Twelve Pieces of Flesh Series

creativity, spirituality, Twelve Pieces of Flesh Series, writing

In Defense of the F-Word

(This is Part 3 of the series, Twelve Pieces of Flesh where I discuss the crisis of conscience of the Christian writer–say that three times fast. I recommend reading Part 1 and Part 2 before continuing.)

Relax, I don’t mean that f-word.

I mean fuck.

As far as I’m aware, there aren’t any cuss words in the Bible, though Matthew does record Peter using profanity when he denied Jesus (Matthew 26:73-75). Otherwise, the Bible is solidly on the pro-clean language team:

“But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.” Colossians 3:8

“Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking…” Ephesians 5:4

“Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.” Proverbs 4:24

The first two verses are prescriptive for churches, the last is for God’s people as a whole. There’s no way around it. God doesn’t want Christians cussing.

The Bible is also clear that our words are a reflection of our character. In Matthew 12:34, Jesus says, “How can you speak good things when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Therein lies the Christian writer’s conundrum. How does he write his immoral character’s dialogue or narration if that character isn’t able to “speak good things” that Christians are supposed to?

There are a few tricks writers use to write “fuck”-free fiction:

Set the story in a time period where contemporary curse words are anachronistic so the reader doesn’t notice their absence.
Allude to explicit language instead of including it. (“He cursed under his breath.”)
Say “gosh-darn,” “shoot,” and maybe even “crap” if the writer is feeling especially audacious.
Write in the third person to avoid stream-of-consciousness profanity.

Francine Rivers employed all four of these in the only book I’ve read more than once, Redeeming Love. I wouldn’t have read her story six times if it wasn’t moving. But, every time a character said “horse manure” instead of “bullshit,” I was jarred into remembering that this was Christian fiction, not realism.

So, why, if a masterful Christian author can write a clean novel, did I write Never Touched with R-rated profanity? There are three possibilities:

I’m not as skilled a writer as Francine Rivers and therefore incapable of working within such strict constraints.
I’m a sinner.
My protagonist is irreverent and dark and sees no issue with her crude language.

The first two are undeniable.

The third brings me back to Matthew 12:34, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” If you’ll allow me to return to the journalist analogy from Excessive Force, I wouldn’t be a trustworthy reporter if I didn’t allow Sawyer to cuss, to say nasty things like “Fuck him. Please, I mean.” or to think “Every night, I fell asleep to the thought that’d I’d grow the courage Simone did, the strength or balls or foolishness to just say, ‘Fuck it, let the chips fall where they may.'” That’s what’s in Sawyer’s heart, so that’s what comes out of her mouth.

Thus, the crisis: keep my tongue/pen pure or tell the truth.

I chose the latter.

Am I causing you to sin if you read this book littered with “obscene talk?” I can’t cause you to sin. I suppose I could encourage you to. But reading profane talk is the same as reading a news article about a shooting. It’s awful. It’s indignifying. It’s a reflection of the subject’s heart. But it’s not a sin to witness.

If you have personal convictions about reading explicit language, Never Touched isn’t for you. No hard feelings. I’m relieved you know this before reading the book.

If you don’t need your fiction to be “fuck”-free, excellent.

Never Touched isn’t–in any sense of the word.

Next time.

August 24, 2018/1 Comment/by Laney Wylde

creativity, reading, spirituality, Twelve Pieces of Flesh Series, writing

Excessive Force

(This is Part 2 of the series, Twelve Pieces of Flesh where I discuss the crisis of conscience of the Christian writer–say that three times fast. I recommend reading Part 1 before continuing.)

I am not an author.

I am just a writer.

The distinction is significant, so I hope I can explain it to full justice. Authors create; they invent. They are sovereign over every event within their fictional world, every choice their characters make, every result thereof.

Writers report. They watch scenes unfurl and scribble frantically to catch every detail. They eavesdrop and interview so they can feel what their characters feel, think what they think. Then they rewrite countless times until they are certain the story on the page matches the one they have seen and touched and heard.

And, yes, this story originated in the writer’s mind. The characters aren’t living, breathing humans (or creatures for you non-realism writers). The events didn’t take place within the physical realm. But if writers do their job, the fiction they recorded is as real as what you ate for lunch today–unless, of course, you ate nothing, in which case you should go eat.

By this definition, writers are simply journalists with privileged information. And journalists can witness some gnarly stuff–war, genocide, famine, poverty, violence, trafficking, racism–the scope of the human experience. Though, most journalists tend to favor the unraveling of humanity over the stitching up (“If it bleeds, it leads.”).

A masterful journalist will do his best to record his assignment with artful skill and integrity. When the subject of his interview has shot someone, we expect him to be forthcoming. Sometimes, we expect the gory details. We expect–or at least hope for–the unbiased truth.

But at no point do we blame the journalist for the shooting.

So, why should we blame writers for their characters’ violence?

In Never Touched, I faced the task of recording multiple assault scenes–a few of them sexual in nature. Now, of course, as the writer, I had the choice of how to report these. What exact detail would be necessary to elicit empathy from the reader? How much would be gratuitous? How little would make the reader too comfortable?

Here’s where I landed: Sawyer is the poster child for the ripple effect of abuse. In other words, her story concerns the result of violence, not violence itself. So, while there are scenes of brutality in the story, for the most part, they are alluded to rather than explicitly portrayed.

Does this mean that a Christian writer should never include graphic violence in a story? No! Of course, she can. She should write what she sees, what her reader needs to know, whatever it is that completes the story.

After all, I think we can all agree that those ancient writers splattered the Bible with graphic violence (see Part 1). Why? Because that’s what they saw, that’s what their readers needed to know, that’s what completed God’s story.

I have to wonder if the abundance of violence in the Bible is why we Christians tend to excuse similar content in media more readily than explicit language or sexuality. Some of us who will see a movie rated R for violence won’t see a movie rated PG-13 for sexual content. But, if this is the case, shouldn’t Christians be able to stomach sex scenes as the Bible depicts those, too?

Never cursing, though.

Next time.

August 24, 2018/1 Comment/by Laney Wylde

Never Touched, reading, spirituality, Twelve Pieces of Flesh Series

On Receiving a Forearm in the Mail (And Maybe a Hand, Too)

“Okay, I have two items of homework for you….Ready for them?” Jonalyn asked at the close of our mentoring session.

“Ready!” I was anxious to know I was doing the right thing, or at least not the terribly wrong thing.

Her assignments: read Judges (the book of the Bible) chapters 19 through 21 and jot down every graphic atrocity, then ask God why he included those passages in his Word.

Easy enough. I’d read Judges at least twice, probably more. No biggie.

Oh, pre-assignment Laney, you were so naive.

To say Judges 19 is rough is a cataclysmic understatement. Want a summary? You don’t, but you’re getting one:

Concubine cheats on Husband.

Concubine leaves him to stay with her dad.

Husband picks up Concubine.

On the way home, Husband and Concubine stay at a Stranger’s house in a town of the tribe of Benjamen.

Men of Benjamen (MoB) pound on Stranger’s door imploring him to surrender Husband for gang-raping fun.

Stranger says that that’s not polite to do to a guest. “But, here, take his concubine and my virgin daughter instead.”

MoB accepts offer of Concubine as object of gang-rape.

Mob rapes Concubine until they tire of her.

Concubine crawls back to Stranger’s door.

Concubine dies.

Husband nearly trips over her body as he leaves in the morning. He tells her, “Get up; let’s go,” before realizing she’s dead.

Husband cuts her into twelve pieces and sends her body parts all over Israel to rally vengeance against MoB.

Chapters 20-21 detail Israel’s war against their own tribe Benjamen, their genocide of that tribe except for a few hundred men. These survivors, of course, deserved women to bear their children, so they kidnaped some and killed other virgins’ families so they’d be free to marry them. Lucky ladies.

Still with me? Good.

I’ve read this story before, but only glossed over it. This time, though, I was that concubine being shoved out the door to that mob. I was terrified. I was betrayed. I was worthless.

I was that virgin daughter hearing my dad’s eagerness to throw me into anguish and disgrace for the sake of some guy he just met. I watched that scared concubine take my place. I had to go on living with this father who saw me as something to hand over to any man.

Of course, until I was killed in the genocide.

Three chapters are dedicated to this narrative and these chapters are bookended with, “In those days Israel had no king.” The last chapter ends with, “everyone did as he saw fit.”

So, you could say that the biblical writers included this story in the Canon to show what the kids did when Dad was away or to show why there were tens of thousands of Jews just missing from history. Fine. But why so much detail? Why did I need to know the concubine died with her hands on the threshold of the stranger’s door? Or know that he used a knife not a sword to cut up his concubine? Or have the image of him chopping her up “limb by limb?”

Because that’s storytelling.

Because I wouldn’t be outraged if I knew some men raped a woman a few thousand years ago. I’d be indignant for a minute. But I wouldn’t grieve. I wouldn’t wonder what her name was or what she felt as she died. I wouldn’t ache over the human condition–over the condition of even God’s people. I wouldn’t think of my condition–of the violence or greed or flagrant selfishness I’m capable of.

That’s what this writer of Judges did with a few concise but gory chapters.

If the biblical writers did it, why can’t the Christian author? Why can’t he document the ugly side of humanity with the same sharpness and clarity? Why don’t Christian literary agents accept submissions with even one curse word or whiff of sexuality? If we look through the shelves of a Christian bookstore, why can’t we find characters as broken as the concubine?

Characters as broken as Sawyer?

Is it because Sawyer, and subsequently her author, use unwholesome talk?

Is it because she has extramarital sex, and her author is guilty of writing sex scenes which must be erotica which causes lust which is sin?

Is it because her author’s portrayal of her sin would cause us to stumble?

Or are we afraid that, if we look at Sawyer, we’ll see the desperate friend we never reached out to, the abuse we turned a blind eye to, the unloved Jesus sought but we shunned?

Or are we afraid we’ll see ourselves?

That was the final part of Jonalyn’s assignment for me: see if my motivations for writing Never Touched in all its R-rated glory aligned with God’s reasons for including stories like Judges 19 in the Bible.