“I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.” – Jesus
Let’s get the biggest question out of the way first: why? Why write fiction? Why stories?
Short answer: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.”
Okay, so it’s not really going to be a short answer. Truth is, there is no short answer. The simplest explanation for why I write can be found in Matthew 13:35, quoted above. But let’s see if I can break that down a little more.
Jesus came down from heaven to reveal truth “kept secret since the foundation of the world.” In this, he prepared the way for the Kingdom of Heaven, a kingdom not of this world which he would establish on earth. Through his teachings, he outlined the structure of this kingdom, a heaven on earth, where righteousness, peace, and joy abound, and where love of God and people is the most important virtue. To help his followers better understand his secret truths, Jesus revealed them in parables. Famous examples include the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which teaches us how to love our neighbors, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son, a tale that illustrates the grace and forgiveness of God. These parables—stories crafted to illustrate specific principles—have shaped the world for thousands of years.
Now, maybe you don’t go in for that Jesus stuff. Fair enough. But you don’t have to stop at the Bible to find world-changing stories. Homer’s Odyssey. Aesop’s Fables. Milton’s Paradise Lost. Everything by Shakespeare. Fairy tales like “Cinderella” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Orwell’s 1984. You know these works because they’ve influenced the way we think and live. Stories, whether in fiction, myth, history, or philosophy, are powerful.
I’m not saying that more straightforward genres like essays, manifestos, speeches, and lectures don’t move people. They do. Occasionally you have a Solzhenitsyn who writes a Gulag Archipelago, a Thomas Jefferson who composes a Declaration of Independence, or a Martin Luther King who gives an “I Have a Dream” speech. Jesus gave plenty of straight-talk too. But stories can affect us in ways that rhetoric or scholarship, no matter how brilliant, cannot. I think this is because we are better at abstracting truths out of a story than we are at understanding those truths stated plainly. We don’t live essays, manifestos, speeches, or lectures. No matter how moving, they can only tell us about something. They can’t make us experience it. But stories can. You can live out a story.
The world is often too complex, raw, or personal to grasp. Experiences come and go before the kernel of truth can sprout in our hearts. But fiction gives us a chance to study the world in a controlled environment. In fiction, the writer can outline reality in obvious ways that are easier to grasp. The simplest example of this are fairy tales which shout the moral of the story in every line. The most complicated television dramas use the same method. The only difference is that they add more complexity.
“But fiction isn’t real,” you might say. “It isn’t true.” And on one level, you’d be right. Fictional stories don’t take place in reality, and in some cases, never could. But on other levels, you’d be wrong. Fiction is real because it outlines the structure of reality. It’s true because it articulates truths about life. The parables of Jesus weren’t true in the sense that they actually happened. We have no evidence to suggest that Jesus referred to an actual account of a prodigal son or a good Samaritan. From all appearances, his stories had no historical truth—he just “made them up.” But that’s not why he told them. Remember, he was revealing things kept secret since the foundation of the world. His parables went far beyond describing mere events that took place within reality and described reality itself. In that sense, they are perhaps the truest stories ever told.
Let me clarify: I am describing good stories. Good fiction is good because it articulates things we know to be true. It’s true to life. Bad fiction, on the other hand, is bad because it isn’t true to life; it doesn’t describe reality well. You know it when you see it because it just doesn’t feel right. We shy away from those stories and gravitate towards the ones which, whether through realistic or fantastical means, seem to describe life accurately. Good fiction improves the world because it reveals truth.
My desire is to tell good stories like Jesus. I want to reveal things kept secret from the foundation of the world, to weave tales which illustrate truths that may be hard to find in real life, to use fiction to help people abstract the principles of the universe. Often, I find myself searching in vain for the right words to articulate a principle I know is true. I find it much easier to illustrate right and wrong with a story. Maybe it’s because I’m not as smart as other people. But I bet a lot of you, like me, would rather hear a story than a lecture, too.
That’s the noble answer for why I write stories. The more substantial answer is this: I really love writing stories. My imagination runs non-stop, and after decades of day-dreaming, my mind is bursting with tales. Also, it’s becoming difficult for me to find fresh stories in books, film, or any other medium that I want to hear. So, I’ve decided to write my own. If for no one else, these stories are for me. After reading a few, you may think, “He should have kept them to himself.” But I sincerely hope you enjoy them too.
To sum up, I write stories because I love them, and because they can change the world. Some of the tales you find here may seem frivolous. That’s okay. “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is a frivolous story too, yet it also holds a timeless truth. “Every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says in Matthew 13:52, “is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” I hope that, by experiencing these stories together, you and I can bring forth treasures both new and old.
Now that you know the why, I hope you enjoy the what. Read, comment if you like, and leave me feedback if you don’t. The fate of the universe may depend on it.
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