"It started with a fire on the stove. A moment’s inattention to some oil and three kernels of popcorn in a pot. Never mind, clap the lid on, set the pot outside! The smoke alarm never even went off, but there was still enough soot to grime up the kitchen, and for the acrid smell to waft insinuatingly through some of the other rooms…."
Read the rest of my Lenten post at Orthodox Christian Network.
Wow. On the left, the poster for
Extant, TV series starting this summer….and on the right, the cover of
Universe 2, an SF anthology edited by Robert Silverberg & Karen Haber and published in 1992.
I happen to have had a story, "The Passing of the Eclipse", selected to appear in the book, which is why the Extant poster was so striking to me!
This was so nice to come across. I don't know the blogger herself.
http://lessonsfromamonastery.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/book-review-the-ravens-of-farne-a-tale-of-saint-cuthbert-by-donna-farley/
"I have often found children’s books to be more rich in illustrations than in storylines. This is not the case with The Ravens of Farne. Donna Farley’s writing makes this sweet story of St. Cuthbert’s trouble with the ravens come alive. In soft, rhythmic prose Farley describes the temptations St. Cuthbert encounters when attempting to build his hermitage and guesthouse on the Island of Farne.
The Ravens of Farne is not only a pleasure to read but also offers us a peek into the life and style of Celtic saints and teaches us a good lesson about humility and asking forgiveness. I highly recommend this book for children and the young of heart and look forward to reading more books written by Donna Farley."
I'm an occasional contributor to The Sounding Blog on the Orthodox Christian Network. I happen to have a new post up today, "Seeing Icons and Being Icons".
Hop on over there, I hope you enjoy it…..and at the same time, you will find lots of great blog posts from other Orthodox Christian authors, as well as lots more resources including their audio programmes.
This is another of a series of articles I wrote in the nineties for Steve Stanton's Christian Vision newsletter for Christian writers (no longer publishing).
Since the movie of Ender's Game is about to come out, I thought now was a good time to post this. --DF
SPOILER WARNINGS for Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
Everyone has their own lists of books -- books they would take to a desert island, books they recall fondly from childhood, books that first made them want to be writers. The game I'm playing in this article is just a little different. Much as I love Middle Earth, it could not have been engendered by any mind but that of a Roman Catholic Oxford philologist who lived through two world wars, so there woudn't be much use pretending it could ever be mine. Instead, I like to choose contemporary writers, with lives just a little closer to mine. And when I look at what their books have in common (and maybe even what they have in common with my beloved Tolkien), it gives me a clearer picture of what I want to strive for in my own fiction. Even if these books aren't yet on your personal list, or even in your preferred genre, I think if you try them you'll wish you had written them too.
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. Anyone who's read the sequels to this novel can see how far Card has progressed as a writer since this early work. The disembodied voices that speak in the opening scenes of the first few chapters are confusing and annoying, like voiceover with nothing but a black screen, and no actors to distinguish which voice is which. Yet this book unquestionably deserved both the Hugo and Nebula it won.
Though it seems to have been the video game connection that won this book a following with the junior high crowd, the heart of the novel is found in sharp focus in the shower scene, where Bonzo Madrid has come to kill the smaller and apparently helpless Ender. The reader knows better than the arrogant Bonzo; we saw little Ender unknowingly kill a bully with his bare hands in chapter one. Yet the shower scene is no triumph. It closes with Ender in tears. "I didn't want to hurt him! Why didn't he just leave me alone!"
Card has set up the ultimate personal conflict for Ender -- in his own nature, he is driven to win; but the very thing that makes him able to win is that it is also his nature to empathize completely with his enemy. This is what tears the reader's heart out as we follow Ender to the inevitable conclusion of the tale, in which the enemy he must fight is not just a macho bully, but the entire alien Bugger race, and the life at stake not just his own, but that of the whole human species --including his much-beloved sister.
Any one of Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan stories can have the spot next to Ender on my bookshelf, and it is no coincidence that these too are award-winners. For an example I will take "The Weatherman", which forms the first part of the novel The Vor Game.
Bujold first loads her protagonist with burdens to bear: the son of no less a person than the prime minister of Barrayar, a militaristic interplanetary Empire, Miles is handicapped by dwarfism and brittle bones, the legacy of an assassination attempt on his parents while he was still in utero. His brilliance and personal audacity have nevertheless won him a commission; his first military assignment is the less-than-thrilling position of weatherman on an arctic training base.
When the megalomaniacal base commander orders some trainees to clean up a mutagenic chemical spill, they mutiny; on Barrayar, the horror and fear of mutation are deeply ingrained. The commander orders the trainees, at gunpoint, to strip in the sub-zero night, and offers them their clothes back when they are ready to obey. Miles realizes they will die rather than risk mutation, and knows only he can prevent a massacre that could be covered up as the suppression of a mutiny, for Imperial Security will certainly investigate the death of the Prime Minister's son. But he risks the career he so desperately craves, and possibly his life, by stripping off his own uniform to join the trainees. *
I think it's no accident that the pivotal scenes in both these books have the protagonists naked. They stand without defenses, alone with nothing but the resources of their own characters, and their own consciences.
Such powerful key scenes are what make me wish I'd written a book. But such scenes can't be written in isolation. Carefully constructed threads of plot and character must lead up to them, like the threads of a spider web leading inevitably to its center.
Nor is it enough, for me at least, that the characters be put between a rock and a hard place and forced to act. They must act out of their character -- and that character must be one that ultimately I will admire and want to emulate. In other words, they've got to be a hero.
An old-fashioned attitude, perhaps, and it doubtless makes clear one reason why I am also so fond of Tolkien. But neither Tolkien, nor Bujold, nor Card makes the error of moralizing in their books: they just tell stories. Bujold's books are about honour, Card's about love. Lord of the Rings is about courage, which, Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis wrote "is the form taken by any virtue at the sticking point."
That's the kind of book I want to write. That's the kind of person I want to be. If I can develop something like Bujold's wit, if I can learn from Card's vivd scene-writing, if I can try to emulate Tolkien's love of language, these will all be means to an end -- to write stories that maybe, some day, will make someone else say, "I wish I had written that".
* note 2013: Orthodox readers will recognize the scene in which Miles joins the prisoners on the frozen lake as having its precedent in the Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.
The post below appeared last week on The Sounding Blog at Orthodox Christian Network. While the petition to Disney seemed at first to have had some effect, this now appears not to be the case. Yet a petition that now has over 200,000 signatures does say something important. If after reading the article you feel you want to add your name, click the link at the bottom-- DF
On Mother's Day 2013, a storm is brewing over Merida's makeover. Yesterday, the main character of "Brave" was officially crowned a "Disney Princess."
A “Disney Princess” is not just a fairy tale character who happens to appear in one of Disney’s films. A Disney Princess may or may not be of royal blood as such, or marry into royalty. Whatever she did in her film—scrubbed floors like Cinderella, saved the day like Mulan, or spent a lot of time with her nose in a book like Belle, what matters now for each of these characters is her look.
As long ago as 1996, Frederica Mathewes-Green wrote at length about the problematic portrayal of women (mostly the young leading ladies) in Disney animated feature films.
That article details a certain evolution in the kind of heroines portrayed—from the childlike Snow White in the 1930s through the conventional Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in the 50s and 60s; to the more active princesses of more recent decades. But while they may have become more ethnically diverse and more personally assertive, their look has grown ever more removed from normal human proportions—and ever more sexualized.
Below, top, the Disney Princesses in 2009. The characters appear exactly as they did in their respective films. The second image is the 2013 lineup. You feel that each princess in the first set is someone who could be a little girl’s friend. But the newer group seem set on seduction. Open, pleasant gazes have given way to come-hither eyes, half-lidded with heavy mascara. Even necklines that were already off-the-shoulder, like Jasmine’s, are given a sensuous twist, and the girls stand in poses that highlight perky breasts and wasp waists. The first group’s attitude says to the viewer, “Hi! I like you!” The second group’s says, “Look at me, I’m fabulous, don’t you think?” Or, if the viewer is male, the message received is likely to be, “Come up and see me sometime!”
More than a character in an animated story, an official “Disney Princess” is one of the ones held up for emulation on the special line of money-making merchandise aimed at little girls from age two to thirty-two. Graduating from the film industry to a new working life as super models (so much for happily ever after!), the princesses now flaunt their figures on every imaginable kind of product, from backpacks to beach towels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Princess
This is the company Brave Merida joins officially next week.
Mulan and Merida, as movie characters, could have been buddies, with their courage and athleticism and lack of affinity for the glitter that seems to be the identifying mark of a real princess in Disney. For lack of time, I won’t even get into the treatment of the non-European princesses here, which is a whole other thorny topic.
But now we have Merida—an actual princess, according to the storyline of the movie, but one for whom clothing is a serious point of contention. Tomboyish Merida wears the long skirt of the period, all right, but her wild fiery frizzy hair flies out behind her as she gallops her beloved horse. With the best of intentions, her mother has other plans for her—of course, a wedding match must be arranged, and it needs a restrictively tight corset, shiny dress, and smothering head covering to make Merida ‘presentable’.
But come the competition of the suitors, Merida herself jumps into the fray, bursting the seams of her dress when she draws back her bow for the bulls eye shot. Here are the two contrasting costumes from the movie:
For Merida’s character, the ball gown is not prince-bait, the means of transformation from hardworking ash-girl to pampered princess as it is for Cinderella—it is, rather, what Eowyn in Lord of the Rings feared, ‘a cage.’
Take a warrior princess like Merida and make her a super model? That’s what the Disney powers that be are planning ahead of crowning her as one of their glorified, glitterized sales girls….or is it girls for sale? Here’s her Disney Princess makeover:
Small tweaks in every aspect of her appearance add up to a large change. Merida appears to have aged about ten years, and poses coquettishly like the other 2013 princesses. She’s definitely skinnier—guess she must have gotten reconciled to that corset after all. The new dress is covered in sparkles, but apparently the sprinkle of freckles on her nose has been airbrushed away, or masked with Cover Girl. The wild frizzy hair gets a sexy flippiness. Her bow and quiver are no longer over her shoulder—and neither are the sleeves of the dress.
Of Merida’s ‘new look’ (Disney blog Inside the Magic has ‘updated’ the term ‘makeover’ with a strikethrough) Peggy Orenstein, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, says “…moms tell me all the time that their preschool daughters are pitching fits and destroying their t-shirts because “princesses don’t cover their shoulders”… (emphasis mine.)
The bare shoulders particularly interested me. This is one of the no-nos you will see posted at the entrance to some Orthodox churches, or in brochures or pages on church websites aimed at wedding parties. (For some other churches, particularly Catholic ones, the bare shoulder issue is also a concern.) For the last couple of decades, the strapless glamour gown has been in the ascendant for weddings (to say nothing of the high school prom, the modern equivalent of the fairy tale ball). Brides in the modern era are older than they were in the fifties and sixties, and the strapless gowns reflect the sexual sophistication of these women.
The look of the Disney Princesses has moved in tandem with this trend, first in the general look of the characters in the films, but has accelerated in their merchandisable forms. Remember when I said the products were being marketed to girls aged two to thirty-two? Disney actually has a line of bridal gowns. The styles are of course named for the princesses—and every single one bares the shoulders.
Merida stands apart from the other princesses as a young teenager who knows she is not ready for marriage, especially to someone she can’t even choose for herself (and even the competitors are certainly pretty poor excuses for males.)
Maybe Merida isn’t in fact a princess, by Disney standards. But she is the hero of her own story, as Dickens wrote in the opening to David Copperfield. She makes her choices—not all of them good, in fact one is a disastrous mistake. Merida’s story is about finding herself, not in relation to a love interest like most of the princesses, but in resolving the personality and agenda conflict with her mother. That only happens finally when both of them learn to listen to each other. The other Disney Princesses never have to learn this lesson that nearly every teenage girl in the world (and her mom) faces —because the moms of most of the other princesses are conveniently out of the way. Merida’s mom, not some prince charming, is her co-star in this rare movie story.
Disney is poised to go ahead with the Princess as Supermodel transformation of Merida’s image. There’s a petition to stop it, which is gathering steam. I have my doubts it will have much effect, but I think it can do no harm to make our voices heard. Disney Princesses are a commodity, and parents of little girls are the targeted consumers. If we let Disney know we want–a different kind of princess on the pencil cases and friendship bracelets, the same one we saw and loved in "Brave"–they might just listen. As I write this, there are nearly 80,000 signatures. If all the signers actually refused to buy the sexed-up Merida products, that would amount to a lot of unsold beach towels and back packs.
Meanwhile, Happy Mother’s Day! Perhaps you can watch "Brave" with your daughters.
UPDATE: Haiku event at Chapters Robson in Vancouver is changed to Thursday, May 23rd.
Every few years, it seems, I leave my cave and get out and about a little for a change. As of now I have no less than three outings scheduled for 2013.
First there is a May 17th 7 pm Haiku reading at the Vancouver downtown Chapters store. I think it is part of, or in sequel to, the Cherry Blossom Festival, but I'm not finding anything online about this reading just yet. I'll update as soon as I do. Better dig out my haiku files, and start writing a few new ones!
Next is a really exciting and unique SF Con, DOXACON in Springfield, VA July 19-21. Set up to be a kind of combination academic conference and fan gathering all in one, the motto is "Where Faith and Truth meet Science Fiction and Fantasy". Did you ever think you were going to see an SF Con put on by an Eastern Orthodox Christian parish? Well, you're seeing it now.
There will be presentations from Thomas Bertonneau, author of The Truth is Out There: Christian Faith and the Classics of TV Science Fiction; Metropolitan Savas of Pittsburgh (SVS Adjunct Professor who teaches courses in popular culture); and Dr. Alison Scott of George Washington University Library, who will bring with her some rare Tolkien first editions.
Additional session speakers and topics:
Leslie Banta--"Firefly: Browncoats and the Beatitudes."Dr. Jonathan Chaves--"True Ladder to Heaven: The Writing of Christ in Chinese Fantasy Literature."
Jonathan Jacobson--"Battlestar Galactia as Preparation for The Gospel."
Caleb Grimes--"The Paradox of Faith in Star Wars."
Rev. Father David G. Subu--"The Golden Path: Frank Herbert's Dune as a Religious Fantasy"
Matthew Silver--"The Matrix & Inception: Objectivity and Transcendent Truth."
But it's not all serious scholarly stuff by any means-- costumes are invited for the meet and greet, and there will be a 'Fellowship of the Geeks' dinner put on by the parish. How can you resist?
I couldn't, even if I weren't going to be presenting a session myself. I'll be speaking on "A Spell for Refreshment: Christians Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy". This will be as much a why-to and what-to as a how-to session, with plenty of time for Q &A included.
Finally, looking ahead to the fall, I'm planning on taking part in V-Con, our local SF Con over the Oct. 4-6 weekend. It's too early for details, but I'll add those when they become available.
If you heard about the recent 'prank' pulled by teachers in a Windsor ON school, you may have noticed commenters calling for various strong responses, ranging from 'fire the teachers!' to 'quit coddling the students!' Predictably, some use the story as a stick with which to beat all teachers.
Meanwhile, a school board spokesman said he isn't sure he would call this prank bullying.
Or just read this summary: Several teachers conspired (including roping in some student teachers) to convince 60 Grade 8 students they would be taking a grad trip to Disney World. After an elaborate presentation involving brochures, the final slide in a Power Point presentation revealed they would insted be going to a local bowling alley. The teachers recorded first their excitement and then their disappointment on video-- and then showed that video to another class.
The purpose of this prank? Ostensibly, to smoke out ONE student that one of the teachers suspected of snooping in the teacher's desk. The story does not elaborate on whether the ruse succeeded in this aim, nor how pulling this trick on dozens of other students was meant to accomplish it. Nor was there any mention of why the teacher did not just have a locked drawer for anything that students shouldn't have access to.
The essence of bullying is in the imbalance of power to hurt someone else physically or emotionally
The teachers used their power to make their students feel bad. True, this is a one-time behaviour and not an ongoing situation; yet it was thought out over a period of days and seemed to have no real purpose but to upset the students. The school board called it 'poor judgement', and it was certainly that-- behaviour that might be expected of Grade 8 kids, but not of their teachers.
The school board has spoken its disapproval, and apologies have been made by the teachers. Parents and students are attempting to get back to their normal school routine. If we ignore the calls for firing or for just ignoring the whole thing, is there anything more that could be done to help improve the situation from this point? I made a suggestion in a letter to the Windsor Star:
The Disney-pranking teachers have already punished themselves. They should have realized that not only was there going to be a backlash from the parents but it would be all over the social media like Kanye West’s antics at Taylor Swift’s award moment.
More than any of that, they now have to spend the rest of the school year looking those kids in the face.
But I think there is a way to smooth things over. Have a school fun fair and make the star attraction a cream pie-throwing booth.
That might sound like a joke but I am in earnest. If the teachers step forward to let the kids even the score, it will show that they take seriously the offence of misusing their position of authority to make their students feel crappy.
It will also show that they have learned not to take themselves too seriously. For good measure, let’s have the school board spokesman who wasn’t sure this prank should be called bullying join the teachers as a target.
Proceeds can be split between the grad trip and an anti-bullying program.
Will it be humiliating for them to take a few pies in the face? Not for long.
If they show the kids they can be good sports about it, pretty soon the kids will be laughing with them, not just at them anymore. A catharsis for everyone now will make things easier for the rest of the school year and beyond.
Go on, teachers, I dare you. Prank yourself and take a pie in the face.
DONNA FARLEY, Surrey, B.C
.
Sandpaper Tongues
A knife in the back and it’s over;
Sandpaper tongues instead lick their slow torture again and again
Scouring in time the thickest of skins to rawness
Flinch. StArTle!
Again they rasp and scrape the surface into blank vellum
A forest clear cut, acres of waste.
Now the needles tattoo a new pattern on the skin:
Ugly. Unloved. Sinner.
Now even a glance rakes fire across the flesh.
Slowly they polish the image they have crafted
Sheep becomes goat.
A whine escapes, thin as a saw’s whirring.
Then silence.
Sticks and stones and broken bones
Horns driven into its temples,
The thing they have made hobbles away into the landscape.
The sandpaper tongues fall silent. Until the next time.
My writing, that is...and adding a few extra ingredients I hadn't thought about for a while in order to cobble together
for the Orthodox Christian Network's Writers and Artists Series.
For some time I’ve been trying to keep my blogging and online discussion engagement to a minimum. So this post is a bit ironic—here I am, posting words on the topic of using fewer words…. and not only that, this is part of a synchroblog with several other Orthodox bloggers posting on July 1st on the topic of how we use our words. That makes for many words! (You can find the links to the posts by these other bloggers at the bottom of my post.)
Writers have to learn the trick of reducing our word count. We can cut, polish, replace and rearrange to our hearts’ content, sometimes even consulting with others about the words, until the deadline comes and then our words have to go out into the world, there to hurt or heal as may be. At this final stage, if we are blessed to have a good proofreader and/or editor, we can often be saved from mistakes large and small.
But in our daily conversation we don’t get to make a second and third draft—once a word is out, you can’t really take it back. We can say we’re sorry for snapping at our spouse, correct a mistaken judgement about a friend, or try to disown a carelessly spoken opinion or offensive language in a group situation; but even the best result from these procedures is still second-best to what would have happened if we had just just kept our mouths shut in the first place. No wonder so many of the Church fathers praise the practice of silence. St. Theophan the Recluse sums it up well in his Unseen Warfare
another of my old column entries from the Christian Vision writers' newsletter published mumblety-something years ago. Hyperlinks added to bring it into the cyber-age-- DF
WINGS OF IMAGINATION
by
Donna Farley
Sometimes I wonder why God didn't give us wings, when everything in our being longs to soar like the birds. Those of us who work in the creative arts feel this especially keenly, but perhaps the reason we feel that way is in itself the answer to the question.
God didn't give us wings for the same reason He didn't give us gills to swim the seas or horse's hooves to run like the wind: He gave us instead the better gift, that of imagination. And with it we made centaurs and mermaids, which,
Tolkien says in his poem "Mythopoeia", was our right, for "we make still by the law in which we're made."
Imagination is so potent that it has even brought some of our dreams into reality, even if only in the crude, mechanical forms of airplanes and scuba gear.
Imagination can even go boldly where no man, or even any other creature, for that matter, has gone before-- or at least, none that we know of. The summit of Everest is barren of life; likewise the space beyond our atmosphere. When we saw birds, we wanted to fly; when we saw fish, we wanted to swim. But we didn't need to see any creature traversing the heavens to want to go there too.
Our imagination can take us there; imagination went first, before Vostok (the first manned spaceflight) or Apollo or the shuttle.
Without imagination the engineers would have had nothing on which to build, and no purpose for building.
Imagination can do still more than this.
A Kurelek painting can transport us to the past, to Calvary, or to the future, to Apocalypse.
Dante's "Inferno" can take us to hell itself and back. And
Handel can pull us along on his coattails as he soars to the very gate of heaven.
There are few things more powerful than this gift. And, to quote Spider-Man, "With great power comes great responsibility!" Our life is a pilgrimage-- a journey, a wandering from place to place. You have wings; don't be afraid to spread them. Set your face toward the Promised Land, and perhaps you too, like Handel and Kurelek, will find that others have come along with you.
I am moving some of my material from my shawwebspace page over here to the Rafters. This one is a Lenten article so I thought I might as well just post it up top-- MatD
This article of mine appeared in my column about the church year in The Handmaiden journal over ten years ago. Although it is a Lenten article, I already had filled all the slots in my book Seasons of Grace, so it was not included there. This is now available online for the first time, slightly updated for the age of Facebook and Myspace, with some links added to the end. (the title was a play on the then popular book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche)
0 Comments on Real Christians Don't Eat Each Other as of 1/1/1900
Did I ask for this? Well, maybe I did, but I never thought I'd get it, not like this. There I am, just sitting innocently in therocking chair by the window with a freshcup of tea, and BAM! Blindsided by themuse. Steamrollered by inspiration, andall I can think is, I don't want to start a new story right now!
For once, I am trundling along very nicely with my secondnovel, thank you, and it would be great to be a lot closer to the end of it bythe time I hear back from the publishers about my first novel. Then if they take it, I'll be able to tellthem the sequel is almost done. Noma'am, no stories today, thanks.
Writers should be careful about sitting by the window,where the muse can get a clear shot at them with a blast of white-hotinspiration.
On the other hand, writers aren't necessarily safe intheir own beds either. I woke up onemorning with a lightning-strike idea about a society where everybody wearsmasks all the time. That one went fromthe embryo of an opening scene to final draft in three feverish days. It sold first crack, too, to RobertSilverberg for Universe. So why does mymost recent eureka! leave me less than thrilled?
White-hot inspiration. But the feeling of just wanting to close the curtain on it is new tome. Of course, you see that I'm tryingto stall by writing about the experience instead of writing about the ideaitself. After this, in fact, I'm goingto call up one of my writer friends and ask her if she's ever had thisproblem. If she won't give me anysympathy, I can always write Dear Abby....
FLUELLEN
Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is
remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a
garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their
Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this
hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do
believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek
upon Saint Tavy's day.
KING HENRY V
I wear it for a memorable honour; For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.
--Henry V, Act 4 Scene 7
The leek is the Welsh national symbol, according to legend by the advice of St. David of Wales, who advised them to wear it in their caps into battle so as to distinguish friend from foe. The enemy must have thought them a bit daft with such adornment, too, which no doubt helped the Welsh catch their enemy off guard.
I don't know the original provenance of the leek-framed icon above, but it's quite nice. David was a great ascetic who didn't tolerate slackness terribly well, but I hope he'll forgive the Welsh for indulging in a few Welsh cakes and the like on his feast day. Myself, I don't think I'll follow the tradition of eating a leek raw-- rather slice and cook them up at dinner tomorrow!
I haven't got sound, but this little video looks pretty good:
Another post from my old column in Christian Vision writers' newsletter-- DF
THE BREATH OF LIFE
To write is to breathe. We breathe in experience, we breathe out words. In fact, we may be breathing the breath oflife into others, by words that are just what they need at the moment; like alifeguard giving artificial respiration. But what if, at the same time, we are breathing out some disease we havecontracted ourselves, spreading its evil to others?
A well-known science fiction writer told me about how hehad called into question certain horror writers, and asked them how they feltwhen they found things in their books were read by others who turned them intoreal-life violence. They hemmed andhawed and disavowed responsibility. Thewriter who told me this himself got an excellent idea for a horror story; hehesitated long before writing it and finally published it under apseudonym. I cannot judge him; maybe thevalue in the story outweighed its dangers. I do not write horror myself, but many things happen in my stories Idon't necessarily approve of or recommend to my readers; yet if I try to removethese things, I may destroy something important to the story.
Christian writers, more than any others, should be wellaware of their own imperfection. Yetmany talk of how the Lord "gave" them a story, as if He justdownloaded it into their computer. In reality,if a story is "inspired", it is, literally, breathed into us by theSpirit. When we breathe it out again, itis no longer pure heavenly story, but something of ourselves--both the good andthe bad--clings to it. Our stories reach our readers containing flaws, some ofwhich we are not even aware of.
Being a Christian means accepting our ownsinfulness. With that in mind, when wepublish, we can only pray that, if we are doing artificial respiration, we willgive our readers the breath of life; and, at the same time, we must pray thatby God's grace they will not contract any disease, known or unknown, with whichour breath is tainted.
This is one of several old entries in a column I had for the Skysong Press newsletter for Christians Writers, Christian Vision, in the 1990s. Some of the material in some of these articles may be a bit dated now, and if I have time I may re-edit some of them. Meanwhile, I think the question of taboo words is still very important-- and not just for writers. But that's a whole other post I am going to have to write when I have more time. --DonnaF
HAVING SOME HONEST WORDS WITH YOUR CHARACTERS AND YOUR AUDIENCE
by
Donna Farley
"God, Ineed a cigarette--and I don't suppose you haveone do you, Mister Surgeon General." She roots around in herpurse, looking.
"If youcan ask God for a cigarette, why stop there?"
She scowls athim. "I was talking to myself, not God--it's on your no-no list, 'taking theLord's name in vain'..."
"She" is a prostitute, and the other speaker inthis dialogue is Jerry, a man who believes God has told him to marry her. The story is David Mehler's "Romance bythe Numbers" in DREAMS AND VISIONS #7. Besides this taking of the Lord's name in vain, there are a few otherinstances of taboo words falling from the mouths of the prostitute and her pimpin this story.
I'd be willing to bet (though of course I don't believein gambling) that at least a few readers were shocked to see a swear word onthe lips of a character (even a prostitute) in a Christian magazine. And yet if this story had appeared in asecular publication, any reader who frequents a public junior high school, letalone the mean streets of L.A., would think the dialogue was too clean by halfto even approach verisimilitude.
I loved the snippet of dialogue above because the writerhas dealt honestly with both his characters and his audience. He, and his editor, have taken a risk ofoffending their Christian readership, but not to the extent they would do ifthe characters had talked exactly like real street people. Out of context, Jerry's reply to theprostitute's profanity may look flippant or sarcastic, but when you read thestory, you see it is a completely sincere and natural thing for this characterto say. No apologies are made forJerry's simplicity, and I think even a skeptic must feel that even if Goddoesn't really speak to Jerry, Jerry himself is a refreshingly humble andhonest individual.
My point here is that good dialogue flows from thecharacters who speak it. But if we writestories about the kind of characters who swear, like the prostitute, we aregoing to have to make decisions one way or the other about the use ofobjectionable words and expressions. Itseems a little unrealistic to want to write honestly about sinners (can we dootherwise, if we are Christians who really believe the gospel?) and then cleanup their language to the point where they all sound like they just washed theirmouths out with Scope.
But let's look at the other end of the scale. Take the DIEHARD movies-- both are so thickwith profane and obscene references, you'd think the end-title theme "Letit Snow" referred to swear words. (Never min
Be exactly like me, and you can be my Valentine! That’s the message of this year’s Valentine Googledoodle. Never mind the discussions about same-sex marriage-- I am closing comments on this post simply because I do not want that incendiary topic to distract from a deeper issue that is illustrated here.
The rude andself-centered little girl continues skipping regardless of the succession ofhighly creative gifts presented by the young boy.
True, it takes him waytoo long to figure out that choosing just the right material present is not thekey to her heart. But why does she ignore his efforts so steadfastly? Is she too convinced of her own specialnessto have the grace to accept the typical gifts of flowers and candy? She gives him a disdainful look when hepresents those, but the next gift is a dinosaur sweater—why isn’t she squealingwith delight at his originality? Does she figure it’s kinder to pretend not tonotice him at all, rather than attempt to let him down easy?
But when he finally, abit dejectedly, decides to imitate her at the (typically feminine!) activity ofskipping rope, she at last takes note. In a gender-swapped version of the Narcissus myth, she now sees in him her ownreflection, and happily ‘falls in’ with him.
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| Narcissus woodcut by Irving Amen |
Seems to me it’s allabout me-me-me: Love me on MY terms, or I don’teven deign to notice you! I will only partner you if you will BE just like me!
I do suspect there issomething here related to the politically-correct montage of various ‘atypical’couples at the conclusion of the animation, though I am not going to get intothat issue here. Still, we should remember that at one time it was a given thatopposites attract.
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how lovely! beautiful picture also! :)