Trying Too Hard
Have
you ever read a book or watched a movie that…turned you off? It wasn’t necessarily
religious, but it just seemed “preachy?”
You
probably have. And you didn’t like it. And it made you upset because you wasted
your time on that. And you wanted to
get away from it. And you thought it was dumb. Probably.
Then
you come and read my blog, and I tell you to Write Things Worth Reading. I tell you to incorporate spirituality. And you do it. And it
seems…preachy. Just like that awful story you said you hated.
It’s
like you’ve beat your readers over the head with a point because you are trying
to change them. You
didn’t mean it to be like that. You
meant it to be a story that showed them the concepts close to your heart that
you find so beautiful. You meant it to make their throat tight, to make them
grateful for what they have, and make them cry and wish your story would
never end. That’s what I wanted
for my Vietnam War novel. But it didn’t come out like that. It came out
preachy.
Trying
to stir up gratitude in my readers for my country’s military personnel, I wrote
eloquent, gallant, heroic lines for my characters to say. I forced words into their mouths that didn’t sound natural. I made them “noble,”
but they ended up sounding “holier than thou.” Instead of pulling back and
letting my readers figure things out, I spelled everything out so that they’d perfectly understand
what I was trying to say. I
didn’t let my story be just that: a story. Instead, it was more of a sermon or
lecture.
I
was trying too hard.
I
watched a movie that reminded me of the first draft of my novel. I won’t name
the film, but it was about a dad whose son, an Army serviceman, was killed
while overseas. The son’s sacrifice made his dad wonder what he was doing to
fight for the privileges his son had died for. The dad realized he was sitting
at home, letting freedoms slip away that his son had died to preserve. It moved
him to action, to keep fighting, even on the Homefront.
The
movie had a lot of potential. The directors highlighted the costs of freedom.
They asked what I was doing to serve my country. They challenged me to live
better. But the problem was, they asked me through one character asking another.
They challenged me through a good, but a-bit-too-passionate speech from the dad
of the soldier. The best part of the movie (aside from the comedic sections)
was when the directors didn’t say anything. Instead, they showed me the cost of freedom in an end scene. That part
was the most emotional, the most thought-provoking, the most inspiring. That’s one of
the scenes that stuck with me. It
was a scene done right.
Now
compare that movie to the film Unbroken, mentioned in Faithful in Little, Faithful in Much. In Unbroken, the director didn’t preach at
me. She showed me. She showed me Louie Zamperini’s pain. She showed me the
misery. She let the characters talk like real people; they didn’t say things that made them sound
like they thought they were heroes. She
showed me Zamperini’s perseverance, courage, and heroism without calling it any
of that. She
let me draw those conclusions by
showing him never giving up through his actions, not his words.
Whoever
said, “Actions speak louder than words” knew what they were talking about. I think about Unbroken almost every day—it’s
a line that Louie’s older brother says: “If you can take it, you can make it.”
I think about it when I exercise. It’s silly, but it stayed with me. It pushes
me. I know other people have stuck to harder things than my exercising. If they
can do the hard things, so can I.
So,
when you write, back
off a little. Don’t try so hard.
Show us your hero being afraid. Show him exhausted. Show him depressed. Show
him being selfless, being brave, being a friend. It’s a lot harder than just
telling, but is so much better. Even though it’s scary that your reader might
not “get it,” do
your best to trust them to figure it out on their own.
Do
that, and you’ll have written a story worth reading.
You’ll have written a story with the potential to change its readers. You’ll have written something that’s worth being
called a good story. You’ll have written something we want to come back to.
…
“I have always noticed that in
portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.” –
Gertrude Stein
…
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