The Master Plan

If there was one thing that had me nervous before both of my novels were published, it was this:

How many readers would misunderstand what I was writing about?

By that, I don't mean that they would miss the allegory I use. Both The Pride of Central and The Jewelry of Grace can be understood as just the literal story. I want the reader to pick up some of the allegory, but it is not necessary to understand the novels.

What concerned me was whether or not the reader would understand that, just because certain characters do bad things, the story is not glorifying inappropriate, illegal or dangerous behavior.

In The Pride of Central, the baseball team deliberately damages property that belongs to a rival club. In The Jewelry of Grace, a couple of characters stray from their spouse or committed partner.

These scenes were needed in order to move the story, but more importantly, to let themes of forgiveness and redemption be at the forefront of the narrative. Heroes and supporting characters, even the "good guys", can't have forgiveness if it is never established that they did something objectively wrong.

But I know people - sometimes specific people I know personally, other times distant figures who write about books, films and such - who often miss the idea of a character making a mistake. Or they miss the idea that, if the bad guy does it, the novel is actually emphasizing that the action was wrong.

I've read about how Les Miz supposedly glorifies Fantine's fall into prostitution, that Star Wars glorifies how Darth Vader takes revenge against all who wronged him, and that the title character in Ben-Hur glorifies violence.

There are stories that glorify the wrong thing. But there were examples of the storytelling showing either that something horrible had happened to a character (Fantine), a character was doing the wrong thing (Darth Vader), or a character's worst traits came out so that the story could end with redemption (Ben-Hur).

I'll never have the sizable audience that those stories have. But large or small, I had to wonder if I would get reactions from people - even friends - who might only see that the baseball team was guilty of vandalism, and not the a price to be paid and a lesson of forgiveness. Would I hear from people who could only see the unfaithfulness of lover, but not that it showed the decent into depression that it brought?

Both novels were published besides these fears (and all the other fears that go into writing). But it was only last week that I heard something in my church that gave me a different perspective on it.

John Wilkinson, one of the teaching pastors at LCBC, was giving the message about the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk spends two-thirds of the book complaining that God is not doling out justice appropriately, but God answers that he will continue to do things from His Heavenly point of view. Wilkinson explained it this way: Habakkuk can only see one link in the chain of eternity. God sees the entire chain, and his justice, love, judgement, mercy and all else he does is with the whole of time everlasting in mind.

And then Wilkinson said this: The master plan only makes sense to the master.

Authors aren't gods - even the ones with egos big enough to believe they are. But authors do create their own literary universes. When your story hits the shelves or goes online, only you know how it will end. Even after people read it, if you have a sequel or series in mind, the readers still may not get why characters act the way they do. Heroes may be doing the right thing, but it looks wrong at the time. Or heroes may be doing the wrong thing, but it is part of their growth to doing the right thing. Or one hero does a seemingly unforgivable thing, but it is to set up a different hero's gift of grace. Or it looks like a hero is doing the wrong thing, but in the end you find out that was actually a villain.

If your audience is large enough, you will have readers who get to that scene with some questionable morality and not give the rest of the story time to explain it. That's okay. In your literary universe, you are the master. Only you need to understand.

Next week: Back to the baseball diamond