The Craft of Writing, Part Seven – Productivity

Good day, my fellow readers! I hope this leap day is treating you well. For me, it’s just another day, but I’ll persevere. Anyway, today I’d like to begin with a story. More specifically, it’s the story of me as a writer.

I mentioned back in the beginning of this series that I started writing my first book in the seventh grade, but I didn’t make it very far because I didn’t have a storyboard. Well, not long after I gave up, I thought up the storyline for a new novel, a fantasy which I initially called “A Knight’s Journey,” and later changed to simply “War.” I wrote this novel on-and-off for the next five or six years, completing a chapter or two, then taking a six month break, then writing furiously, then taking a year off, and on it went. I would write, then take a long sabbatical. When the anxiety, pressure and guilt finally got to me, I’d drag out my computer and write more, as much as I could before I lost interest and put it away for another long break. Then I hit my senior year and I decided that I just had to get that book done. So, almost exactly a week before graduation, I finally typed the last words of the epilogue and boom! My first novel, Torjen, was complete (minus the revising, which came later).

But in that time, over the course of those five or so years of writing one book, I’d compiled ideas, characters, plotlines and connections to over thirty-five other books that I decided to write in my life. There was only one problem: if I took as long to write each of them as I did to write Torjen, then I would die of old age before I made it even halfway down the list. That was when I committed to my book-in-a-year plan. Thereafter, once I began a book, I would plan everything in such a way that I would complete it in a year or less. As such, during my five years in college, I completed (year-by-year and in this order) Torjen II: The Search for Andross, Reality, The Hybrid, Torjen III: Diablo and finally the science fiction novel, Infrared. Most of these have yet to be published, but I promise they will be released from their digital prison cells someday. From college, I dove into my studies in seminary and, graduate studies being what they are, I was forced to suspend my novel-writing until I completed my studies. Finally, in the first year of marriage, I was able to dive back in with my newest creation, The Choice of Anonymity, only to take yet another year off afterward so I could make strides into the realm of publication. But regardless of whether or not I get published by this fall, I will definitely begin work on the sequel, tentatively called The Struggle With Conformity.

Now why am I telling you all of this? Because I believe one of the chief qualities of a writer can’t simply be good ideas, skills and talents. It can’t just be good planning, groundwork and carefully crafted worlds and characters. The quality which differentiates between the one-hit-wonder and the legitimate writer is productivity. A good career writer doesn’t write one novel and then live off of that for the rest of his life; if he does, he’s just a fluke, not a true writer. No, a writer writes, and he writes, and he writes because that’s what he does. He writes his stories because he must get them out, or because the need to write, to share his thoughts is driving him mad. Or perhaps he’s in a deep (non-romantic) love affair with the craft itself. He doesn’t just think about writing; he writes!

But too often, I myself have struggled with long periods of inactivity. After all, it took me five years to write my first book! So what’s the solution? For me, what makes the one-year rule successful is a concept that probably brings a nauseating sensation to many stomachs and a woozy disgust to many minds: deadlines. Yes, that terrible beast which plagued each of us in school is what I have to enforce upon myself: deadlines. Check out the 2014-2015 schedule I crafted for The Choice of Anonymity below.

After completing my storyboard of the plot, I looked at how much was to compose each chapter and I gave myself the necessary time to complete it. Notice, for instance, that chapters ten, twelve and fourteen each took nearly a month to complete, while most of the others took about two weeks. That’s because those chapters were whoppers. On the other end of the spectrum, the prologue and epilogue each took about a week because those were miniscule. And chapter nine took another month because, in all honesty, I took two weeks off for the holidays. It wasn’t my most megalithic chapter.

By sticking to these deadlines, I made the writing of my book into a much less daunting task, and I ensured that less than a year after selecting the first few words of the story, I was writing the last few lines. This is the tactic that works for me, the strategy which keeps me productive and ensures that I will not die of old age before I make it halfway through my list of future books (which still rests at around thirty-five to forty, although I now have other follow-up ideas if my memory isn’t shot by then).

If the system of deadlines doesn’t work for you, then I encourage you to find something that will. But remember, you absolutely must find something that works. If you don’t, your productivity will be very low – if alive at all – and a writer you will cease to be. Stay the course, my friends. Be committed to seeing your works through.

Until next time, friends…

Stay tuned for next week’s finale to our eight-part series on the craft of writing, in which I’ll discuss the nature of beauty versus exploitation in storytelling!

The Craft of Writing, Part One: Plot

Greetings, and a fair day to those of you reading this! I hope the past week has treated you well. Mine has been busy getting back into the swing of things, but I’ll soon pick up the energy I need. Now I would like to begin a new seven-part series on the craft of writing. Essentially, I want to cover everything from plot to character development to pacing, and the most important things in between. Most of what I plan on sharing with you is what I’ve picked up over the course of my…twelve?…years of writing. I’m not claiming to be an expert, but based on what I’ve learned over the years, I’ve found that I’ve become more sensitive to examples of poor writing. In addition, my writing skills often translate into a deeper understanding of stories in any medium, which is why when I watch movies with my wife, I’ve learned to keep my predictions to myself; I have spoiled too much with my startling accuracy, to my wife’s utter annoyance.

In my senior year of high school, my English teacher taught us that there are three chief components to storytelling: plot, characters and setting. A perfect balance of these will create a balanced story, but you can still be memorable if at least one of these is done well. Today, I want to talk about what I feel to be the most important of these three: plot. After all, without a plot, there is no story. If you focus on just character development, you end up with a psychological profile but no story, and if you focus on just setting, you’ve essentially described a painting. Plot, my friends, is the action of the story, that which pushes the reader forward in time (or backward, if the plot involves time travel).

So then what is plot? Plot is the events of the story. This is what happens. Suppose, for instance, that I were to tell you a story where a man and a woman go into the woods, only to confront a werewolf, who chases them back to the village, then that confrontation and the ensuing chase would be the plot.

Since this is the basis of the story (what makes a story a story), then this is where I would advise you to begin. This is born from a single, core idea, perhaps an event or a scenario. Perhaps a virus infects a family member and is determined to be highly contagious. Or perhaps a man goes to visit his dear aunt, only to find a colony of ants spelling out words in her living room. I began watching a movie earlier called Don’t Blink, in which ten friends go up to a cabin for the weekend only to find all people and wildlife have seemingly vanished from the area (kind of similar to Ghost Ship, only at a cabin instead of a lost vessel). It doesn’t really matter what that event or scenario is, but once you have it, then you can begin to play around with it. What will a set of characters do in response? Will they search for answers? Will they go on a quest? Or will they turn on each other?

From this, you begin to develop the plot, threshing it out into a story. Here’s where it begins to get difficult, and to demonstrate this, I’ll first explain a tactic I used unsuccessfully when I was young, and then I’ll describe my regular process now. When I was in the seventh grade, I began to write a book called The Choice of Anonymity. The plot was simple: a shapeshifter begins murdering people in a town, and a kid has to stop him. That was literally all I had when I first began writing. So naturally, I didn’t get very far. After about two or three chapters, I realized that I had no idea where I was going. I had no endgame in mind and no guide to get me there. So the book ended.

Fast forward eleven years. I chose to return to The Choice of Anonymity, but I wanted to do it right this time. So before I even began, I thought out a bunch of scenarios all relating to that one central theme (the murderous shapeshifter). I thought of a group of zombified students chasing my characters through a school. I thought of a daring escape from a collapsing hospital. I imagined a religious experience at the altar in a church. A murder in an observatory. A house that comes alive. I wrote each of these on a notecard. I chose a starting point (my main character sees a neighbor’s house burning down), and an ending point (my main character has a confrontation with the shapeshifter himself), and I put those on either end of a spectrum. Then, all I had to do was organize the rest of the events in a logical order, fill in the blanks to connect them into a reasonable storyline, and then bam! I have my plot. This is called storyboarding. Below is a picture of my storyboard for The Choice of Anonymity.

By storyboarding, you’re able to do a number of extremely important things. First, you’re able to add much more complexity to the storyline. After all, if you don’t fully understand your story, then you’re fairly limited, for you’ll be forced to either keep it simple or any complexity you try to add will become incomprehensible. How many times have you watched a television show only for it to become painfully obvious that the writers have no idea where they’re taking it? Heroes, for instance, knew exactly where it was going in the first season, but after that, the writers fumbled around with no storyboard, and the quality was significantly diminished. The same happened to Supernatural once it went beyond season five. It’s still enjoyable, but just nowhere near what it once was. On the other end of the spectrum was Carnivale, which had a storyboard for more seasons than the show got picked up on (if only it could have controlled its budget, alas). So the storyboard allows you to have a much greater control over your story, giving you the power to develop greater – but, more importantly, coherent – complexity in it.

But there’s also a much more fundamental purpose to the storyboard which I’ve already hinted at: coherency. I’m talking about plot holes. A plot hole is a place where you look at the story and realize that something didn’t quite work out logically. Perhaps a character reveals information that there’s no way he should have known. Or perhaps your antagonist tracks your characters to a tavern, only for you to realize there’s no way he should have known they were there. These issues can be catastrophic for your story, for if they are critical enough to the plot, then the whole plot can break down, leaving your story in unappreciated shambles. But the storyboard allows you to correct for this! By looking at the storyboard closely for hours at a time until your eyeballs begin to ache, you can pinpoint plot holes and then, with the whole storyline sitting before you, you can reconfigure and massage the plot until the problem is reconciled.

Finally, when your storyboard is perfected, polished and totally coherent, you can begin the next few steps. But before that, I want to touch on one last concept: organic writing. Organic writing is when you sit down with no plan and choose to go wherever the story takes you. This is in stark contrast to what I’ve described in this article. I will say that organic writing is a good and powerful tool for improving your own abilities as a writer. I, myself, do it once every couple of weeks or so in order to test myself and keep my writing mind sharp. However, organic writing is, in my opinion, better suited to shorter works, like short stories or flash fiction (stories of a thousand words or less). But if a book is what you’re going for, I don’t believe organic writing will get you there, at least not without a severe sacrifice in quality. It sure didn’t work when I first attempted The Choice of Anonymity.

I hope this has helped you writers out there. If your process is different than mine, please, I encourage you to share it in a comment. After all, a challenge to do things differently is a great opportunity for growth.

Until next time, friends…

Stay tuned for my next blog post, in which I’ll discuss character development!

What Scholars Really Say: Who Wrote the Torah?

Hello, friendly readers. I trust you enjoyed your weekend. Mine was actually quite busy, but also quite enjoyable. Anyway, today I would like to begin my on-again off-again series entitled What Scholars Really Say. In this series, I’ll be exploring different ideas about the Bible, history or Christian theology and see what it is that scholars (those experts who’ve cultivated advanced experience in Biblical interpretation) really believe to be the truth. Today’s topic will be covering the enigmatic writer of the Torah. First, I’ll describe the traditional belief, then go into detail on what research seems to indicate.

Introduction

The Torah, also known as the Pentateuch, or the Books of Moses, is the portion of the Bible which contains its first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These cover the material from the creation of the cosmos, through the patriarchs (the stories of Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), the establishing of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, their mass exodus as they flee slavery under the might of Egypt, their wandering in the desert and finally, the creation of the Israelite cultural, moral and ritualistic code of ethics often referred to as “The Law.” The last book, Deuteronomy, ends just as the Israelites are about to enter and retake their “Promised Land” of Canaan. This is one of the most important parts of the Bible, and is the basis for enormous amounts of Christian and Jewish moral and cultural beliefs. But with this all in mind, who is it that actually put pen to paper (or ink to papyrus) and composed it?

The traditional belief is that Moses himself wrote these five books. By taking a few verses which refer to Moses writing down certain commands of God, and the fact that the laws were given to him by God at the top of Mount Sinai, it has become a fairly prominent traditional belief that he wrote all five books, from the genesis of Genesis to the end (or near end) of Deuteronomy. This, traditionalists say, adds enormous weight to these texts, as they come from the hand of the man who spoke to God almost more often than anyone else.

Scholars Start Asking Questions

The idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch began to arouse suspicion as early as the 17th Century, when writers like Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza, when examining the texts much more critically, started finding verses inconsistent with such an idea. This examination was taken up in full force in the late 1800s by a renowned German scholar named Julius Wellhausen. For instance, if Moses wrote these books, how could Deuteronomy end by describing his own death, with a eulogy claiming that “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses” (Deut. 34). The term “never since” suggests that that component was written long after Moses’ death, so how could he have written it? Many have responded to this by suggesting that chapter was added after Moses’ death by a separate writer, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

For instance, why are there two separate (but wholly compatible) creation stories recounted in the beginning of Genesis? Why are there numerous repetitious phrases in the story of Noah’s Ark? When Abraham goes to sacrifice Isaac, why do some translations switch between an angel stopping him and God himself stopping him? Why do the vocabulary, writing style and even the name or title applied to God change have such radical shifts back and forth throughout the books? With these questions – and numerous others – in mind, my Old Testament professor in college made the claim that, if Moses did write the Pentateuch, then he must have been either schizophrenic or had multiple personalities. Such takes on the writing have led to the prominence, in the academic community, of what has come to be called the “Documentary Hypothesis.”

The Documentary Hypothesis

The freedom which allowed for the birth of the Documentary Hypothesis comes from one, core fact: Moses never claimed to have written the Torah. While specific quotations and passages are, indeed, attributed to him, nowhere does it definitively claim that he wrote all five books in their entirety. Some have even suggested that Justin Martyr, a Christian of the 2nd Century A.D., may have been the first to claim Mosaic authorship of the Torah, a claim made over 600 years after the Torah was completed.

So what is the Documentary Hypothesis? Well, the D.H. (as I’ll call it from here on out) suggests that there were no less than four separate (but unknown) writers, whose works were all compiled into one document (the Torah) by another unknown individual known as the “Redactor.” For ease of reference, scholars have labeled these four writers as the Elohist (or E-Source), the Jahwist (or J-Source), the Priestly (or P-Source) and the Deuteronomistic (or D-Source) writers. The first three (the E, J and P-Sources) each composed their own, separate accounts of creation, history and law, and these were later taken by the Redactor and spliced together into one complete document, comprising Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. The Redactor then took the book of Deuteronomy, which was entirely composed by the D-Source, and added it onto the end. Thus, the Pentateuch came into existence. Now the fascinating thing about the D.H. is that scholars can actually pinpoint specific passages and identify which of the four writers wrote it (though some passages are far more difficult than others) based on certain styles, word choices and common themes consistent with each writer. If I’m confusing you, don’t worry. Here’s a breakdown of some of the details scholars have gleaned about each source:

The Elohist Source: the E-writer was most likely a member of the northern kingdom of Israel about a hundred years after the split of the kingdom. He can be identified by his usage of the name “El” when referring to God. This name always gets translated as “God,” usually in more complex forms like “God Most High” or “the Everlasting God,” etc. The E-writer usually portrays God as much more mysterious, communicating mostly in dreams.

The Jahwist Source: the J-writer describes a much more human-like God, who communicates vocally and walks with Adam, Eve and, later on, Abraham. The writer, who was most likely from the southern kingdom of Judah immediately after the splitting of the kingdom, can be identified by their usage of the name “Yahweh,” as a direct name for God. However, since that name was revered as extremely holy, most translations substitute that name with the all-capitalized title “THE LORD,” usually occurring in a smaller font.

The Priestly Source: the P-writer is easily identifiable by their obsession with rituals, numbers, dates and genealogies. This has led to the suggestion that they were a priest, hence the name “Priestly Source.” They tend to describe God as extremely powerful and devoted to covenants. There is no easily-recognizable name for God to give them away, however, so that adds a bit of confusion. His version was likely written during the Babylonian Exile, nearly five hundred years after the splitting of the kingdom of Israel. Some have even suggested that he utilized parts of the E- and J-sources in his version.

The Deuteronomistic Source: the D-writer is by far the easiest to recognize. Quite simply, he wrote the book of Deuteronomy. With minute alterations, virtually all of that book was written by this one individual, and it’s unlikely that any of his material made it into the previous four books. This explains why the book of Deuteronomy flows a lot more smoothly than the previous four. There is no discernible change in vocabulary, writing style or theological focus throughout Deuteronomy.

The Redactor: no one really knows who this is, but there have been suggestions and claims all across the board. Some have suggested Ezra, who was the first person in the Bible described as carrying a completed version of the Torah. Others have suggested King Josiah, who discovered a mysterious book (which many think was Deuteronomy) in the disheveled temple and used it to revamp the Jewish faith during his reign. This is less likely, seeing as he lived before the P-source’s suggested date of composition. There’s a particularly popular theory among scholars that the D-source and the Redactor were one and the same person, but this is by no means a majority.

From this, one can see the validity of the D.H., though it is not absolutely proven. As a matter of fact, most scholars tend to suggest radically more complex theories, and they use the D.H. as merely a simplified version to be taught in colleges and seminaries. The D.H. accounts for many of the questions above. Why are there two creation accounts? Because the Redactor liked two versions, so he included them both. Why is there repetition in the story of Noah’s Ark? Because the Redactor wanted to maximize the information in his report. Why does it switch between an angel stopping Abraham from sacrificing Isaac and God stopping him directly? Because it switches sources in the middle of the story.

Now as a closing, it must be noted that while these four writers composed their own versions in radically different political and religious climates, with different beliefs and focuses, they are remarkably compatible. Just because God is El does not mean he’s not also THE LORD. In effect, what I want you to understand is that just because Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch, it doesn’t detract from these five fascinating books. It just adds a level of mystery that we, as Christians, should be encouraged to dive into and explore more deeply. How else can we serve the Lord with all of our minds?

Until next time, friends…

Stay tuned for the next part in this series, in which I explore who the writer of Revelation may have been!

Protagonist

Hello! I apologize for being a day late on this current post, but yesterday being Labor Day, I was unable to contrive the time necessary to write. Now I was initially unsure of what to write on today, but then I remembered a story I recently wrote which has been generally well-received by anyone who’s read (or, rather, listened to me read) it. Given my most recent two blog posts – one discussing fictional accounts of breaking the Fourth Wall, and one discussing fictional accounts of characters recognizing the falsity of their reality – I found this story to be a reasonable cap to this series.

I originally wrote this story for the San Antonio Writer’s Meetup Group, a gathering of local writers who meet twice a month to share their work. The ideal word limit is approximately 1,200 words, so I took that as an exact directive in constructing this piece. I hope you enjoy it!

Hello, my name is Max Destroyo. Seriously? That name is just so…terrible, and pretentious. It’s like the writer took maybe five minutes to come up with it. I mean, come on, man, am I a human being or a cyborg? Honestly, I’m not really sure because the writer didn’t develop me enough. Anyways, like I said, my name is Max Destroyo, and…I just feel like I’m dying whenever I say that. The “Max” part isn’t bad, but “Destroyo?” What, was “Explodo” already taken? Seriously…

In any case, I have recently come to the conclusion that I am a fabricated, written character. How do I know this? Well, my lack of body is a great indicator. Most real, living people don’t exist solely as words on a page. Most of them have things like hair and arms and a mouth, none of which my writer took the time to develop in me. What’s my hair color, bud? That’s right, intangible, because that’s a real color. And don’t get me started on my mouth, or, more specifically, my voice. Did my writer research and build a psychological profile or historical background for me, factors which are extremely necessary for building a character’s unique voice? Of course not, that’d be far too much work! I suspect that the writer thought of this earlier in the day, and then later in the afternoon, after a big meal and a nap, sat down to write out the story organically. Let me tell you now: you don’t develop a character organically and expect him to have a unique voice right off the bat. It takes pages and chapters, sometimes even whole volumes, to develop the voice of an organic character, and I have the sinking feeling I don’t have that much time.

Okay, now let’s pretend there’s a segue between that paragraph and this one. I’m also supposed to tell you that I’m quite sarcastic. Okay, now that’s just bad writing. If I have to tell you about a personality characteristic as bluntly as that, then that’s just laziness. Where’s the subtlety in the writing, the fine art of allowing the audience to come to conclusions on their own? When I say things as bluntly as “I’m quite sarcastic,” it’s like I’m taking control of their perspective of me, and that’s too much control in the writing process. But I’m not the writer here, and certainly neither is my own writer.

You know, I think I should just take a deep breath and relax. I’m not normally this angry, after all. I think I’m just frustrated. I mean, how would you respond if you just found out that your entire existence is tied up with a short story with a 1,200-word limit? And what word are we on now? 463? That means my life is over one-third over now. I’m the equivalent of a guy in his late twenties or early thirties, and reading this page probably took less than three minutes. Maybe if I slowed down, I could extend my life just a little…bit…long…er…

It doesn’t really matter. What is the purpose of trying to extend my life if my whole purpose is to be the narrator for one, single story? I mean, if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get the story expanded into a book, and if I’m extremely lucky, maybe even a series of books. But even then, when I reach the last word of the last sentence of the last chapter of the last book, my existence will draw to a close. As the last stroke is drawn on the page, so my own life ends. It’s true of any character in any work of fiction: when the last story about them ends, they die. They don’t live forever, don’t keep going. The grim reaper waits upon that final letter, and though a shadow of them may live on in the reader, the core of them has ceased to be.

What will that be like for me? At the end of this story, will the last word hurt, like a knife in my back? Will it be eerie and disturbing, like hearing the last of the dirt tossed upon your casket? Yeah, I got morbid there. Sorry about that. But will I die and go on to a fictional afterlife? Or will I simply cease to be? These questions plague me. It’d help if I could remember what it was like before I formed through the writer’s words. But how could I remember from before I existed? If that were somehow possible, perhaps it would undermine the real value of my purpose here.

I don’t think I blame the writer so much anymore. I mean, sure, he didn’t really do any sort of character development, but he at least created me, bringing me here for a purpose, though I just passed the two-thirds mark and I still don’t know what that is. Is that what life is like? Trying to find your purpose, your reason for being here? Are we here simply for our stories, or is there some deeper, more true purpose for our existence?       I can understand if I was placed here to oppose some evil mastermind, or some brooding supervillain. Or maybe, on a lower key, a minor antagonist. But where is that antagonist for me to rail against? Maybe…maybe the antagonist of my story isn’t so much a person, but more a state of being. Am I here to fight against my impending death at the end of this story?

I think I just wish that my purpose would extend beyond the end of this story. If I’m lucky enough to be the protagonist – and I think it’s safe to assume that I am, here – then I’ll make it at least as far as the story’s climax. If I’m really lucky, there may even be some falling action, but that’s like walking that last green mile before the executioner’s chair. I know death waits for me at the end of the falling action. So it all goes back to my core question: am I only here to complete a single story? Man, I wish I existed like the audience and the writer. At least for them, there’s the possibility of living on, not to mention having a body. I mean, what if I wanted to be a runner and run forever? Thank God that’s not true, because I just don’t have the energy for that.

Enough of the reveries, I think. Back to reality! Er, I mean, back to fiction! So what’s this story supposed to be about? I only have about a hundred words left, so I don’t think I’ll be able to accomplish much. Hey, hey, hey, I just thought of something devious, yes, yes, a way to get back at the writer for not giving me characteristics: instead of actually doing anything, I just wasted his entire story on this one, single monologue. Take that, writer! You wanted a story and all you got was rambling nonsense! Oh, now I’m sad. And there, ladies and gentlemen, is more bad writing.

Sixteen words left, I should make them count. But how should I end this? How about…

Until next time, friends…

Discover Who You Are, Part Two

Good day! Last week, I began a series about finding your identity. Indeed, your identity is a very personal thing, and to keep it absolutely secure, it shouldn’t be connected with your employment or with what others think of you; indeed, the latter suggestion is the reason so many Hollywood actors seemingly go nuts: they derive their identity from their fans, and when their fans begin to drift away, they lose their identity and, hence, their stability. If, following the suggestion of my last post, you found a love of acting, then my recommendation is that you make sure you love acting for the sake of the craft and not for the sake of the fans or recognition. This is actually a problem that I face, because as a writer, I often dream of being famous like Stephen King, Ted Dekker or Dean Koontz. However, if I really want to be a good writer, I should write for the sake of my stories and their purpose, not for the recognition of my readers. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but a necessary one. Sorry for the digression.

In any case, learning what you love is only the first part of our study. Now, having that in mind, I want you to set it aside for right now. Don’t forget about your hobbies and interests, just keep them on the back burner, because next week, we’re going to bring them back. For this step, I want you to focus not on what you love, but on what you believe. Now this has a series of sub-steps that I want you to follow in this order:

1. Cosmic Belief: what do you believe about the universe? How do you think it came to be? Personally, I know that it was made by God. I don’t know how he made it, and I can only speculate on why, but I know deep down, in that place at the core of my being, that the whole universe was brought into existence by a being with an operating mind beyond our comprehension.
2. Others Belief: what do you think about other people? How does this connect to your Cosmic Belief? If you think God made everything, then how does that affect your view of other people? For me, God made other people just like he made me. I think he made us all because he loves us, and so I should, therefore, love them, too. It’s hard, and I often fail at it, but I keep trying.
3. Moral Belief: what kind of morality do you think you should uphold? Where do you derive your morals from? From the Bible? The Quran? The Bhagavad Gita? Or from what your parents or mentors have taught you? What you need to do is not just figure out what you believe to be right and wrong, but why you believe those things to be right and wrong. Remember, whatever sort of morality you decide makes the most sense must agree with your Cosmic and Others Beliefs. Otherwise, your Moral Belief will crumble at the slightest touch.
4. Telos Belief: telos is a Greek word for “goal” or “end” or “purpose,” and it’s the most important of your beliefs in regard to our current study. It’s also, unfortunately, the most difficult of the beliefs. This relates to your purpose in life, the things you want to accomplish; essentially, what good do you want to do? For me, I want to have a family of my own, I want to educate people about the Bible, I want to tell stories and I want help people find their own identities. But if you go to the ultimate basis of my Telos Belief, it’s that I want to serve God. And for me, serving God means helping other people in whatever way I can.

With that, I think we’ve covered enough ground in terms of beliefs. Once you’ve figured out your Cosmic, Others, Moral and Telos Beliefs, you’ll have a much firmer grasp of how you view the world. Next, week, we’ll see how we can bring our beliefs and interests together into one, supreme thing: our identity.

Until next time, friends…

Stay tuned for my next blog post, in which we’ll unite interests and beliefs into one super-awesome identity!

Healing Arms and a Doubtful Mind

Hello. Today, I’m going to get a bit personal. I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, but trust me, it’s even more uncomfortable for me. However, it’s something that I feel I need to share, and it involves two things which are warring within me.

First, the healing. This story began in March, when, after weeks of excruciating shoulder and back pain, I finally went to a doctor and was diagnosed with Bicep Tendinitis. Essentially, the tendons in my shoulders were strained and inflamed, resulting in incredible pain whenever I tried to move. Sometimes this would go away for a little while, only to come back as bad as ever. After I got married, it seemed to get even worse, to the point where I was using IcyHot Cream multiple times a day and consuming no less than 9 pills of Ibuprofen on a daily basis. And I was still in enormous pain.

Finally, on one Sunday during the end of the Bible Study my wife and I host in our apartment, my wife mentioned my shoulders as a prayer request. I thought to myself, it can’t make it worse, why not pray about it? So during the prayer time, another wife in the study prayed very enthusiastically for my shoulders. Since that day nearly a month ago, my shoulders have not hurt at all. On occasion, I may feel a slight twinge, but the doctor I saw after that healing assured me that such twinges have nothing to do with tendinitis and are nothing to worry about. My tendinitis was healed by the power of prayer.

Now this is difficult for me to accept, seeing as how I did not come from a Charismatic background. I’m a Methodist. We’re thinkers, not ones for waving our arms, performing miracles and prayer healing. I still identify as a Methodist, but this spiritual healing of my shoulders cannot be ignored (not that Methodists are opposed to these things, mind you; these simply aren’t our focus). So what am I to do? To date, I’m still struggling to accept the possibility of spirit healing and miracles by prayer, even though my head tells me they’re true. I know they’re true, I know the power of God through the Holy Spirit can do such things. But I’m having great difficulty pounding that into my heart. What I need, it seems, is what I felt when I undertook the Walk to Emmaus (interestingly also run by Methodists, predominantly): a softening of my heart and a compassionate outpouring of God’s spirit so that I can be enabled to widen my horizons and radically love others.

Now the other story is quite the opposite, and much shorter. Actually, it’s not a story at all, merely a situation. You see, for years now, I have felt the call by God to be a writer. I feel he gave me stories and writing talent so that I can turn those back to glorifying him and helping my fellow man. In addition, I’ve felt a new call from God to also teach at my local church that’s forming. To teach and to write are my two callings that I feel strongly right now. And yet I cannot shake all of the doubts that constantly nag at me. Should I not quit these childish pursuits and get a “real” job so that I can better support my wife? Should I be more realistic and give up on these callings so that I can make more money, as anyone invested in it would say? I can shrug these doubts off of my heart, but I cannot seem to get them out of my head, and this is a powerful detriment to me right now.

So two issues: I cannot get the reality of spirit healing to move from my head into my heart, and I cannot get the determination of my heart to push the doubts out of my head. Essentially, my head and my heart are on different pages, and what I need is to get them to reconcile with each other. But how to do this? I don’t know. I don’t have the answer. But I do know that prayer will help, and if I can get it to successfully bolster my wavering, shaky faith, then maybe I can get my head and my heart to work out their problems with each other. I can only hope that God will show me the way to do it.

Until next time, friends…

Stay tuned for my next blog post, in which I review the new film, Left Behind, starring Nicolas Cage!

Four Bits of Logic

Howdy, good fellows! Given the more serious nature of my last two posts – involving politics, blech – I want to take it easy for a few weeks and explore some fun stuff, or at least fun for me. So for the next three weeks, we’ll be exploring LOGICAL FALLACIES! Each week, I’ll describe four common logical fallacies and then end with a challenge statement; it will be up to you to see how many fallacies we’ve committed are in that statement.

Now for those of you who don’t know what a logical fallacy is, it’s actually quite simple. When someone presents an argument, we are often tricked into agreeing with them due to persuasive tactics they might use, even when those tactics don’t actually support their argument. These persuasive tactics are called logical flaws, or fallacies. In addition, when someone is presenting an argument which contradicts itself, the way in which it contradicts itself is also considered a fallacy. So what I want is for you to be able to recognize these fallacies that are commonly used so that you don’t be tricked by them. There are, quite literally, hundreds of fallacies out there, but I’ll just stick with some of my favorites, narrowed down to four per week. Each one will be presented in its official, Latin name, but don’t be daunted; I’m just trying to be formal with them. Now, let us proceed!

Argumentum ad Nauseum (Argument from Repetition)

“As I’ve said hundreds of times in the last two hours…”

Perhaps one of the most annoying logical flaws is the argument from repetition, in which a person restates their own point for so long that everyone else will agree with them just to get them to shut up. Sometimes, it’s a form of conditioning, in which we think, “if we just repeat this enough times, people will finally start to get it!” In Congress, this is called a filibuster, and you can usually tell that a discussion has reached a dead end when the argument becomes repetitive with no change in sight. I could discuss this point ad nauseum, but I think you get it.

Circulus in Demonstrando (Circular Reasoning)

“If this was made legal, then the crime rate would go down…”

A circular argument is one in which the premise of an argument (what you have to work with at the start) is secretly the conclusion in disguise. The result is that you prove nothing because you need the conclusion to be proven in order for it to be proven. For instance, I’ve heard the argument “if marijuana was legalized, then the crime rate would go down.” Well, duh. If something considered a crime is made no longer a crime, then it would automatically decrease the crime rate. This argument proves nothing other than that making marijuana legal results in marijuana being legal. It’s a circular argument. Unfortunately, this flaw often rears its head in Christian communities with the argument, “we know the Bible is the word of God because it says so, and it’s the word of God, so it must be true.” Essentially, since the Bible says it’s the word of God, then it must be true, and since it’s true, then we know it’s the word of God. The argument makes no sense, and that’s why I would encourage fellow Christians to dig deeper into this particular conundrum so that we don’t get this fallacy thrown at us any longer.

False Dichotomy (or False Dilemma)

“There are only two results here…”

This is the most common issue we see in our political system today. Basically, it makes the claim that there are only two alternatives to an issue, when, in fact, there could be far more. For instance, in my blog post about conservative environmentalism, I noted how if someone says they care about the environment, they are automatically labeled a liberal or a Democrat. This ignores the fact that one can be both conservative and an environmentalist. In this instance, you have the two categories of the stereotypical conservative and the stereotypical liberal. This is a false dichotomy defied by the environmentally-conscious conservative, or the pro-life liberal, or other combinations of beliefs. I saw this recently in a book, where the author stated that there are only two reactions to reading his book: you can agree with him and, therefore, be on God’s side; or you can disagree with him and be equivalent to Satan and the biblical Cain. This is a trick to make you think you must wholeheartedly agree with him or you’re evil, when, in fact, I found myself agreeing with some things he said and disagreeing with others. I defied this dichotomy.

Hedging

“Well, that word has multiple meanings. Here, it means…”

This is a clever tool in the box of logic flaws. What you do in the beginning of an argument is use words with ambiguous meanings, then define those meanings later on in ways that suit you best. Once, far back in college, I was debating with a roommate’s girlfriend about how old Israel was. I told her that there was proof that the nation of Israel existed as far back as 1200 B.C., but she stated that it didn’t exist before 1948. When I told her about a particular ancient monument dating back to approximately 1207 B.C. which mentions Israel, thus establishing that it did, indeed, exist back then, she argued that the word “nation” wasn’t used back then. Thus, her conclusion was that the nation of Israel didn’t exist back then because there were no such things as nations back then. Therefore, by her accounts, she won the debate. The problem is that she hedged the word nation, using ambiguity in its meaning – which she later defined to her benefit – in order to make it appear as if I was wrong and she was right.

So we have the repetitive arguments, circular arguments, false dichotomies and ambiguous words. With these in mind, let’s take a look at this last statement. I’m leaving it up to you to see what exactly is wrong with it (other than the exaggerated view of my writing abilities).

“I’ve told you ten times already, Danny Cove is a great writer because everything he writes is great; we know this because he’s a great writer. You must either accept this, or accept that you have bad taste, since people with bad taste don’t read the writings of Danny Cove.”

Until next time, friends…

Stay tuned for my next blog post, in which we’ll look at a new group of fallacies that we see all the time!