Moseying down the spiritual road

My hubby and I love to travel. We’ve gone everywhere – well, not South America, but Europe and Asia and Alaska….and we’ve discovered that we travel in different ways. I like a map. And a destination. And the knowledge that I get to eat something normal on the way. He likes to set out and see where the road takes him. The difference isn’t our destinations – eventually we get where we want to go. It’s the HOW.

How are you going to move your hero along on his spiritual journey? Here’s a few travel tips I’ve learned on my journeys:

In plotting my stories, I often start with a story question – and the same thing goes for the spiritual thread. Whether is it a story about a man fighting his own demons of sin (Dekker: Three), or a woman facing her husband’s career as a pastor (Rivers: Shofar Blew), your character will begin in a place of spiritual unrest. Defining that for the reader, through metaphor, or dialogue or situation will give you a place to start from, spiritually.

How do you discover your character’s spiritual darkness? I begin with a simple interview. Ask your character what the major catalysts for change were in his/her life, and how did that mold his spiritual thinking? Did he/she have any God moments as a child? What was his/her darkest moment in their lives and how has that affected their worldview today? What now keeps them from walking with God? The key is to discover where they are spiritually.

The most important question in the interview is: What holds them back from a relationship with God? Try and boil it down to one sentence.

i.e. in my book Happily Ever After, my heroine, Mona needed to trust God and forgive herself (accept God’s forgiveness). My hero, Joe needed to forgive his father.

Ie, in Francine River’s book, Redeeming Love – Angel needed to accept God’s unconditional love and forgiveness, and then see Hosea as God’s instrument to love her.

Once you’ve discovered their spiritual state, and what they need, then you can move onto their journey.

Your character is most likely beginning in a place of reluctant contentment spiritually. They may not like their worldview, but it’s all they have. However, in stories, as in life, God will bring someone to their darkest moment so that His light shines brightest. He wants people to reach up and grab a hold of him, and this is what your character should do. Your job is to plot their spiritual demise. The point is to bring them to their darkest moment, when they want to give up and they have no where else to turn.

I’ve used, for years, what I call, the D’s. (For more information on the “D’s” pick up “Getting into character” by Brandilyn Collins)
Desire – What is your character’s spiritual desire? Or need?
Distancing – What has caused this need?
Denial – What deepens their need?
Disappointment – What brings them to a place where they are despondent.
Destruction – Based on their spiritual needs, what breaks them?
Delight – Using scripture, or some other verse, metaphor, hymn, song, conversation, etc what can restore them with a Biblical truth?

Let’s see how this works in a secular book, and how the story might have been adapted for the Christian market.

In The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, the heroine is overwhelmed with her upcoming wedding. She’s afraid, and she doesn’t know why. Her mother’s friends, the Ya Yas, know why and they kidnap her to help her sort through it. It’s all very traumatic for her, and at one point during the unraveling of history, she wants to give up. She calls her fiancé and calls off the wedding. However, the Ya Yas persist, and through her father and the Ya Yas, faith in marriage and relationships is restored. And finally her relationship with her mother is restored. If this was a “Novel with a Christian World view”, at the darkest moment, she would have realized that only a relationship with God won’t fail her, that He will give her the strength to mend the broken past. She might still need the support of the Ya Yas and her father, (and in the end, there is a sort of “spiritual” commitment), but this is how you’d incorporate the spiritual nature into your story. (Now, before I get a lot of letters – I loved the book, I’m just using it as an example!)

Mapping out the spiritual journey can be as extensive or as minimal as you want. I like to define the low and high points and let the story and characterization take it from there. Some might just want to put a verse as their pillar of light, and let it lead when it may. Others may want to write out a long theological statement for every leg of the journey. Whatever helps you stay on track and ends with your hero at his destination: The Truth.

Tomorrow we’ll take a final look at the spiritual journey with some techniques and tricks!