Whatever is Lovely
The Writer’s Code: Lesson 8
Upon seeing the title of today’s lesson, some of you may have raised your eyebrows. It’s not that we don’t believe our writing should be beautiful. We do. But isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder? That would mean loveliness is subjective, and how can you create a standard out of the subjective?
This subjectivity is true to a point. We can carry very different tastes in architecture, paintings, music, literature, and even physical appearance. Moreover, what has been deemed as the most beautiful has changed over the centuries.
Yet Paul did include loveliness on his list of things worth thinking about. This would indicate something which isn’t subjective; otherwise what is worthwhile could potentially change with every person, and what is worthwhile with one person would be trash to toss by another. So there must be a common set of attributes that defines what is truly lovely, due to the effect on our five senses.
Pleasing the Senses
Many things may be interesting or provoking or fascinating or intriguing. But in the end, none of these things, as good as they may be, make a story (or anything else for that matter) lovely. Rather, the pleasing of the five senses makes something lovely. How do we do this with writing?
1. Use vivid description. It is difficult to please the sense if you never mention anything that triggers the sense. So make sure to include plenty of tastes, smells, and textures along with concrete, specific descriptions of sights and sounds.
2. Listen to the cadence of language. Not only what you describe can be pleasing, but also how you describe it. Language has a natural rhythm built into it; think back to some of the great children’s picture books like those by Dr. Seuss and Robert McCloskey. So when we use cadence well, it can be quite pleasing to the ear—even if what we describe is anything but pleasant. This is one reason we should practice reading our writing aloud.
3. Add variety. Too much of one spice makes us gag. There’s nothing remarkable about a completely white canvas. We need variety. This is why the best music results from a mixture of pitches, rhythms, and volumes; the different textures of velvet and silk are one reason they are frequently paired. It is the same with our writing: sameness creates monotony. Monotony creates boredom, and bored is one thing we don’t want our readers to be. So we need to vary our vocabulary, sentence structure, sentence length, paragraph lengths, level of tension, types of characters, types of settings, and activities.
4. Keep it balanced. You can have artwork that is one color, like a sculpture in white marble, but that uniform color must be counterbalanced with shape and texture. The same principle applies our writing. Reaction scenes (scenes where characters are trying to choose their next course of action) need to be interspersed among actions (scenes where characters are pursuing a specific goal). A powerful protagonist must face a powerful villain. Description, action beats, internal monologue, and dialogue all deserve a spot on the page. Some narrative summary needs to mix in among the blow-by-blow showing.
5. Provide order. Randomness and chaos jars the brain, probably because God is a God of order and we are made in His image. So when an orderly story seems under the control of the author, the writing will also appear more beautiful. This doesn’t mean our stories must follow a formula—although this is one reason why formulas work—but our stories do need to be structured, following a fairly logical path from start to finish.
6. Show contrast. The beautiful often employs opposites as opposing elements can heighten and emphasize the uniqueness of each. This is one reason why black and white photographs capture us and why an eruption of a volcano at night mesmerizes. So contrast a hero’s virtue with a flaw—or a villain’s flaw with a virtue. Pair a success with a failure. Give your hero and heroine opposing (but equally worthwhile) goals, or opposite strengths and weaknesses.
7. Stay unabrasive stylistically. As Philip Yancey points out in his book Where Is God When it Hurts, “The body contains no dedicated ‘pleasure’ sensors.” (Chapter 4, “Agony & Ecstasy”) We find beauty when our pain sensors are not triggered. For example, think about the texture of polished stone or wood. Now it’s our job as authors to trigger deep emotions—including painful ones at times—in our readers. But that pain should result from their close identification with our characters, not because our poor workmanship keeps intruding upon them. So clean copy, clear prose, and a straightforward (not convoluted) style all contribute a level of beauty to our work.
Moving the Heart
But the lovely is not merely restricted to delighting our readers’ senses. Instead, their sensory pleasure should open the way to an even deeper level of loveliness, one which lowers our hearts’ guards, opens the way for the truth, and moves us toward love. For “toward love” is exactly what the Greek word in Philippians 4:8 means, combining the preposition “toward” with the noun “philos” (affection, love).
So the lovely should not merely please us. It should touch our hearts, engage our emotions, and move us toward love. It should stir compassion for others (love of neighbor) and spur worshipful obedience of God (love for God). If something fails to do this, then either the beauty is false or our hearts are hardened. For true loveliness is not determined by the eye of the beholder, but by the tenderness of one’s heart.
For our writing, this means three additional things:
1. We must engage the emotions. We cannot hope to move our readers’ affection anywhere unless we’ve captured their emotions first. There are whole courses and books on techniques to do this, but as a general principle, I find that a story, scene, or character must fully engage my emotions as the author first. Then I must thrust the fullness of those emotions onto the page. If I pull back and disconnect, my readers will too.
2. We must evoke sympathy. Compassion is frequently induced where pain exists. This means that we must help our readers like or at least identify with our characters on some level. Then we have to hurt our characters—physically, emotionally, relationally, any way possible. Having experienced that pain secondhand through our characters, our readers are more likely to extend understanding and compassion to others who are going through something similar in real life.
3. We must offer an outlet. Now because we are novelists, not nonfiction authors, our call to action won’t be as explicit as “now help the homeless.” But by showing our readers how our characters change and act differently from the story’s start, we encourage our readers to make similar changes in their own lives.
A Postscript on Art & Beauty
Because many writers classify themselves as artists, I feel I should clarify one final issue before ending our lesson on the lovely.
A common belief says that all art must be beautiful, whether music, theater, film, literature, painting, architecture, or one of the other many arts out there. This limited perception of art and its role in culture has lead to many arguments and much frustration, especially between critic and amateur art lover.
However, this belief is a misconception. While all beauty has an element of art in it, not all art is beautiful or lovely. Don’t miss that: Not all art is beautiful. Not all beauty is art—though all beauty has the potential to become art.
This doesn’t mean the art which lacks beauty is worthless. It simply serves a purpose different than beauty alone. Great storytelling can make us think by raising pertinent questions. Music can stimulate us intellectually or physically, as well as emotionally. Horrific photographs can repulse us into taking action. Most of all, art can act as a barometer. For no artist, despite any argument otherwise, creates in a vacuum. Rather, the art he or she creates forms a mirror with which to reflect the emotions, attitudes, and perceptions of the world around them.
Your Turn
Share one short passage that you feel is beautiful. Name some of the elements employed that helped make that passage lovely.
Or name one story (fiction, narrative nonfiction, film) that moved you “toward love.” Briefly analyze and explain what the story did that moved you in that way.
On Your Own
Find one scene or chapter in your novel to revise, especially one where the writing seems flat.
Check for sensory detail by highlighting each of the five sense in a different color (e.g. sights are blue, sounds are yellow, etc.). Note: smell and taste are often grouped together due to their influence on each other.
Which colors/senses dominate? Which colors/senses are fewest?
If there is an imbalance or a great deficit of a sense, find one or two places per page to add details of that sense.
Look at your sensory details again. Can you make the details more specific or vivid?
Now with that same scene, check for variety. How many sentences do you have per paragraph? Or squint at the page to find places where the blocks of text appear too uniform. With areas that are too similar, splice together a couple of paragraphs. Or break off a sentence or two to form a short paragraph.
Next look at your sentence structure. Are you repeating the same form too much? If you are not sure, highlight in different colors the subjects, conjunctions, the verbs, and the –ing verbs. Revise any area where unintentional patterns occur.
Finally, highlight in different colors dialogue, actions, description, narrative summary, and internal monologue/thoughts. Does one element dominate? How can you intersperse the other elements in?
Still with that same scene, check for order. Mark each cause and effect. (Watch out! Some effects can be causes too.) Revise any place where the effect precedes the cause so that they occur in their natural order.
Do the effects/reactions flow naturally and logically from the cause/action? Clarify any ambiguity.
Does your scene have a beginning, middle and end, with the appropriate arc?
Add contrast. Who is your primary or point of view character for this scene?
What is his or her mood?
What would be opposite of that mood?
Can one of your characters in your scene, even a minor one, display that opposite mood? (E.g. the cheerful store clerk when your protagonist is in a grumpy mood.)
Name ten objects or setting details associated with this opposite mood (e.g. balloons, sunny weather, or a carnival fair for cheeriness).
Can you implement any of these as a passing element, or better yet, make them an integral part of the scene?
Check for cadence. Read your scene aloud. Or have someone read it aloud to you. Mark and revise each place where the eye/tongue stumbled or where there was needless repetition.
Check for unabrasive styling. Check for grammatical and spelling errors.
Break apart any excessively dense sections of text.
Rework any cumbersome sentence structures.
Double check that you don’t use an excessive amount of little-used vocabulary.
Exercises for moving the heart to love
What do you love most about your protagonist?
Find five times your reader can see that trait about him or her; include one instance (if possible) in the first chapter we meet him or her.
List the three times where your protagonist hurts the worst in your story.
For each instance, brainstorm ten ways the situation could be worse.
See if you can implement two or three of those ways for each situation.
How does your protagonist change over the course of your novel?
What would the “before” picture look like?
What would the “after” picture look like?
What action can the protagonist do to demonstrate the change, an action the reader might be able to mimic?
Bonus exercise #1: Break your book into a list of sense. For each scene list the following: the primary characters acting in that scene, the setting (location, time of day, indoor/outdoor), primary activity, and whether it is an action or reaction scene. Assign unique colors to each if that helps. Look for imbalances or unintentional patterns. For example, does your villain disappear for several chapters in the middle of the book? Do almost all your scenes occur indoors? Do your characters spend a lot of time eating—or none at all? Do you have three reaction scenes in a row as your character dithers around, trying to decide what to do next? Then revise to add variety or to make the patterns intentional.
Bonus Exercise #2: List your protagonist’s flaws. Find ways your villain can be opposite or strong in that area. (E.g. The loquacious protagonist and the silent villain or vice versa)
Bonus Exercise #3: List your hero’s flaws, virtues, and main goal. List your heroine’s flaws, virtues, and main goal. Can you tweak some of these things to make your hero and heroine more opposite of each other? (E.g. If the hero is generous with money, make the heroine a money-conscious penny-pincher.)
Bonus Exercise #4: Why do you love this story? Or why did you want to write this story? Free write until you feel a strong emotional reaction. Find one way to remind you of that emotion each time before you work on your story.
Bonus Exercise #5: Make a pact with yourself to not start writing or revising a scene until you are fully engaged emotionally with the characters.
Prayer Prompt
Thank God for creating beauty. Ask for the courage to write with all your emotions fully engaged.