Some of you are writers...

[MikeWaters]

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.

[SoCalCoug]

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.

[ute4ever]

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

[tooblue]

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.

[MikeWaters]

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.

[outlier]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

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.

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

[Archaea]

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.

[SoCalCoug]

true art in writing doesn't answer questions, it merely raises them

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.

[outlier]

Originally Posted by SoCalCoug

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 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

[tooblue]

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!