As the season of Easter wanes and the season of spring surges ahead, it’s a time when I often ponder the
role we play on earth. Is that the spiritual part of my soul or my writer's soul at work? Or both.....?
As writers, I believe we have a responsibility to think about the role we play in the world of words and thought. Is it merely to entertain—which is certainly motivation enough to write—or is it also to impart
something significant to our readers?
It has to be acknowledged, that whether it’s "truth" or a reflection of
the truth, or the desire to move the hearts of those who take in our
stories—there is something quite powerful about the written word.
The following passage came to me in an email this week and it struck
me as true for us, as writers, not just because it is a spiritual truth, but because it raises a
practical and ethical or moral question, too:
“A man’s [or woman's] self shall be filled with the fruit of his
mouth; and with the consequence of his words he must be satisfied [whether good
or evil].” ~ Proverbs 18: 20
I decided to post the quote on my desktop and so have been glancing at it all week. Last night I decided that even the most trivial story carries an element of something deeper, or does it? Are we satisfied with the words we select and with the stories and/or
themes we portray? Is it any accident that certain stories resonate with us and demand to be heard?
Do we write about redemption? Vengeance, and the consequences of it? The battle between what our characters want or need? Do we write about love—lost, forgotten, stolen, recovered? Or about a time in history when people thought not about the consequences of their actions—eg; how we've destroyed or tormented or conquered? History is full of these stories and as I look through our own Prairie Rose titles, I'm struck by how many of us seem to incorporate them into our writing, as well.
Clearly, themes are important to most of us. I know they are to me. Even as a young person reading (and I have always loved historicals, biographies, autobiographies, and history), I often looked to stories for insight into the human heart or soul, or into the conflicts that ripped brother against brother or nation against nation...As a teacher of history, these themes came up in my teaching all the time, too. I wanted my students to dig deeper into the "facts" and find the human story, whether good or bad.
Do we write about redemption? Vengeance, and the consequences of it? The battle between what our characters want or need? Do we write about love—lost, forgotten, stolen, recovered? Or about a time in history when people thought not about the consequences of their actions—eg; how we've destroyed or tormented or conquered? History is full of these stories and as I look through our own Prairie Rose titles, I'm struck by how many of us seem to incorporate them into our writing, as well.
Clearly, themes are important to most of us. I know they are to me. Even as a young person reading (and I have always loved historicals, biographies, autobiographies, and history), I often looked to stories for insight into the human heart or soul, or into the conflicts that ripped brother against brother or nation against nation...As a teacher of history, these themes came up in my teaching all the time, too. I wanted my students to dig deeper into the "facts" and find the human story, whether good or bad.
Thus, authors, through their stories, are empowered to share what it takes to survive, how men AND women can overcome the odds..... Or how, sometimes, we are crippled by or left bare by the devastation that people have suffered through history.
Perhaps that's why we carry the "burden" of speaking to the hearts and minds of our readers, hoping that they derive more than just a good story from our words!
In my first novel, ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS, several of my characters (Red Eagle, Liza, Crying Wind, Liza’s father) are involved in their personal journeys of discovering not only what they need, but also in recovering that which was lost: an unknown past; a connection to a people torn apart by violence and prejudice and war; a love that was almost lost, then found; and a people who overcame what was taken from them. It was also a story of how hate and bigotry can tear apart the soul and the flesh...
In part, these very themes were what drew me "into the
original story." After doing an enormous amount of research with the intent of writing
nonfiction, I found myself thinking about what each of these people had to lose or gain by the events that led to the infamous and tragic Marias
Massacre of the Blackfeet in Montana. A rarely shared event that left 173 innocent people dead in the middle of a bitterly cold January morning...
Those questions provided the impetus to turn the mass of facts I had collected into historical fiction.
Those questions provided the impetus to turn the mass of facts I had collected into historical fiction.
It became imperative that I communicate more
than just the facts. It became imperative that I build characters that were
aching or searching to know more, to find more, to overcome....even to love more. To find wholeness in the face of death and pain and loss...Perhaps, in truth, to be reborn.
Gail L. Jenner is the author of the WILLA Award-winning novel, ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS, republished by Prairie Rose Publishing, as well as the author of several short stories, the historical novel, BLACK BART: THE POET BANDIT, and 5 nonfiction regional histories.
