Last week my wife and I stole away for several days to a magical little hideaway in northern Michigan called Mackinac Island. I say magical because there aren’t any cars up there—save one or two ambulances for those necessary emergencies—there are a whole lot horses and buggies, along with a whole lot of fudge. To me, no cars, horses and buggies, and lots of fudge is magical. Anyway, along with my NOOK I brought a wonderful little book by Steven King. No, not one of his well-known horror flick tomes, but a memoir, a memoir on the craft of writing, called On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I’d highly recommend the read for anyone interested in writing, especially writing novels. Among several sections relating to the craft of writing, I was taken by one particular plea from this master storyteller. At several junctures King urged writers to do one thing above all else: tell the truth.
Above anything else a writer might set out to accomplish—entertaining the reader, teaching something, making a name for himself, enhancing her street creds—he should devote every jot, tittle, inkblot, and callous to telling the truth. Period.
Mid-way through, King confronts the question “What are you going to write about?” with this sage response: “Anything you damn well want. Anything at all…as long as you tell the truth.” (148) Flip a few pages back and King urges would-be-writers to throw off the encumbrances of “polite society and what it expects,” because “if you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.” (158) And then later, regarding building characters in fiction and composing character dialogue, King boils the writer’s job down to two things: “paying attention to how the real people around you behave and then tell the truth about what you see.” (189)
The only real responsibility given to the writer at every flick of the pen or peck of the keyboard is to shutdown societal restraint, come out from behind the shadows, transcend the oh-so-powerful pull toward fibbing, fudging, and hiding in order to simply tell what is true, about any number of things.
One “number of things” might be that abortion isn’t a woman’s healthcare issue; it’s barbarism. Another one might confront evangelicals with their carte blanche, gleeful support of a Mormon running for president. Yet another might insist that I am not something akin to a white supremacist for saying that people who actively practice homosexuality are actively revolting against God and ruining creation—in the same way heterosexuals who divorce or practice adultery actively revolt against God and ruin creation. Both are culpable vandalizers.
See how I just did that? I practiced the act of truth telling. I shutdown, came out from behind, and transcended.
How about you? What is it that you long to truth tell to your community, your culture, your church? Now do it, wherever you find yourself, using whatever medium and platform you’ve been given.
In the summer of 1999, Steven King had a life-altering encounter with a Dodge van (barely!) operated by a one Bryan Smith. In a postscript to On Writing, King recounts in vivid detail the accident that nearly stole his life. And while he doesn’t necessarily say it, I’d wager this experience catapulted King’s commitment to truth-telling well into the stratosphere. Why? Because life is short, and you never know when a flippin’ Dodge van will come out of nowhere and mow you over! And because, “in the end, [writing is] about enriching the lives of those who will read your work…” That sort of enrichment happens when a writer loves the reader enough to truth-tell. Heck, that sort of enrichment happens when people love others enough to truth-tell, especially Christian people who have been called, commissioned, sent, and empowered by King Jesus Himself to tell the truth about the need to repent, believe, and follow Him as Lord and Rescuer.
Because as Someone once said, it is in truth—that Truth—that freedom is found. And isn’t that why we write? To set people free?
