhausts him, in many ways that’s me saying writing physically and emotionally exhausts me.

But after three novels, I know that I’m about more than “telling a story.” It’s that comment: “If I wasn’t already a Christian, this book would make me want to be one.” These may be “Christian novels” but they’re not really written for Christians (although Christians seem to like them). Michael and Sarah Kent-Hughes may be attractive and sometimes inspiring heroes, but it is their faith that’s the real hero of the story. It carries them through separation, through tragedy, through mistakes they make, through literal attacks on their lives, and through constant attempts to smear their reputations. If this series continues, their faith will carry them through a lot more. And they don’t emerge from all of this unscathed; Michael bears literal and figurative scars. But it is faith that inspires these characters to carry on.

It took a reader to help me understand that a good part of what I’m about is making faith attractive.

Photograph by Samantha Sophia 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.

“Dancing Priest:” The reluctant author

December 4, 2017 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

Dancing Priest and its characters had been a part of my life for more than eight years when a friend who happened to be a publisher said, “I hear you have a novel manuscript. I’d like to read it.”

No.

That was my first reaction. I also went back to the manuscript, and re-edited it (and rewrote it) yet again.

He kept asking, and I kept saying no.

This went on for six months.

He asked again. For reason or reasons unknown, I said yes.

He was the second person to read the manuscript, after my wife. And then he said he wanted to publish it.

No.

I wasn’t ready. The manuscript wasn’t ready. I could think of all kinds of reasons to avoid publishing it.

He kept asking. And one day, I said okay.

A professional editor went through it, making it bleed. A cover photo was found and the cover designed.

Six years ago, at the beginning of December of 2011, Dancing Priest was born. Michael Kent and Sarah Hughes saw the light of publication. I was terrified. Exhilarated. Hopeful. Scared. I was all of those things authors experience at the birth of a first book.

People responded to the story.

“I didn’t get the feeling that I was reading a typical book,” said one reader. “It was almost as if I were spying on these people’s lives. I was the insider into an amazing array of people and situations that had me at times happy and more often than I’d like to admit in tears. Young is not writing a behemoth novel for page or word count. He is telling a story.”

“I’ve read a lot of good, and not so good, and this was part of the best,” said another reader. “The death had to be, but was not dwelt on to the point of being revolting. Jimmy is someone I’ve known. Sarah I liked. Michael is someone I would like to meet.” The reader was 92 years old.

“This book isn’t ‘deep,’ but it is deep,” said a pastor in Indiana. “This book isn’t meant to be challenging, but it will challenge you. This book isn’t meant to be a life-changer, but it is life-changing.”

A pastor in Lexington Kentucky ordered copies of the book for his staff and elder board, saying it was the best description of lifestyle evangelism he had ever seen. I reread the book to figure out what he meant, and I surprised myself when I found it.

An Anglican priest in Australia said it got several things wrong about Anglican priests. And then said he saw what I had done to wriggle around it. He was right, but if I had focused on getting everything absolutely precisely I would have lost the main story. So I wriggled around it.

“It is a novel in the traditional sense, but it is so much more,” said another read. “It is a testimony of God’s grace and mercy weaved into the lives of its characters. It is a powerful reminder to live intentional lives for Jesus. That while there is loss, heartache and pain for every one of us, there is also great joy.”

One reader put off household chores to read it. “Instead of chores,” she said, “I was gifted with an evening of beauty. An evening to explore a story told in delicate dialogue that revealed more than just the goings on of the lives of two characters — it revealed their hearts and ultimately, their faith.”

Top photograph: This mountain road in Spain is the type of road envisioned for the road race in Greece in Dancing Priest.

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