Some of you are writers...
 

let's say fiction...do any of you incorporate Mormondom in your work? How do you feel about a portrayal that some might consider not favorable to the church. For example, a kid that decides not to go on a mission. Or a church scout leader that molests kids. You know, the sort of thing that happens in life, but because of your experiences you decide to tell the story in terms of Mormon culture.

The reason I am thinking about this is I was listening to an interview of Phillip Roth on Fresh Air (NPR) and he was explaining how he was heavily criticized by the Jewish community due to his portrayal of some Jews in his books (Roth is Jewish). That reminded me of Neil Labute and his recent experiences in being taken to task (and disfellowshipped) for some of his work portraying a couple of Mormons as homophobic and violent. Labute has ended up leaving the church.

Of course my mind jumps to the scenario of what would I do? Do I avoid telling Mormon stories because someone somewhere thinks all stories of Mormons should be Ensign-esque? Do I *change* my work or stop doing work if an ecclesiastical superior asks me to?

Frankly it kind of both angers me and makes me sad that we are not secure enough to allow for the sort of literature that has existed and always will exist, where difficult stories are told in context of the authors experiences and culture. Are we so beholden to the concept "what if one person falls away because of this?"

I know there is probably more to the Labute story than meets the eye. But I would be sad if our tent is so small that we don't want people that get under our skin or provoke us, or explore our culture.

It reminds me of Juanita Brooks, disobeying the apostle who told her not to publish the rebaptism of the Mountain Meadows scapegoat......who here would have the guts (or some would say rebelliousness) to do that?

Perhaps I should be more optimistic.

I find it hard not to incorporate it. Even something that isn't expressly about Mormons or the church seem to have elements of our beliefs in them. You write about what you know, after all. That's why you don't see me writing about the tactical differences between the 4-3 and the 3-3-5.

I think good stories are not always comfortable stories. I don't know what I would do if confronted by an ecclesiastical leader about something I had written. I just hope I don't have to deal with it.

Maybe that would make a good story - the conflict between a writer and a misguided ecclesiastical leader.

Picture a white-and-orange paperback: The Complete Idiot's Guide To Coaching College Football by Gary Crowton.

not possible
 

While in art school I took a large number of creative writing courses --I am not a good writer and dearly wish to be one-- taught by a number of published and VERY LEFT leaning professional writers.

Their prodding for the salacious in my life and religion was relentless. It so turned me off that for a time I could not write. And then came along that one teacher, a black feminist at that (well known Toronto writer) ... She simply asked me to write. I did offend her on occasion by the language in some of the dialogue of my characters; characters created from experience growing up in a vanilla community such as SLC where racist language is unavoidable.

In the end I discovered that it was easy to write from a subjective position of truth and that it was even easier to overly embellish the negative aspects of my cultural experiences. Having been guided by her to write what I felt and to ignore the compulsion to provoke I discovered a voice that speaks fondly of my faith and makes no effort to hide my own or my upbringings warts. I am confident that I would not write something that is harmful to the church because, to be blunt, I harbor no ill will and my memories lack intent.

Truth is subjective … writers who offend meant to offend from the get go.

but tooblue, let's say what you consider faith-promoting contains rather innocuous "warts" and suddenly someone important considers it not-so-faith-promoting, and calls you out to cease and desist.

That's the question.

Like Statman's b-in-l, tries to publish an easier to read version of the BoM and almost gets excommunicated.

I suspect most Mormon artists would in fact "cease and desist" and that's probably in part why Mormonism has not produced its "Miltons and Shakespeares". We do not want them, and we will remove them from our midst. We as a people have very little love or appreciation for art.

It's hard to know the specifics of Neil LaBute (sp). If you recall Brian Evenson, who was drummed out of BYU purportedly for publishing "questionable" work (I say "purportedly", because there may well have been other issues involved), he later left the church and left his wife. He is on record saying that his writing was more important than the church and more important than his family. I get the impression that his problems were considerably deeper than merely trying to show church members with warts in his fiction.

I used to be more on top of the scene (I've sort of started targeting speculative fiction markets since they're more fun, more responsive, pay better, and you can get away with examining faith issues more easily), but guys like Brady Udall and Darrell Spencer often include Mormons in their work and don't seem too shy about giving their characters rough edges. (Udall's collection /Letting Loose the Hounds/ is still one of my favorite short story collections.)

IIRC (please correct me if this is incorrect), Terry Tempest Williams never got disciplined for her autobiography that included scenes with her giving "priesthood blessings" and imbibing champaign with her husband -- and presenting these things as normal things that Mormons do.

Finally, there's a big difference between being "true to your art" and attacking the church. IMHO, true art in writing doesn't answer questions, it merely raises them. A good writer doesn't interpret events for his readers -- unfortunately, there's not a lot of good writing out there. It's hard to imagine getting any cease-and-desist from headquarters because a question was asked and pondered through literature.

At least that's what I'm hoping -- I got a Mormon vampire (short-)story in the hopper that I'm pretty sure is gonna sell.

o

If one writes, it's impossible to separate one's own
 

experience from what one writes.

Whether it's important to incorporate negative images or not is another question. I try to make things interesting. My writing hasn't been successful, but I need to devote more time to it. Maybe I need to acquire some talent.

I really doubt I would incorporate something like a scout master molesting kids, because that's beyond my world of experience. I would incorporate kids not going on missions or coming home prematurely. I would write about things which might happend but I wouldn't go out of my way to include an embarrassing episode.

Whew! And here I thought it was just a cop-out on my part because I don't have the answers, but only questions!

I'm definitely with you on this. I'm going to have to find Udall's book. I had some contact with Darrell Spencer at BYU (I was an English major), and his deconstruction lectures went way over my head.

I'm trying to put together a collection of short stories - in fact, I finished one of my stories last night and moved on to one of my other unfinished ones. My biggest fear is that my stuff is going to turn out (despite my intentions to the contrary) more along the lines of Jack Weyland.

I think there are two short stories I read years ago that have had the biggest influence on my, short-story-wise: a story by Leslie Norris (I read it in high school, well before I went to BYU and learned he was on the faculty there), about kids ice skating, and a story about a Catholic boy going to his first confession, I believe by Flannery O'Connor.

There are situations or ideas or principles which are part of LDS life, which invoke particular emotions or feelings in me - I think the stories I write are a way to try to express those.

I had Darrell for a creative writing class the last year before he took off for Ohio (he was worried he was going to get tossed out of school himself, but then again, he was a bit of a paranoiac). Everything I know about writing I learned from that class -- heck, everything I know about putting together PowerPoint presentations I learned from that class. He was a brilliant creative writing instructor. Not sure how he'd be with deconstruction. Also not sure what "deconstruction" is (we didn't have that in the foreign language wing of the JKHB).

Actually, I learned a lot from the Personal Essay class I had with Tom & Louise Plummer, too, although they were less demanding and less dogmatic than Darrell.

Good luck avoiding Jack Weyland.

o

...
 

I readily agree with many of the other posts … the simple fact of the matter is the church neither has the time or energy to concern itself with what members write unless it is untruthful and an overt attack on the church. Beyond the attack though there are ALWAYS underlying issues that drive the attack and ultimately are the reason for any discipline.

If your intent is to provoke you will provoke. Whereas if your intent is to tell a story embodied with truth based in historical reality you will entertain, perhaps offend and most certainly be left alone.

I do not view church authority as even interested in controlling or restricting artistic expression. Men in leadership are just like you … driven by the same desires and appetites and ambition. Write Mike –and worry less about the warts and more about the art!

and
 

And there's nothing wrong if your work resembles Jack Weyland!

Mormon subjects, characters and themes in literature
 

Mike, this was an excellent post. I missed it at first. Here's the nub of it: Good literature involves, at its heart, conflict fraught with ambiguity. If King Lear had been perfectly wise in handling his estate and his relationships with his children, you would have at best melodrama. By definition, "literature" that amounts to pro-Christian or pro-Mormon-values polmemic--i.e., allegory sans conflict or ambiuity--is not good literature. Moreover, good literature is probably by definition subversive. This is probably why Tostoy and Dostoyevski, while religious and whose works were sympathetic to traditional Christian faith, still got into trouble with the Orthodox Church.

Now, to answer your question, I'm attempting a novel that at bottom is about religion--more precisely the importance of myth-making to our culture and civilization, how such myths have arisen, and their interrelatedness (it also has a fair amount of sex and violence, and a tight plot)--and no, I'm not concerned about how it portrays Christianity (its time period is long before the advent of Mormonism).

Hey, Mike: How about one of those usergroup-thingies for some of us writers to talk about how each other writes good?

That's a real good idea.

a private group? who would be let in?

The ones who appear to be serious writers - a separate category where we can maybe even post stories or portions of works for constructive criticism - things that we might be more open to doing among other writers, rather than those who wouldn't have serious criticism.

I think you broached the subject a while back. It seems like we have enough people here who are serious about writing things.

I find that when others get enthusiastic about writing, I tend to do more of it myself.

Can a usergroup have a president?

If so, I nominate Grapevine.

so people can say "I think I am a writer and I want to be involved" and then by consensus be allowed in?

How about "I think I am a voyeur and I want to watch"; does that get me in?

Here's how these groups usually work. If you are willing to read someone else's work and offer constructive criticism, there's space enough in the room, and somebody wants you in, you're in. The price for people taking the time to read your stuff and offer comments is that you return the favor and don't disappear after others have given you a hand. Usually voyeurs and sheer commentators are welcome if they have a good faith interest; in fact they're seen as something akin to bestowers of charity.

I might dig out some of my crappy short stories
 

to see if my lack of talent is evident to everybody else.

Or I would offer my critique sans the usual exorbitant fee.

I sent Outlier a story I had recently "finished" and he gave me some great insight and criticism on it. This is sort of what is spurring my thoughts on this.

I think there are enough people on here who are serious writers, who would not only give the criticism but provide their own works to be reviewed.

I would be reluctant to expose myself and my writing so openly to the masses (even the CougarGuard masses), but to a smaller group of serious writers, I don't have the same reluctance.

Plus, I think the discussion and exchange of ideas and techniques would spur me along more, and I might find more motivation to finish the many writing projects I have that remain incomplete.

set up that group yet ... I've got some prose to be critiqued!? It's a poetic narrative for a work of art (artist's book).

As for the voyeurs -- I think it would be *very preferable* to restrict access to the feature to only those who actively participate in the posting and critiquing. If it includes people beyond that, it's not really a workshop and, as such, a snooty market could consider a story as having been published and decline to buy it.

OTOH, if all folks are interested is having a little audience and getting some feedback, then a more-open arena might work fine. As for me and my house, though, I'm planning on selling my ----, so that'd probably preclude my participation.

Which may not be much of a loss.

o

...
 

have i mentioned that i was an english graduate student at utah state university?

that i was a fellow and have recently been lost my fellowship and am no longer a graduate student?

i think i can help anyone with any short story they have, and have the time and generally am willing to read and critique anything....

im willing to participate....

Ever heard of copyright laws?

Do you know the difference between a copyright and first publication rights?

Ever heard of:

"Every editor for every worthwhile short story market considers publishing a story to any public website 'publication'. Unless you're John Updike, and even he doesn't get free passes most of the time, no editor of any worthwhile short story market will buy anything other than 'first publication rights', wherefore if you put your story up on a website, it's published, therefore editors won't buy it since they won't get first publication rights."

Unless you're trying to get published in your brother's 100-circ LDS kitsch-fic rag, owning the copyright ain't gonna help you if you've already published it to a website.

Don't question someone unless you know what you're talking about. Thanks.

o

We're not talking about publishing anything. Just exchanging working manuscripts among friends.

Where's that damn "ignore" feature...?

Dude, I don't care what *your* opinion is, what matters are the opinions of editors of paying markets. If you put a story on a website and it's viewable by the public, then editors will consider that work *published* and not be willing to buy it. Therefore, if MW puts up a writers' group area, then it should be an area restricted to participants.

o

PS, Sorry about deleting all the old quotes, we had a cool nested thing going there and I screwed it up.

by the sound of this thread, one might get the mistaken idea that there is actually money to be made by being a writer. LOL.

Outside of JK Rowling that is.

Wow, our first angry rebuttal. Relax outlier.

fusnik11
seattleute
outlier
tooblue
socalcoug

who else wants in? steelblue?

You're right. I have a hard time keeping it under control when confronted with outspoken ignorance.

o

PS, Are we not allowed angry rebuttals here? Crap I had this all figured out wrong...

Great point. And with respect to short stories, I doubt even Updike makes much money. These days short stories are mostly batting practice for aspiring novelists. I read that in the NY Times sometime ago.

However I don't begrudge outlier. It's not like there should be peer pressure to share ones work, LOL. Like catblue said, it's actually nice to not ask others to read ones work.

include me if you will
 

that would be fun.

Count me in.

okay, you 2 are added.

For a bit I thought outlier's avatar snake was going to strike the post there.

I was a journalism guy undergrad and think of myself as a decent writer on some levels, but the journalism turned me into an ultrapicky editor and has also tainted my ability and mode of thought towards writing. It really turned me into a straight-facts-some-flavor writer. Nouns, verbs, then maybe some adjectives and adverbs.

I took a few creative writing courses and detested the ultra-detailed, fluffy style a lot of people bring. If you want concise writing , that's what I can give you and that's what I can edit your work down to. Of course, maybe the fluffy details are just the offspring of poor writing? Whenever we had free-reign assignments, I tended towards plays/scripts because it let me avoid paragraph upon paragraph of description. Not that I was great at that either.

I think that if I wrote much, I'd tend towards the style of Hemingway in lacking tons of details. But I'm not a fan of his writing either. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'd rather be associated with him than Henry James. I'll start looking for a noose before I read HJ again. I need strong, intelligent, thoughtful writing... like Grisham or Danielle Steel!

If there's still room in the pen & sword inn, I'd be happy to contribute -- especially if there's a little contention!

Too bad voyeurism doens't qualify; Given how well
 

Outlier took Catblue's comments about first publication rights, I can only imagine how amusing it might be when they started to critique each other's work. The truth is, however, that I spend far too much of my day editing legal writing to really want to edit or review more writing, even good creative writing, in the evening. Moreover, I think the law has beaten any real creativity out of my writing, although I suppose I feel like I could still offer "big picture" ideas and comments on analytical writing. Besdies, I certainly wouldn't want the fact that my eyes were added to the forum to casue Outlier to lose any lucrative publishing opportunities.

When will we get a spell-checker? Do I need to buy more books?