Tag Archives: Books

Is It Wrong to Read Romance Novels?

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Recently I visited an old Christian message board that I used to frequent to see if it was still active. I came across a conversation where someone asked if reading romance novels was wrong. The only respondents were men. One said he thought they weren’t wrong, but they were a silly waste of time. Another said he thought they could be wrong.

I didn’t want to take the time to find my log-in information and wasn’t inclined to get into the discussion anyway. But I thought about the question for a few days.

So, do I think it’s wrong to read a romance novel?

It depends.

“Romance” covers a wide territory. Many books outside of the romance genre will contain a love interest. But in a romance, the main point of the plot is two people coming to realize and declare their love for each other.

Is there anything wrong with that as a basic plot? No. The Bible contains romances (Song of Solomon, Ruth and Boaz, Jacob and Rachel). Ephesians 5 tells us marriage is a picture of Christ and the church.

When I’m getting to know a couple, one of the first things I want to know is how they met. That usually leads into a longer story of how they knew they were right for each other. It’s always neat to see the Lord’s hand in bringing them together.

But that’s real life. Isn’t a fictional romance a waste of time?

No, a story isn’t a waste just because it’s imaginary. Jesus used fictional stories to make a point. So did OT prophets.

Fiction fleshes out truth. When I’m listening to a sermon, I might get the pastor’s point but wonder what it looks like in real life. Then he shares a sermon illustration so I see the truth in action.

Randy Alcorn said, “Some Christians view fiction as the opposite of truth. But sometimes it opens eyes to the truth more effectively than nonfiction.”

We read fiction for a number of reasons: to see life through another’s eyes, to get to know how other people think, to develop empathy, to experience other cultures, to stimulate thinking, to learn discernment, gain information, to broaden our horizons.

Can we do all that with romances? Sure.

Some of the classics are romances: Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, all of Jane Austen’s novels.

But the best romances have something going on besides falling in love. One or both characters will need to grow or overcome something. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, the two main characters need to get past their titular characteristics before they can come together. In Sense and Sensibility, one sister needs to learn the value of restraint and appreciating more about a potential husband than good looks, charm, and excitement. All of Austen’s romances involve a whole lot more than just the love story. They are commentary on the times and culture in the setting as well.

The same things can happen in a modern romance.

So how can romances be wrong?

When they produce longings that can’t be fulfilled now. If you’re struggling with being single, a romance might encourage you that God could do the same for you. Or it might discourage you because He hasn’t done so yet. If you’re in a long engagement before you can be married, you’ll have discern whether reading romances makes waiting harder for you.

When they focus too much on the physical. I avoid most modern secular fiction, especially romances, for this reason. I only pick one up after carefully researching reviews or receiving a good report from a trusted friend. But even Christian romances can go too far here. And even if a romance avoids bedroom scenes, there can be an overemphasis on her seeing his bulging muscles under his shirt, wondering what it would be like to kiss him, feeling an electric jolt when they accidentally touch. Do such things happen when people are becoming attracted to each other? Sure. But in real life or fiction, the physical shouldn’t be the main thing.

When they make you discontent with everyday life. Lisa-Jo Baker shared in The Middle Matters that a teenager quoted in the Huffington Post felt her love life would never be adequate “until someone runs through an airport to stop me from getting on a flight.” The girl probably saw that in a movie somewhere. Her romantic life is going to be difficult if she sets up a test scenario in an airport every time she thinks she’s in love. Real love is usually shown in everyday ways more than the grand gesture.

When you long for a perfect “Mr Right.” There is no perfect Mr. or Mrs. Right. The best writers write flawed, realistic characters. But sometimes a character can seem so exquisitely attractive that no one in real life could measure up. If you find yourself looking down on your husband (or potential husband, if you’re not yet married) because he falls short of a fictional hero, it might be time to lay aside the book.

I sometimes see romance writers talking about writing swoon-worthy characters, especially male characters. A character having admirable qualities is one thing. But I don’t want to swoon for anyone other than my husband.

Personally, romances aren’t my favorite genre. I read some. But I don’t want the story to stop with a wedding and a promise of happily ever after. To me, the wedding is a beginning, not an ending. I prefer women’s fiction or historical fiction, where there is more going on than an initial romance, though there may be romance in the story.

But thankfully, there are romances that are good stories, where the characters grow and learn, where we learn about the culture or setting of the book, where we can connect with human growth and experience.

“It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language” ― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Surprised by Joy

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I’ve read a few biographies of C. S. Lewis and recently watched The Most Reluctant Convert, based on his journey from atheism to theism to Christianity. It occurred to me while watching the latter that I had never read Lewis’ testimony in his own words, Surprised by Joy. So I got the audiobook version of his book.

I thought that, since these other sources all quoted heavily from this book, I’d be familiar with most of it. Much was familiar, but there was a lot I didn’t know. There were also some incidents missing that I thought came from this book.

Lewis writes that this book is not an autobiography of his whole life til that point. He focuses mainly on everything that led to his conversion. That story encompasses much of his early life and what went into his becoming the personality and type of thinker he was. As he goes on, the focus narrows to just his spiritual movement.

One fact that I don’t remember reading before was that both Lewis and his brother had only one workable joint in their thumbs. Trying to make models of things or cut cardboard with scissors ended in frustration and tears. Games at school were the bane of his existence because he could never play them well. He could write and draw, though, and he liked solitude, which factors led to his creating stories about “dressed animals” in what he called “Animal Land.” His brother drew and wrote stories about India and trains and ships. Eventually they combined their imaginary worlds into what they called Boxen.

It was quite interesting to follow all that made Lewis into the man he became, from being unable to reason with his father, to (mostly negative) experiences at school, to his time with a private tutor (the “Great Knock”) who demanded that he be able to defend every opinion he expressed. Then the books he read and people he came across and conversations he had with them at various junctions all led step-by-step to his becoming a Christian. His journey was driven by philosophy more than emotion.

Surprised by Joy was written after the majority of Lewis’ other books were published. He said he wrote the book partly to answer questions he regularly received and partly to correct some misconceptions. Some of his detractors assumed he came from a Puritanical background, but Lewis assures them that the family he grew up in was not religious at all. Then when he came to make his own choice about religion, he turned against it though he did not tell his father. It was only many years and much reading later, after he began his career, that he came to believe. He likened it to a chess game where God knocked down his objections and false beliefs one by one by one.

The joy in Lewis’ title was what he described as a feeling of longing. It first came upon him when his brother brought in a toy garden he had made in the lid of a tin. It was something beautiful but ineffable, a small glimpse into something greater. “Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing” (p. 86, Kindle version). At times through his life, he sought to recreate that feeling. After he became a Christian, he realized that what he thought of as joy was not an end in itself, but a signpost to point him to God.

A few quotes from the book that stood out to me:

The greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life” (p. 137).

[Of his tutor, Kirk] Here was talk that was really about something. Here was a man who thought not about you but about what you said. No doubt I snorted and bridled a little at some of my tossings; but, taking it all in all, I loved the treatment. After being knocked down sufficiently often I began to know a few guards and blows, and to put on intellectual muscle. In the end, unless I flatter myself, I became a not contemptible sparring partner (p. 167).

I knew very well by now that there was hardly any position in the world save that of a don in which I was fitted to earn a living, and that I was staking everything on a game in which few won and hundreds lost. As Kirk had said of me in a letter to my father (I did not, of course, see it till many years later), ‘You may make a writer or a scholar of him, but you’ll not make anything else. You may make up your mind to that.’ And I knew this myself; sometimes it terrified me (p. 224).

I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste. (p. 288).

There’s a verse of “Just As I Am” by Charlotte Elliott that is not as well known as the rest of the hymn, but seems to sum up Lewis’ journey of faith:

Just as I am, Thy love unknownHas broken every barrier downNow to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

I’m grateful God pursued Lewis and “broke every barrier down,” both for Lewis’ sake and our own. What a gift Lewis has been to us, even so many years after he lived. But his example gives me hope that God will do the same for dear ones I pray for.

Becoming Free Indeed by Jinger Duggar Vuolo

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I didn’t watch any of the TV shows about the Duggars, an ultra-conservative Christian family with 19 Children (19 Kids and Counting, Counting On). But I’d heard about them. I knew people who were caught up in the same teachings they were, though perhaps not to the same extent. I didn’t realize, at first, that those teachings came from Bill Gothard. I had heard of him, too, and knew he was some kind of Bible teacher. But somehow I never heard him speak or read anything he wrote.

Jinger Duggar Vuolo is the sixth of the Duggar children, the fourth girl. It wasn’t until one of her sisters married a man who was a Christian who loved God but didn’t hold to all the things the Duggars did that Jinger began to question her own beliefs. She discovered some of what she had been taught was not in the Bible. To her credit, she didn’t “deconstruct” her faith and throw everything out, good and bad. She sought counsel and studied the Bible for herself. She tells about her journey in Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear.

There are areas that the Bible doesn’t speak to directly and that Christians can differ on and follow their consciences. But Gothard made those issues concrete right or wrong, which produced a kind of legalism. Those convictions also produced a lot of fear for Jinger.

So much of my fear and anxiety after I became a Christian was tied to my overactive conscience. I had created false standards of righteousness: standards that were impossible for me, or anyone, to measure up to. But where did those false standards come from? At the time, I thought my convictions came from the Bible. Now I know that wasn’t the case. Now I know that instead of coming from the perfect Word of God, they came from the mind of an imperfect man (p. 23-24).

According to Gothard, following his principles was the same as obeying God (p. 28).

But even worse was Gothard’s misinterpretation of the Bible.

I believed that God had a specific, individualized interpretation for me. Bill Gothard called these personal interpretations of Scripture rhemas—communication from God to one person and no one else. The IBLP website defines a rhema as “a verse or portion of Scripture that the Holy Spirit brings to our attention with application to a current situation or need for direction” (p. 111).

I assumed the same thing was supposed to happen to me when I read the Bible. I was hoping to discover a hidden meaning that would be revealed not through words but through thoughts I would have as I was reading those words.

Gothard’s rhemas weren’t limited to the Bible. He also saw God communicating His will through personal experiences (pp. 111-112).

When I was younger, I didn’t realize that when Gothard told stories, he was finding truth in analogies, not in the Word of God (p. 113).

Gothard was eventually accused of sexual harassment. Jinger writes that he surrounded himself in his offices with young blond women, many of whom did not have a father or grandfather. Even though girls working in an office “outside the home was forbidden among IBLP families” (p. 167), somehow Gothard followers just thought this a quirk. Only later did stories of his misconduct emerge.

I appreciate Jinger’s use of the word “disentangling.” That’s just what she had to do as she studied the Bible for herself: disentangle the false things she had been taught from what the Bible actually said.

Jinger is very gracious and doesn’t throw her parents under the bus. She credits her mom, in particular, with pointing her to grace. But Jinger does firmly expose Gothard’s false teachings and actions. She does so not only to share her story, but to be a help to anyone caught up in his teachings or the false teachings of anyone.

But this book is helpful even for those of us who weren’t Gothard followers. It helped me understand where some of my friends caught up in these teachings were coming from. And I could identify with a good deal of what Jinger wrote, even though my issues were not exactly the same as hers. I think as we grow in the Lord, we all have to disentangle some of the false ideas we’ve encountered from the truth of God’s Word.

It took a lot of courage for Jinger to speak out against the false teachings and actions she grew up with. I’m thankful God led her to a right understanding and that she shared what she learned for the benefit of others.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Wrestling with an Angel

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Wrestling with an Angel: A Story of Love, Disability, and the Lessons of Grace

When Greg Lucas and his wife adopted a baby that had been abandoned to the hospital where his wife worked, they had no idea what was ahead of them. Their son, Jake, seemed normal, healthy, and happy at first. But after his first birthday, he began having seizures where he’d suddenly stop breathing. Various doctors and medications were tried. The seizures eventually stopped, but Jake was left with a series of issues: Sensory Integration Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and autism—just to name a few.

I had read a few of Greg’s blog posts at Wrestling with an Angel via links from Tim Challies. Then in 2010, Greg’s book was published as Wrestling with an Angel: A Story of Love, Disability and the Lessons of Grace. I’ve had the Kindle version for a while, but just recently the audio version was included free with my Audible subscription.

Greg tells of what he’s learned through helping Jake over eighteen years. Jake operated at the level of a two-year-old. Every bath time became a wresting match due to Jake’s severe sensory issues. As Jake got older and stronger, taking care of him became harder.

How do you care for someone who resists your love with violence, who opposes your very presence even when that presence is necessary for his good? How do you keep on loving when the person you are devoted to seems incapable of affection? The only way to make any sense of this kind of relationship is to experience it through the truly unconditional love of the Father (p. 23, Kindle version).

Over and over, Greg and his wife were brought to the total end of themselves in caring for Jake. But they found that a good place to be, because there they could only lean on God’s grace.

Greg writes with raw honesty but also with great sensitivity and beauty. He writes of the grace of an occasional easy day, a glimpse of his son as normal; how humiliation leads to humility, how they found ways to communicate when Jake had only five words in his vocabulary, how dangerous it is when someone can’t express himself, concerns over whether and how much Jake can understand about Jesus and salvation, Jake’s tendency towards injury, concerns about how to take care of Jake as he got older, agonizing over whether to send him to a specialized residential school away from home.

I think this would be an excellent book for someone with a mentally or developmentally disabled child or relative or friend. But I found it beneficial as well, even though I don’t know anyone with problems as severe as Jake’s. The lessons of faith and grace shine through as we realize the spiritual disabilities we all have and our Father’s abundant love in caring for us.

Dakota December and Dakota Destiny

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Lauraine Snelling’s Dakota Plans series is made up of five novellas about Norwegian immigrants to North Dakota in the early 1900s. The first three, Dakota Dawn, Dakota Dream, and Dakota Dusk, were packaged together in an audiobook I reviewed here.

The last two, Dakota December and Dakota Destiny, were packaged together in a separate audiobook.

In Dakota December, Sheriff Caleb Stenesrude’s dog needed to go out during a Christmas Eve blizzard, but then stayed out yipping instead of coming back in. Caleb went out to see what was wrong and found a woman collapsed on a horse. He caught her as she fell and discovered a young child clinging to her. When he brought them into the house, he saw that the woman was with child. Her cries let him know she was in labor. He was in for a unique Christmas Eve.

Later, the woman, Johanna Carlson, is ensconced with her children in a widow’s home until she can recover and the weather settles down. She’s reluctant to tell these good people her troubles. But she needs to get away as soon as possible, before her angry and violent husband finds them.

In Dakota Destiny, Pastor Moen’s daughter, Mary, is grown up and in a teacher’s school, thanks to a wealthy benefactress. Mary is in love with Will, the blacksmith’s apprentice we met in the second book, who is also now grown up. But when World War I begins, Will feels he must enlist. Mary spends the summer taking care of a sick woman’s children while Will goes to training camp and then out to sea. When Mary goes back to school, she receives the devastating news that Will is missing and presumed dead.

She carries on with her school and finds her first job as a teacher. A year later, another man seeks her hand. But she can’t shake the feeling that Will is still alive.

The last book was much shorter and seemed a little underdeveloped. It was odd that characters in books 3 and 4 had the same last name, but didn’t seem to be related to each other. The narrator of all the books was really good, but used a different voice for the pastor in book 4 than in the rest of the books. And I disagreed with a statement in the last book that we are all God’s children (we’re not).

But otherwise, I enjoyed both these books. A few characters from the previous books were rarely mentioned again, but others played prominent parts. I’m going to miss this little community. I especially appreciated an older lady, Mrs. Norgard, and the ways she found to help and encourage people.

Dakota Dawn, Dream, and Dusk

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Dakota series by Lauraine Sneling

Lauraine Snelling wrote a series of five novellas about Norwegian immigrants to North Dakota in the 1900s. The first three, Dakota Dawn, Dakota Dream, and Dakota Dusk, were packaged together in a free-with-my-subscription audiobook. I don’t know what’s up with the picture on the cover—no one dressed that way in the 1900s!

In Dakota Dawn, Norah Johanson’s fiance had gone to America three years ago, promising to send for her. Now she’s on her way. But when she arrives, she finds that Hans has just recently died. Reverend and Mrs. Moen take her in for as long as she needs to decide what to do. She doesn’t have the money to go back home, so she must find work.

Carl Detchman is a quiet but stubborn German immigrant whose wife has just died in childbirth. The Moens have taken care of his young daughter and infant son, but he can’t expect them to do so forever. The Moen’s house guest who has been helping with the children seems capable. But he can’t invite a beauitful young single woman to his home without tongues wagging. So he proposes a marriage of convenience. If she’ll come and keep house and take care of the children until he can make other arrangements, then they can annul the marriage and he’ll pay for her ticket back home.

Norah is shocked at first, but agrees. And, of course, the two fall in love. This is a frequently seen story line with an inevitable conclusion, but it was enjoyable to see the two work through their issues and come first to appreciate, and then to love each other.

In Dakota Dream, Clara Johanson, Norah’s sister, received a ticket to her sister’s town and a picture from a handsome stranger offering to pay her way to Dakota if she’ll be his wife. Clara agrees. But when she arrives at her sister’s house, no one knows who this man is.

What she doesn’t know is that Jude Weinlander brought Clara over to play a trick on his brother, Dag. He signed Dag’s name to the letter but sent his own picture. Dag is tasked with meeting Clara at the train station and taking her to the Detchman’s. He does not make a good first impression, with matted hair and beard and filth from the livery where he works.

Clara stays with her sister until the pastor asks if she can come and stay with an elderly woman who is not doing well and needs full time care. Clara has no idea the change this will make in her life—and in her relationship with Dag.

In Dakota Dusk, Jude Weinlander is disgusted. His trick on Dag backfired. He’s run out of money due to drinking and gambling and has to move with his wife back to his mother’s house.

When a fire destroys his home, after he heals, he becomes a drifter, traveling from place to place looking for work. He doesn’t drink or gamble any more, but he can’t go home. He comes upon a town rebuilding their school after a prairie fire. He stays to help, and then is asked to stay on to help rebuild other homes.

He can’t help but notice the pretty school teacher, Rebekka Stenesrude. But he can never pursue a relationship. He’s not worthy. No one could love him if they learned what he had done.

These stories were set some years after Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, so there are many similar incidents—grasshopper infestations, prairies fires, etc .But these stories are told primarily from the viewpoint of immigrants adjusting to a new land. I felt the same way I did after reading Laura’s books—glad I was born in my time and not hers!

There were so many hardships in those times. The services for help that we take for granted didn’t exist then, so people had to help each other, and accept help, or die.

But great faith and character emerged as well. I enjoyed these stories as well as the characters and the obstacles they overcame.

The Space Between Words

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In The Space Between Words by Michele Phoenix, Jessica and two friends in Denver take a vacation to Paris. Though they’ll do some sight-seeing, they are mainly there to scout out treasures at antique stores and flea markets.

But then Jessica is shot during the Paris attacks in 2015. She’s traumatized by all she saw in the attacks. When she heals enough to be moved, she wants to get out of Paris as quickly as possible.

But one of her friends talks her into staying, at least for a little while. In one flea market, Jessica find an antique sewing box that seems to draw her. Back at her room, she discovers a secret compartment in the box which contains several sheets of handwritten paper and a few pages from an antique French Bible.

A new friend helps Jessica translate the ancient French. The sheets held the writing of a young woman named Adeline Baillard in 1695. She and her family were Huguenots when the Catholic King outlawed their faith and sanctioned torture and persecution against them. Adeline’s family gets her sister and brother and his family out, but Adeline stays with her parents. She’s a teacher and wants to help her students as much as she can while there is time.

As Jessica reads Adeline’s words, she feels compelled to find what happened to her and her family, especially her sister. Her own healing and mental and spiritual health are wrapped up in Adeline’s fate. She can’t understand how Adeline could believe so strongly in a God who would allow such atrocities to happen.

I’m sorry to say that I had completely forgotten about the Paris attacks of 2015. The year isn’t given in the novel, but the details seemed more reality than fiction, so I looked up and read more about them in Wikipedia.

This is the first book of Michele’s I have read, and I was captivated. So much of the story is touching, but subtle humor is sprinkled throughout as well. One surprise twist was heart-wrenching.

Just a few quotes that stood out to me:

I knew he worried, as I did, that that part of my life had been amputated by fear.

Father held what remained of our Bible in both hands and declared, “This is the Truth that binds us to each other and to God. These are the words exhorting us to faithfulness and strength. These are the pages that emancipated our faith from the dictates of a King. We will carry them with us as a testament to our resistance, as a reminder of all the Huguenot community has endured” (p. 115).

My grandmother believed in the power of words, in the capacity of story to transcend both time and place. This scroll is evidence of the temerity of her escape, a tribute to the ancestors who lost their world to save their faith (p. 288).

There were a couple of odd places where a child seemed to see someone who wasn’t there. But other than that, I loved everything about this book.

Unveiling the Past

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In Kim Vogel Sawyer’s novel, Unveiling the Past, Megan DeFord and Sean Eagle are married cold case detectives. They are working on a case about the death of two young brothers when their captain interrupts them. A friend of the captain’s wants to investigate her father’s disappearance from several years before. The missing father was accused of embezzling from his bank, though there was no evidence to suggest he did. But his sudden disappearance lent credence to the idea that he did steal the money. His daughter, Sheila, wants to find out what happened, and she wants a woman detective. Since Meghan is the only woman in the office, the captain wants her to take the case.

Sean, however, feels strongly about the case they are on. He could give it to one of the other detective teams, but he has been personally involved with the family and feels he would be letting them down to drop the case now.

Reluctantly, Sean and Meghan decide to work with another detective team so Sean can finish his case while Meghan works on the one from the captain. Unfortunately, that leaves Sean working with Tom Farber, the most cantankerous detective on site.

On a personal level, Sean longs to start a family. But Meghan’s highly dysfunctional mother and absentee father make her uncertain of her own maternal capacities.

In fact, Meghan’s lack of a father in her life makes her sympathize with Sheila. Meghan’s mother had finally given her the name of her father a few years ago. Maybe it’s time to look him up.

This book is the sequel to Bringing Maggie Home, one of my top books of last year. Each book could be read on its own, but I would recommend both of them.

The title of the book reflects many layers of unveiling, both in the two main characters, the people they are investigating, Meghan’s parents, and Farber.

I mentioned in my review of the first book that I like Christian fiction that shows Christian people doing normal Christian things. Two characters in the book are new Christians. Meghan, in particular, wrestles with discerning between her own desires and God’s will.

Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a lot.

I listened to the audiobook, nicely read by Barbara McCulloh.

Quotes about Reading

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Reading is one of my favorite pastimes, and for years I’ve collected quotes about reading and books that rang true for me. Here are a few:

“And indeed, what is better than to sit by one’s fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is burning?”
~ Gustave Flaubert

“…and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
~Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”
~ Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
~ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
~ Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature

“The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.”
~ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Dec. 15

“Far from being an escape from reality, good literature is a window into reality.”
~ Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Woman’s Heart

Which of these resonates with you? Do you have any other good quotes about books or reading?

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Writing for the Soul

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Writing for the Soul: Instruction and Advice from an Extraordinary Writing Life by Jerry B. Jenkins is part memoir as well as instruction, advice, and tips about writing. But even the biographical parts are written to share what he learned.

Jenkins started out working for a newspaper writing for the sports section while he was still in high school. His goal was to write for the Chicago Tribune until a message at camp about surrendering his all to the Lord led him to do just that. A job editing a Sunday School paper for Scripture Press under a tough editor caused him to hone his skills. An interview led to his first book, a biography. Many of his next books were biographies or “as told to” stories. Then he branched into fiction. Left Behind, the book for which he is probably most well known, was his 125th book.

In Writing for the Soul, Jenkins covers everything from his family policy, motives and tools for writing, discovering what to write and your audience, characters, plot, perspective, and much more. Some of the chapters end with a question and answer section. Interspersed through the chapters are smaller sections covering topics ranging from working with celebrities to the need for humility to internal dialogue of characters. In a paper book, these might have been sidebars: in the Kindle version I read, they were paragraphs withing the chapter but set off by dividing lines.

In-between chapters, Jenkins shares experiences with some of the people whose biographies he has written, from Meadowlark Lemon and other sports figures to musician B. J. Thomas to Billy Graham.

I especially appreciated the sections on making inspirational writing not sound “preachy.”

As you can imagine, I have myriads of quotations marked in this book. Just a few:

Know where your audience is coming from, imagine someone you know or know of who fits in that audience, and pretend you’re writing to that person alone (p. 5, Kindle version).

What’s your passion? Your strength? What field do you really know? Write about it. Fashion a short story, write a poem, interview a leader in the field, or work on a novel. Put yourself and your interests into it (p. 11).

Big doors turn on small hinges (p. 13).

The most attractive quality in a person is humility. Sometimes money and fame will come whether or not you expect or seek them. But if you become enamored with the trappings of success, they become your passion. You need to return to your first love . . . Don’t let success or pressure change you. If you become a success, stick with what got you there (p. 38).

Choice words in precise order bear power unmatched by amplified images and sound and technical magic (p. 54).

Don’t confuse inspiration with initiative. Initiative solves your procrastination problem and pulls you through writer’s block. Inspiration gives you something worth writing about (p. 57).

Variety still keeps the batteries fresh (p. 71).

The stuff that comes easy takes the most rewriting. And the stuff that comes hard reads the easiest (p. 194).

This book was first published in 2006, and my copy was updated in 2012. Just a couple of places seem a little out of date, like working with cassette tapes for interviews (unless people still do that. I’d assume most recording is done digitally now).

He also doesn’t have much esteem for self-published books, thinking the goal of self-publishing is to be picked up by a major publisher. But self-publishing has increased exponentially in the last few years and garners much more respect now than when the first self-published books came across as “homemade” and unprofessional. I wonder if his views have changed on that.

But the majority of his advice is timeless, and I gained much from it.

You can also find Jerry Jenkins’ advice at his web site and blog.

(This book would work for either the memoir or arts category of the Nonfiction Reader Challenge.)