Going Deeper
Whenever I set out to write a new novel I want to make it better than the last one. And so I spend a lot of time researching the time in which it is to be set. I study the geography of the area, the language of the day, the dress, and a myriad of other details. I not only want my readers to be engaged with the plot, but I want them to identify with the plight of the characters. I want them to feel their pain, and rejoice with them in their victories. To do so, I need to get into my characters heads, to think their thoughts, to know my characters intimately, intensely.
But how does one get to know someone who is a figment of their own imagination? That would be easy if you are schizophrenic or psychopathic, but if you are a normal balanced person who wants to write a novel with characters who aren’t real, then the challenge is real. There are courses on character building, and even pre-make character sketches which guide us in creating the right persona for our characters. There are lists of personality traits and flaws, and sites on the internet which help us form our characters. But the reality is, there comes a time when we, the author, and character must get to know each other in a deeper way. We have to get into the character’s head. To do that, we must get into our own head. We must plumb the depths of our own psyche, and that can be a scary process. It can be painful. It could uncover some dark secrets that no one else knows, and that could also be very therapeutic. Like a doctor probing into an infection in order to bring about healing, it could bring to light those experiences, those memories, those invisible chains which bind us. We may find that by setting our characters free, we too may become free.
There is another aspect of going deeper I want to explore. We not only need to go deeper into our own psyche and that of our characters, but as a Christian; a believer in Christ, we have the ability, the capacity to know the mind of God the through indwelling Holy Spirit. I Corinthians 2:9-12 says, “But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. For God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
Since we have the access to the mind of God through the Spirit of God, we can go deep into the realms of love for the scriptures tell us in John 13:1 “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”
If you want to understand the pain of rejection, get to know Christ for He suffered the full spectrum of it. “He came unto His own and His own knew Him not.”
Isaiah 53:3 tells us that “He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
If you want to know compassion, look no further than Jesus, for He touched and healed the lepers, gave sight to the blind, and even raised the dead. He brought joy to the brokenhearted, laughter to the sad-hearted, and smiles to the heavy-hearted. He touched and embraced children fed the hungry, and fixed broken and shattered lives with a word.
If you want to know about plot twists and the unexpected happening, look no further than the cross and the empty tomb.
That may fly in the face of my unbelieving friends. I get that, but some of the best proses are in the Bible. Some of the best drama is in the Bible. The best love stories and best battle scenes are in the Bible. The Bible is not a dry, dusty history book, it is a Book that tells us what will happen. You reap what you sow, you break the law…you pay, you sow to the wind…you reap a whirlwind, you give to others…others will give to you, and the list goes on. If you want to live, then you must die. If you want to be great… you must serve. If you want to become wise…you must reject the wisdom of this world in exchange for the knowledge and wisdom which comes from above. This is not intended to offend those of you who do not share my faith, it is meant to extol the benefits of knowing the God of love and compassion and being able to pour that into our writings.
It is indeed a paradox; the deeper we go into the mind of God, the higher we go into the realms of glory. I Corinthians 2:8 says “Eye has not seen, or ear heard the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
To be a better writer, get to know God!
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