Be a Better Writer--TRANSPARENCY
Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 10:18 am
Below is a paragraph from a typical devotional or inspirational writing. Go ahead and read it, then try to determine what’s wrong with it. (Hint—it’s got nothing to do with grammar, spelling, or punctuation.)
When something bad happens to a loved one, our first instinct is to try to make it right. We do everything we can to help them to get through their difficult time. Sometimes we get so busy that we forget to pray, but we should remember that God will hear our prayers. He is always ready to comfort us and to meet all our needs.
Do you know what’s wrong? I’ll give you another hint: the problem with that paragraph isn’t the spiritual lesson. Remember—this is a lesson on writing, not theology. Let me give you a second version of the paragraph:
When something bad happened to a member of my family, my first instinct was to try to make it right. I did everything I could think of to help my family member to get through that difficult time. I was so busy helping that sometimes I forgot to pray, but God heard my prayers when I turned to Him. He was always ready to comfort me and to meet my needs and the needs of my loved one.
This second version is a little bit better (but an even better version is coming). I’ll stop hinting now and start the actual lesson, which is about transparency in inspirational writing.
In that first paragraph—which is typical for devotionals or inspirational writing—the universal ‘we’ is used. Writers use we/us/our to make the experience they’re writing about appeal to every reader; after all, it’s true that some experiences (like a loved one’s trials) happen to nearly everyone. A writer who chooses this somewhat abstract and distant style may feel that whoever is reading it will superimpose their own experiences over the template provided.
Unfortunately, there are problems with this. That universal ‘we’ paired with vague phrases like ‘something bad’ or ‘difficult time’ is so general as to be almost meaningless. An entire piece written in this abstract tone would not be a compelling read.
In addition, pieces like this are extremely familiar to people who have been reading Christian material for years. It’s easy to slip into “Christianese” where you’re writing such generalizations, leaving your reader with a feeling of I’ve read all this before.
The second version is written in first person, so it’s one degree closer to the reader, but it still has some problems. Someone reading that version might perk up with some interest at first: Oh, something bad happened in this writer’s family. I wonder what it was. But then they might quickly lose interest; this writing doesn’t say what happened. It’s more generalities, more Christian clichés. I’ve read a lot of this sort of inspirational writing, and it frustrates me to read a whole piece that’s coy about what happened in the writer’s life.
Writers might choose to do this for a few reasons:
• Like the writer who uses the universal ‘we,’ they may feel that if they’re vague about the circumstances, more people will be able to relate to it or to apply it to their own lives.
• They may be reluctant to share personal details. Those details might still be painful, or may include things that shouldn’t be shared, perhaps for legal reasons. There may be people involved in the situation who wouldn’t want their lives aired in public.
• They may be under the mistaken impression that this is how Christian writing is supposed to be, because so often that’s what they’ve read.
Here’s a third version of that same paragraph:
When my 18-year-old daughter had an accident that severed her spinal cord, my first instinct was to try to make everything right. I attended physical therapy sessions with her and called out my encouragement from the gym mats piled against the wall. I advocated for her, making sure that her dorm room and all of her classrooms were fully accessible. I listened to her dismay, holding and comforting her even as my heart broke.
There were times when I was so busy running ahead of her, smoothing the pathway, that I forgot to pray. I was so broken, in fact, that my prayers took on a form that I didn’t even recognize; sometimes the most I could manage was a wordless sob. But God heard my weeping. He met our needs—she is now a radiant wife and mother, and I have stumbled my way back to wholeness.
This version, you’ll notice, is longer. That’s because it’s got more specific examples and more actual events from my life. I hope—I think—that these two paragraphs were more interesting reading for you.
Here’s the deal, and the takeaway that I hope you’ll come away with for this lesson. Even though there are probably very few readers who will have this exact situation in their lives, if I write this piece well enough, readers who’ve experienced any number of distressing situations that caused similar spiritual pain should find some application to their lives. I’d rather trust my readers to gain meaning from my specific experiences than to turn them off by using overgeneralizations and platitudes.
In devotional writing, the transparent bit might be at the beginning--an illustration from your life that will lead to a spiritual truth for your readers to learn.
In inspirational writing, the entire piece might need to be transparent.
Some of you might be thinking that you’re not ready to be so transparent with your readers—that it’s easier to write more generally. It’s certainly less painful—less exposed—that way, but it’s less effective, too. Ease your way into it, perhaps by choosing a time in your life when you learned a valuable spiritual lesson through a humorous incident. If you get quite brave and decide to give increased transparency a try, you might want to go back to a previous writing that was overly abstract or too general, and change it (as I did on my 3rd example).
One word of warning: if your life incident involves someone else’s sinful or criminal behavior, or something that they’d be embarrassed to have ‘out there,’ you’ll need to be quite careful. Get their permission first, or use pseudonyms, or change the details enough so that a reader who knows you couldn’t immediately attribute those actions to Uncle Jack.
No real homework this week, but I welcome your comments or questions about transparency in inspirational writing.
If you have a Writing Challenge entry that illustrates any of my points (either one that is quite transparent, or one that is too vague), feel free to provide a link. Tell us something about your piece that’s relevant to this lesson.
You’ll find more about writing for devotionals here.
When something bad happens to a loved one, our first instinct is to try to make it right. We do everything we can to help them to get through their difficult time. Sometimes we get so busy that we forget to pray, but we should remember that God will hear our prayers. He is always ready to comfort us and to meet all our needs.
Do you know what’s wrong? I’ll give you another hint: the problem with that paragraph isn’t the spiritual lesson. Remember—this is a lesson on writing, not theology. Let me give you a second version of the paragraph:
When something bad happened to a member of my family, my first instinct was to try to make it right. I did everything I could think of to help my family member to get through that difficult time. I was so busy helping that sometimes I forgot to pray, but God heard my prayers when I turned to Him. He was always ready to comfort me and to meet my needs and the needs of my loved one.
This second version is a little bit better (but an even better version is coming). I’ll stop hinting now and start the actual lesson, which is about transparency in inspirational writing.
In that first paragraph—which is typical for devotionals or inspirational writing—the universal ‘we’ is used. Writers use we/us/our to make the experience they’re writing about appeal to every reader; after all, it’s true that some experiences (like a loved one’s trials) happen to nearly everyone. A writer who chooses this somewhat abstract and distant style may feel that whoever is reading it will superimpose their own experiences over the template provided.
Unfortunately, there are problems with this. That universal ‘we’ paired with vague phrases like ‘something bad’ or ‘difficult time’ is so general as to be almost meaningless. An entire piece written in this abstract tone would not be a compelling read.
In addition, pieces like this are extremely familiar to people who have been reading Christian material for years. It’s easy to slip into “Christianese” where you’re writing such generalizations, leaving your reader with a feeling of I’ve read all this before.
The second version is written in first person, so it’s one degree closer to the reader, but it still has some problems. Someone reading that version might perk up with some interest at first: Oh, something bad happened in this writer’s family. I wonder what it was. But then they might quickly lose interest; this writing doesn’t say what happened. It’s more generalities, more Christian clichés. I’ve read a lot of this sort of inspirational writing, and it frustrates me to read a whole piece that’s coy about what happened in the writer’s life.
Writers might choose to do this for a few reasons:
• Like the writer who uses the universal ‘we,’ they may feel that if they’re vague about the circumstances, more people will be able to relate to it or to apply it to their own lives.
• They may be reluctant to share personal details. Those details might still be painful, or may include things that shouldn’t be shared, perhaps for legal reasons. There may be people involved in the situation who wouldn’t want their lives aired in public.
• They may be under the mistaken impression that this is how Christian writing is supposed to be, because so often that’s what they’ve read.
Here’s a third version of that same paragraph:
When my 18-year-old daughter had an accident that severed her spinal cord, my first instinct was to try to make everything right. I attended physical therapy sessions with her and called out my encouragement from the gym mats piled against the wall. I advocated for her, making sure that her dorm room and all of her classrooms were fully accessible. I listened to her dismay, holding and comforting her even as my heart broke.
There were times when I was so busy running ahead of her, smoothing the pathway, that I forgot to pray. I was so broken, in fact, that my prayers took on a form that I didn’t even recognize; sometimes the most I could manage was a wordless sob. But God heard my weeping. He met our needs—she is now a radiant wife and mother, and I have stumbled my way back to wholeness.
This version, you’ll notice, is longer. That’s because it’s got more specific examples and more actual events from my life. I hope—I think—that these two paragraphs were more interesting reading for you.
Here’s the deal, and the takeaway that I hope you’ll come away with for this lesson. Even though there are probably very few readers who will have this exact situation in their lives, if I write this piece well enough, readers who’ve experienced any number of distressing situations that caused similar spiritual pain should find some application to their lives. I’d rather trust my readers to gain meaning from my specific experiences than to turn them off by using overgeneralizations and platitudes.
In devotional writing, the transparent bit might be at the beginning--an illustration from your life that will lead to a spiritual truth for your readers to learn.
In inspirational writing, the entire piece might need to be transparent.
Some of you might be thinking that you’re not ready to be so transparent with your readers—that it’s easier to write more generally. It’s certainly less painful—less exposed—that way, but it’s less effective, too. Ease your way into it, perhaps by choosing a time in your life when you learned a valuable spiritual lesson through a humorous incident. If you get quite brave and decide to give increased transparency a try, you might want to go back to a previous writing that was overly abstract or too general, and change it (as I did on my 3rd example).
One word of warning: if your life incident involves someone else’s sinful or criminal behavior, or something that they’d be embarrassed to have ‘out there,’ you’ll need to be quite careful. Get their permission first, or use pseudonyms, or change the details enough so that a reader who knows you couldn’t immediately attribute those actions to Uncle Jack.
No real homework this week, but I welcome your comments or questions about transparency in inspirational writing.
If you have a Writing Challenge entry that illustrates any of my points (either one that is quite transparent, or one that is too vague), feel free to provide a link. Tell us something about your piece that’s relevant to this lesson.
You’ll find more about writing for devotionals here.