The Master's Artist

Q. Are Artists Special?

Here's a passage that's provoked some thought for me recently. Perhaps you'll find it equally stimulating:

"Once the artistic element has been separated out from any area of human activity, whatever remains risks being devalued as mechanical and even contemptible. Once religious paintings were made into works of art, then any church decoration that did not bear the mark of a master was of little interest; any building not designed by a known architect was 'vernacular'; any anonymous folk song might be charming but could only become real art when arranged by a serious composer. Low art disappeared below the horizon of history until its rediscovery by social (but not art) historians.

"This legacy has not simply divided 'low art' from 'high art', but has decreased the possibility of artistic achievement in everyday life. Once the decoration of churches or the painting of icons on the design of cathedrals and guild-halls was taken out of the hands of wood-carvers and masons and journeymen and given to artists, then the role of the artisan was decisively degraded. Artisans may take pride in their work but they must know that it is always somehow second-rate. When the artist is removed from society and made into a special person, then the artist within each of us begins to die."

ROGER OSBORNE

Civilization: A New History of the Western World, p. 212

Since this will be by last post before Christmas, I'd like to wish you all a merry one. "Great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness:

"He was manifested in the flesh,

vindicated by the Spirit,

seen by angels,

proclaimed among the nations,

believed on in the world,

taken up in glory."

1 TIMOTHY 3.16

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J. Mark Bertrand is the author of Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World (Crossway 2007). He lectures on worldview and cultural engagement at Worldview Academy, and hosts BibleDesignBlog.com, a site dedicated to the physical form of the Good Book. His debut novel, The Suicide Cop, will be published in 2010.

The Remington Portable

The jewelry box stood open, the dresser drawers ajar. The boxes from the back of Grandpa's closet were lined up along the bed, flaps open. The carpet we'd always assumed was wheat-colored turned out to be white, as evidenced by the pristine square revealed by the missing Persian carpet. If we hadn't known better, we'd have assumed the place had been ransacked by a particularly discriminating burglar. But a thief hadn't done this. It was the cousins.

They still lived in town, so before any of us knew about Grandpa, before we could book our flights or take to the road, they'd arrived on his doorstep ready to sort through his things. After Grandma died, he'd started labeling things with yellow tape, writing the name of the intended recipient. Holiday visits were always awkward as a result -- we'd all sit there, listening to his stories yet again, pretending not to notice all the markers. Once, I'd noticed my name affixed to the side of his old Remington typewriter and quickly looked away.

The typewriter was gone. So were a lot of things people remembered. The out-of-town cousins gathered in Grandpa's kitchen, trying to reconstruct an inventory by memory. Some of them were angry. There was talk of a graveside confrontation. But all I felt was empty. Like the house, I guess.

When they left, I went to the shed. Over the years, so many tools had accumulated, their rusty arms twisting and interlocking, mowers and rakes and hoses and pitchforks and rusted implements whose original purpose I couldn't fathom. But I had a boyhood memory, a narrow door in back of the shed, behind it a roll-top desk. I'd strayed inside once, before the wall of gardening cast-offs had all but cut it off from the world. I remember Grandpa hunched over the desk, picking at the Remington's keys one at a time.

It took the better part of an hour to untangle the ossified mess, visions of tetanus looming behind every semi-sharp edge. Finally a path to the door cleared. Either the doorknob was locked, or the metal had seized with rust. For all the good my efforts did, it might as well have been welded in place. Taking a cue from the local cousins, I picked up a likely looking mallet and started whacking away. After many blows and much noise, the door gave.

Turns out my memory deceived me. There was no roll-top desk. Instead, a dented Steelcase number, the kind all my teachers had in grade school. Orange with rust, encrusted with a nasty black layer of what looked like bug parts bonded with cobweb. The smell was awful. The drawers proved empty on inspection, but on the far side of the desk was a similarly unappealing filing cabinet, which turned out to be full of papers. Huge yellowing bundles, tacky to the touch. I withdrew an armful and took them back into the house.

That night, back at my hotel, a box of Grandpa's secret papers next to my suitcase, I dialed my step-dad's number. He was happy to hear from me, then sad to hear about Grandpa, then especially sad when he realized no one had gotten in touch with him before now.

"Did Grandpa write?" I asked. "Like, books, I mean."

National Brain Surgery Month

January is National Brain Surgery Month, or Na-BS-Mo for short. Each year, people across the country get out their hacksaws and X-Acto knives and perform daringly complex between-the-ears procedures. You may not realize it, but each of us has at least one brain operation inside us. The trick is to let it out! 

Na-BS-Mo started off small, but each year our participation grows. There were skeptics early on, you can be sure. Why would you perform brain surgery if you're not getting paid for it? Don't you have to go to school for that sort of thing? Isn't it a little dangerous to the patient? But we didn't let the naysayers stop us. You know what we discovered? Cutting somebody's head open is a lot of fun! And it's therapeutic, too.

If you don't believe me, give it a try this January!

Of course, there are plenty of obstacles to overcome -- most of them self-imposed. This handy guide will help you slice through the difficulties and plunge deep into the heart (or should I say, brain?) of the matter.

• Objection #1: I don't know how to perform brain surgery. Neither did I before I gave it a go! Instead of sabotaging yourself with negative thoughts, get in there and start exploring. The first time you do Na-BS-Mo, the results might be dismal. But who cares? Just think: you'll have performed brain surgery! How many people can boast about that? Plus, once you get the skull cracked open, you'll be surprised how easy the rest of it is. If you're still too timid, join one of our regional support groups. We get together, make a few incisions, and serve snacks afterward. It's a great way to make friends.

• Objection #2: Is there really enough time for a novice to complete a successful procedure? Define "successful." See, this is part of the problem. You have a culturally-imposed idea of what successful surgery is supposed to look like. If you ask me, any procedure you feel good about afterward is a big achievement. The first time I did Na-BS-Mo, I barely had time to hack up a frontal lobe! Now, I'm so confident I could lobotomize the whole neighborhood and still have time in the month to blog about it.
• Objection #3: Isn't this what doctors are for? Wow. Can you say elitism? Since when did it take a medical degree to make an incision? Not too long ago, people went to the veterinarian to be trepanned. So come down off your high horse and join the real world. Performing brain surgery is something everybody should try at least once. Who knows? You might do such a good job that you'll get paid for it. Imagine how the 'real' doctors will squeal about that!

Throughout the month, you'll receive encouraging messages from famous brain surgeons -- some of whom even got their start with Na-BS-Mo. Last year, I was halfway through the procedure when my patient flatlined. Did I feel discouraged. You bet! But waiting in my inbox was a motivational note. Other people can do brain surgery their way, but only you can do it your way. Immediately, I felt so uplifted I went back to my bone saw and started on another pate.

Can you perform brain surgery? Absolutely. The question is ... will you? Your friends at Na-BS-Mo are waiting to find out.

* * *

J. Mark Bertrand is the author of Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World (Crossway 2007). He lectures on worldview and cultural engagement at Worldview Academy, and hosts BibleDesignBlog.com, a site dedicated to the physical form of the Good Book. His debut novel, The Suicide Cop, will be published in 2010. His attempts at satire have not always been successful -- but then, isn't any procedure you feel good about afterwards a big success?

Organic Spiritual Content

Evangelical publishers expect your novel to possess something called "spiritual content." Some settle for subtlety, while others want the payoff front and center. But one thing everyone seems to agree on these days is that the spiritual content must be organic. This has nothing to do with lack of pesticides or free trade. It means the novel's spiritual element should arise naturally out of the story.

This emphasis is a reaction against the prevailing stereotype about evangelical fiction -- namely, that it's little more than propaganda, the literary equivalent of preaching to the choir. And I do mean preaching. The days when every story culminated in an altar call, with conversion serving the same role as matrimony in Elizabethan comedy, are pretty much over. The spiritual twist is still a requirement, but now you have to earn it.

And that raises all sorts of challenges. To begin with, nobody starts out to write a turgid, didactic story. Knowing how results like that emerge might help us avoid them. So where do spiritually inorganic stories come from? For what it's worth, I have three theories:

(1) The Spiritual Supplement Theory. An author whose story doesn't lend itself obviously to a religious theme inserts the necessary component into a subplot. Evangelical fiction is largely genre fiction, and some genres are about as far removed from religious concerns as you can get. Because spiritual content is a requirement, the aspiring author has to plug it in somewhere. For example, in her struggle to stop the international terrorists, the heroine will also pick up a generic internal struggle like "the need to trust God more." It's not inappropriate, but it's also not particular enough to her character. As a result, it feels tacked on.

(2) The Firebrand Theory. An author consumed by passion for a theme applies clumsy, heavy-handed methods to achieve it. Emotional imbalance can be as detrimental to fiction as it is to a light saber duel. Instead of tacking on the spiritual theme, the firebrand author goes to the other extreme, orchestrating every detail in a deterministic power play that, instead of making the case, tips the reader to the fact everything was rigged from the get-go. If the spiritual supplement makes us feel pandered to, the firebrand leaves us feeling manipulated.

(3) The Subculture Projection Theory. An author projects facets of the evangelical subculture onto the world at large, resulting in an unearned religious thread. The trickiest pitfall of the three, this results when authors fail to account for how differently people experience the world. Subculture projection explains why, no matter what part of the globe they hail from -- or for that matter, what time period -- the Christians in certain novels always seem to be the same folk you'd meet at today's suburban mega-church. An author stuck in this rut might endow a heroine with uplifting devotional self-talk, interjecting a superficial (and soporific) spiritual dimension to whatever she happens to observe. But it rarely feels authentic.

Now if I had to boil these things down to arrive at an underlying problem, I'd label it fear. We are afraid of how spiritual questions might distort and redirect genre conventions, so we keep them on the periphery. We fear our values can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, so we rig the ballot boxes. We doubt our ability to grapple with the "other," so we reinvent it along the lines of the familiar. Inorganic spiritual writing represents, on some level, a failure to be bold.

Apart from being brave, how do you introduce spiritual content organically, especially when your story doesn't lend itself to much theological angst or assurance? 

Diamonds in the Rough Draft

You walk into a jewelry store to check out the ice, a certain budget in mind. The jeweler puts a tray of diamond rings on the glass. They sparkle under the intense light -- all but one, that is. "Oh," the jeweler explains. "That's a diamond in the rough. When it's cut and polished, it'll gleam just as brightly as the others."

"Okay," you reply. "Who's gonna do the cutting and polishing?"

"Well, you."

"And how much of a discount do I get?"

The jeweler smiles. "There's no discount. We want to make the same money on this one as we do on all the others."

Question: How likely are you to put down money for the rough, uncut rock? Not very. For one thing, you're looking for finished stones, and there are plenty out there to choose from. Why would you bother with one that needs so much work -- especially when the seller expects you to pay top dollar? As a consumer, you don't expect to have the jeweler's work thrown into your lap. What you're looking for is a stone ready to wear.

That's common sense. But you'd be surprised how many aspiring authors neglect common sense when it comes to shopping around manuscripts. 

Wearing one of my various hats, I've read a fair share of submissions. I'm always surprised just how bad many of them are. Needlessly bad, I mean, not in this state because the author couldn't do any better, but because she chose not to.

A book proposal needs to prove two things: that you can tell a good story, and that your story is worth telling. The excerpt accomplishes the first task, the synopsis the second. Realistically speaking, if your chapters are strong, a weak synopsis might get a pass -- but never the other way around. Like the jeweler, it's in your interest to deliver a cut and polished piece of work. In fact, considering how many people aren't bothering to do even that, this professionalism gives you a bigger advantage than it should. 

I can't list everything that needs to be done before the proposal goes out, but I'll mention a few. In each case, these are things that have nothing to do with talent. Anyone can get them done, regardless of gifting, assuming there's a commitment to do the work.

Write a Spooky Story

Today is All Hallows Eve, also known as Halloween (and Reformation Day, to boot). It's the time of year when we carve pumpkins, dress our kids up as characters from the latest cartoon-to-movie franchise, and worry about the dangers inherent in tolerating the occult. And whether there are razor blades in the apples. Last year, I had a lot of fun trying to convince my little nephew he couldn't eat his trick-or-treat candy until he'd sorted everything by type.

This year, I've taken a little time out of a packed writing schedule to pen a spooky story.

One of the interesting things about Halloween is that it has a genre, namely horror. You could argue, I suppose, that Christmas stories constitute a genre, but I still think Halloween is unique among holidays in that the genre associated with it is viable throughout the year. It's not seasonal, though is very much liked to the season. If there is a special day on the calendar when it's especially appropriate to celebrate Westerns or mysteries or sci-fi, I'm not aware of it. That makes Halloween special from a creative standpoint.

How Long Should My Book Take?

If you work on it long enough, your novel's going to be good. It might take five years, or maybe ten, but with enough effort I think anyone with a reasonable amount of talent can produce a good book. The reason there aren't more good books is that we don't see them through. Some manuscripts are never finished. Some are never revised. Many are never revised enough. The question is, how much time should a good novel take? Obviously, it depends. But let me ask you this: if you could be assured that at the end of the process the book would be good and would be published, how long would you be willing to spend on it?

The answers should be telling.

If you see publication as the be-all-and-end-all, and you're a committed person, then I imagine no length of time would be too long. If you had to work for those five or ten years to get your name respectably in print, you'd do it.

But if your goal is to be published now, you wouldn't make such an open-ended commitment.

If your goal is to be done with this story and more on, the same thing would be true.

If your goal is to make a living, spending ten years on one book with no guarantee of its success after publication wouldn't be very appealing, either. In ten years, you could crank out five or ten halfway decent books and possibly score the big money with one of those. The more tickets you buy in the lottery, the more likely you are to win.

The Workshop of Style

A friend made a curious request awhile back. Standing in front of my bookshelf, he asked me to recommend something that would improve his writing style. What would take someone with the level of fluency associated with research papers and transform him into an essayist? He left with two of my favorites: Simple and Direct, and Clear and Simple as the Truth. Neither could do the job, but at the same time each could, if you know what I mean. No how-to book will transform your style, in other words, but either of these can supply a roadmap to transformation -- or at the very least, awakening.

Yesterday, taking in the local waterfall, the question came up again. How had my own style developed?

I learned to type without looking at the keys by writing my first novel. My prose style came later, but in a similar way. It happened while I wasn't paying attention. During grad school, I had a curious day job. Among other things, it involved writing scripts for other people to read onto tape. The trick was, they were supposed to sound like they were just talking, making things up as they went along.

It's not as simple as it sounds. First there's the problem of conversational speech. I had to work with a restricted vocabulary, and my phrasing had to sound oral, not written. A political speechwriter can get away with certain things because the audience knows the speaker isn't using his own words. We forgive a flight of improbable eloquence; it's just part of the charade. But when listeners are truly meant to believe that they're hearing extemporaneous speech, you can't employ the kind of elevated rhetoric that comes naturally to a literate writer with time to ponder word choices.

How You Write

So I'm watching a not-very-good movie in which an Australian actress playing some kind of artist confides to a Scottish actor playing some kind of shrink that she worries "they" won't remember her work. They. Them. The unseen public. Posterity.

"I'm worried they won't remember me." Or words to that effect.

"They won't," I say to the television.

Don't imagine any sympathy in my line. My voice isn't tinged with a knowing sense of human transience or anything like that. I'm not even thinking, because I rarely do, of Casanova's great love inscribing a windowpane with her diamond ring: Et tu oublieras aussi Henriette. Being erased from memory and all the sadness it entails is utterly lost on me now, because I'm bored.

Not that the idea of the film wasn't good. The description was enough to make it through my (admittedly iffy) Netflix filter. Not that there wasn't some talent to the direction. The actors were all people I've liked in other things. But it wasn't working, and I wasn't engaged enough even to wonder why.

It reminded me, though, that an idea is not enough. Because it's not what you write about that matters. It's how you write about it.

A Dilemma With No Horns

Near the top of the perennial dilemmas list for Christians writing fiction is the classic "ABA vs. CBA," as in, "Which one should I write for?" The acronym ABA is short for American Booksellers Association, better known as the general market, and of course CBA stands for Christian Booksellers Association. The presence of -sellers in the titles is worth noting, because it explains how an editor at a CBA publisher can say something like, "We sell most of our books in the ABA." What this actually means is, instead of moving product through independent Christian booksellers, the publisher does most of its business with places like Wal-Mart or Barnes & Noble. On the author's side of the equation, the distinction between ABA and CBA is a little different -- determined not so much by where a book sells as who publishes it. If your book is published by an evangelical house or a New York imprint that only does other evangelical titles, that's writing for CBA. If it's published by someone who's just as likely to put out a pagan book as a Christian one, that's the general market. More or less.

So the dilemma is, do you write for a CBA house -- preaching to the choir, as it were -- or do you target the general market? There are pros and cons. If you write for a CBA house, you're free to include "spiritual content" (definitions vary), but you're constrained in terms of traditionally objectionable content. You have to write G-rated or at best PG-rated prose. In return, you get to write in a niche where there's a growing demand. If you write for the general, on the other hand, you face more competition and less content restriction. Also, because you're not writing for a Christian audience, you have to earn whatever "spiritual content" you want to include in ways an evangelical author writing for other evangelicals really doesn't. The question is, do you want to write to the church or write to the world?

Insert hand-wringing here.