STAY AUTHENTIC

“But for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

~ Jane Austen

It can be very difficult being a writer. Besides the actual work involved in creating something someone else will actually want to read, there is the seemingly never-ending string of critics and “experts” who always have a better idea of how you should do your job. “Cut this, add that, switch those words around, drop that character entirely, shorten that sentence, tighten that paragraph, and, yeah, basically start all over,” is the overall impression I get from most voices in the profession of modern literature. Certainly, they have a point. Refinement is essential to any form of excellence, whether rocks into diamonds or rough drafts into published novels. Editing, re-writing, and second opinions are indispensable elements in every writer’s toolkit and you simply cannot be a great author without embracing constructive criticism. Period.

And yet I wonder…

What would have happened if a modern literary agent had been handed Pride and Prejudice? Great Expectations? The Lord of the Rings? Most contemporary book critics will recognize War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy’s 1,225 page epic, as one of the finest classics ever written only to turn around and warn young authors to keep their book to 350 pages or less or they’ll never be published.

Now, I may be overreacting but doesn’t that strike you as a little…odd? And am I the only one who picks up most modern novels only to put them down again after browsing the first paragraph because they all sound exactly the same?

That’s why I love the above quote from Miss Austen: I feel her frustration. So often, if I find a book praised to the skies as “well written” I also find it “too short”. Too canned. Too processed. Too artificial: like all the uniqueness and individuality of the original author’s perspective has been mercilessly squeezed out to make the story more “marketable”—or, in plainer words, so the publishing house can make more money. The style, the characters, the message: it’s as if they all came off the same assembly line with only titles and covers adjusted to make people think they’re reading something new. Not that making money is evil but, in this author’s humble opinion at least, creative integrity should never be sacrificed for the sake of it.

“And…” you may be thinking, “just what does any of this have to do with me?”

Because I want you to stay authentic.

To grow, yes. To challenge yourself and be challenged by those who may know more than you (and I) do, absolutely. But not to become a carbon copy. Not to lose yourself in a system that demands we conform or starve. What made the writing of those like Charles Dickens, G.A. Henty, and Louisa May Alcott so brilliant was not their conformity but their uniqueness. The fact that their style, their perspective, their creative “voice” was different and distinct from those around them enabled them to say something people decades, even centuries later would still want to hear—yes, even need to hear. For us to live by their example will take courage, it will take vulnerability, and, in a world where “sameness” usually equals “sales”, it may take sacrifice, but the God Who made each tiger’s stripe individual and each thumbprint unique did not make us to become clones of each other. He did not create us to create in the image of anyone but Himself. Like David turning down King Saul’s armor when fighting Goliath because he “had not proven them” (1 Samuel 17:39), we need nothing to accomplish the task God has given to us except His Spirit and the tools He has placed in OUR hands—not somebody else’s. His imagination, His enthusiasm, His boldness, uniquely expressed through His individual creation:

YOU.

So don’t let the world “squeeze you into its mold” (Romans 12:2): stay authentic and allow Jesus to fulfill the purpose He made you for. And, if that purpose happens to be writing, let me leave you with one final thought from Miss Austen:

“My style of writing is very different from yours.”

And that is a beautiful thing, indeed!

Choose HEROIC,

CHRISTIS JOY