My friend and mentor, Georgia Hall of Fame author Terry Kay,
says, “Writers don’t write to tell a story, they write to discover a story.”
I’ve found those words ringing true every time I sit at the
computer. If I try to tell a story, it seems stilted--dialogue too
on the nose--a hackneyed plot. However, if I approach a story
as a mystery to be solved, I’m amazed at the discoveries I make.
In 2006, I attended the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer’s Conference. It was my first writer’s conference, and I entered their
unpublished writer’s contest. To my surprise, I won several awards, but the
award I won for a short story stunned me—the only piece of fiction I’d written
since college. When my name was called, I whispered in shock, “I don’t write
fiction.”
The beloved Christian author, Gayle Roper, was sitting
beside me. She said, “Apparently, you do.”
Having seen myself as a nonfiction writer, this situation
rocked my world, and I had to consider if God was perhaps calling me to write
stories, which was one of the scariest thoughts I’d ever had. Though I’d
written that one short story, writing a novel had never been on my radar
screen.
A few weeks later, another event reinforced the call to
write fiction.
I had a dream one night in which I saw a woman in a basement
plowing through a mound of cast offs. Underneath it all, she found a surprise.
It was so compelling; I thought I’d just jot a few words down.
That was the first scene I wrote for the manuscript that
eventually became Home to Currahee. As I wrote, I met characters, which won my
heart, and I found a story, which stirred my soul. Those few words I jotted
down eight years ago have turned into more than 80,000 now in Home to Currahee, and they were the beginning of several novels and more than half a dozen
screenplays. Writing stories is what I do, but I never dreamed that it would
be.
Through the years, the stories I’ve discovered have seemed
like gifts, because I feel myself so incapable of writing any of them. I
suppose that’s why God led me this way, because He knew I’d have to depend on
Him all the way. Like Peter stepping out on the water to make his way to Jesus,
whenever I take my eyes off the Lord in my writing, I start to sink.
What I’ve found while writing fiction is that though the
story itself may be fictional, there are truths, which emerge which are larger
than the story. I hope that’s what the reader takes away.
If there’s anything good in what I do, let the glory go to
Him, and for what’s left, I have more
discoveries I need to make.
What might God be asking of you that will require you to
step out on the water? What discoveries might you make?
"God can do anything, you know—far more than
you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it
not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently
within us" (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Home to Currahee available at: