Today we’re going to deal with two problems of direction, a false goal and a false guide to art. This is Part Three of a series (1, 2) dealing with the issues of modern writing, as I’ve observed them, a series by no means comprehensive but hopefully helpful. Today’s concerns are the trap that is preaching (and current affairs) and the danger of listening to the masters in the wrong way.

Perhaps the most blatant and most famous problem of modern mainstream art is its devotion to the Agenda. See: Emilia Perez, a hysterically over-the-top example (that nevertheless was disliked by its ideological audience). Politics trumps art, trumps beauty, trumps sense and logic. Ideology (theology, philosophy) becomes central, not story. This is a dangerous, dangerous path; to preach via story is deadly to story. This is particularly true when the preaching is about Current Affairs, when the story prioritizes what’s happening at the time of writing in the real world over what’s happening in the story.

We must acknowledge that stories naturally present a worldview argument (I believe Aristotle said as much). Because stories view a world, they give a worldview; the etymology here is accurate. So the problem of ‘preaching’ seems strange; if stories teach a worldview, how does teaching a worldview inhibit a story? The critical point is how stories teach a view of the world: they present it experientially, in the thoughts and speech and action of the characters, in the actions of men and nations and all the inanimate world. They do not (as in a physics textbook) explain reality’s quantitative parameters; they do not (as in a sermon) lecture the reader. Instead, the reader lives-by-proxy and absorbs or rejects the worldviews presented (for each character will have his own worldview, more or less distinct from the others).

So when I say that ‘preaching’ is a problem, what I mean is that message has taken over story. No longer does the story bring the reader into the world; no, instead it now uses the world as an example in explaining a political or religious (anthropological, sociological, philosophical, etc.) viewpoint. The story’s events do not flow from each other; the characters do not live lives of their own. Instead, they are skinwalked by the Message, made puppets of propaganda, actors demonstrating a point. No longer does Sally reject Harry because she thinks he’s rather too poor and has a stuffy nose half the time (but also she’s had her eye on Tom, who she hopes she saw looking back); now she rejects him performatively because, well, the author has a point to make. Whether it’s the necessity of taking financial care in marriage or the innate evil of the patriarchy does not matter much, at this point; the art has been marred.

For art is concerned with beauty, and beauty is broken by its parts being twisted from their God-given purpose. A work of art which would teach a worldview must do so by suiting the worldview; so if I desire to write a story which speaks to the theology of revolution (a fascinating topic), I had better not write instead a strung-out sermon. No, I should write a story of characters enacting or acting against revolution, working through their personal motives and beliefs, acting from their character, finding what comes of their deeds. This, frankly, is a central danger of allegory. Particularly when the story’s topic is limited (for Pilgrim’s Progress has the advantage of dealing with a man’s whole Christian walk, which is innately a narrative thing), the story can easily succumb to an external logic, can find its events driven not from within but from without- the hand of the author puppeting, not the working of the story displaying a secondary reality to view.

Caution also is merited here for our approach to writing stories. A story written as a tract will easily devolve into a mere tract. If the point of the endeavor was to convince of a particular worldview, beauty will naturally fall to the side, art will suffer, and in the end I’m probably better off writing some nonfiction- a polemic, an apologetic, an explication, what have you. If I write a story, it is both better for the story and for my interest in it that I want to write that story, that I long to create something which I see will be beautiful (if only I do it right).

Politics are a particular danger, nowadays. If a story is too closely about modern politics, it quickly becomes clear to the reader that, at least at that point, it’s not the story’s insides that matter; what matters is the writer’s political opinion. He expects and generally receives some form of deus ex machina, except instead of solving the protagonist’s problems or releasing tension, it’s proselytizing for the author’s politics. Imagine if you came across a story with a leader named ‘Drump’ or ‘Dobama’ or ‘Deorge Doros’; would you expect a good story or a political screed?

Of course, even the best of intentions run aground when they rely on insufficient skills, insufficient care. One trick modern company-employed writers seem to like is the ‘just do what the last guy did’ trick. The playbook is simple: find a scene that really worked; copy-paste its outline; add your own spice of brilliance; find success. The result is generally a slipshod, uninteresting, annoying imitation that has little to none of the original’s strength.

See, I can’t just lift a scene from another story and hope it’ll work in its new context, because it won’t. A great scene relies on its internal logic and its connection to the rest of the story (for characters and plot). For the first, let’s just say that Hollywood screenwriters seem to be incredibly poor at observing this. See: the exploding tower in Rings of Power (why in the world would elves build a tower that explodes outward when a single externally exposed and implausibly flammable rope is weakened? It screams of somebody imitating what they’ve seen in history films- not realizing that modern era forts can explode because of their black powder armories, which elvish watchtowers lack (observation made originally by ACOUP)). For the second, the fact is that great scenes never come from nowhere.

What makes the arrival of the Rohirrim at Minas Tirith so impactful? It’s not just the moment itself, well-built as it is, with careful establishing shots of each side, close-in shots to connect with specific characters, and effective music. It’s the growing darkness the film has been building up, the terror and destruction wreaked in Minas Tirith. Then too it is the momentary uplift of the Rohirrim’s charge that makes Eomer’s cry in the book so impactful, which lends such gravity to so simple a war-cry (“Death!”). If the greatest reversal we anticipated leads only to a more glorious defeat, we ask, how great must be this moment and its terror and the consequences to the characters we love?

Imagine, if you will, that I’m writing a story. The beleaguered remnants of the ‘good guys’ have executed a last-stand ambush in a village against the enemy force (which they have exterminated an unclear portion of already, at previous events, including when they destroyed ostensibly their best fortified position, aforesaid exploding tower. I guess they knew it was liable to explode). Then, from over the hill, the relief force arrives, an array of cavalry riding two-by-two down a narrow path. The day is saved!

This seems like it should have an impact… except for all the problems in the background. First, we don’t know the odds, actually, because we don’t know how large the orcish army besieging the village actually is. We’ve been shown, sort of, but at least one showing has been implied to be merely partial. So we don’t have a metric to decide what ‘300 cavalry’ means. Second, if the watcher has been paying attention, the cavalry has engaged in some serious logistical cheating, as is standard in Rings of Power, by traversing weeks-worth of distance in less than three days without marked fatigue. This disorients the viewer, disconnects the action from reality and stakes.

Third, the whole ‘two by two’ cavalry charge is not particularly impressive, visually, albeit necessitated by the cavalry’s choice to come in by a small foot bridge. It’s helped by being one prong of a two-front attack (but that only raises questions, given it obviously required the cavalry to circle around through rough terrain before executing a near simultaneous charge without apparent communication). This is worsened by the frankly silly ‘knock them over with a chain’ tactic of which, I am sure, the writers were incredibly proud. I say this as somebody who at one point considered the plausibility of a similar attack (until I came to my senses).¹

The lesson is that when I want to learn from a successful story, I must understand not only what works but why it works. I can’t ignore internal logic for the sentiment I have, cannot bank on readers’ inattention. Nor can I set aside my artist-duty of beauty for my preaching needs, to press a thought on my reader. I must instead craft a narrative with true and proper beauty- which beauty can carry much truth and goodness all the better for its integrity.

God bless.

Footnotes

1. Actually, my version involved a tree trunk hung between two elephants, which I think much more plausible, but that’s irrelevant here. ↩︎