Morality in Catholic Fiction: How To?
By John McNichol
Back when I was little and Christian-themed shows still appeared on network television, one of my favorite programs was a little piece called Davey and Goliath. Brought to us by the Lutheran Church and the folks who made Gumby, the show centered on young Davey Hansen and his big, talking dog, Goliath.
When confronted with a moral dilemma (and you could always count on one cropping up), if Davey’s parents weren’t available for advice, Goliath would act as Davey’s conscience. “Gee, Davey, I don’t know about that…”
It worked well for me as a six year old. Then, I was too young to be cynical about Davey’s unfailingly wise parents, or the very holy Pastor Miller. Today, though, our culture has difficulty believing in homilies from either parents or priests as a believable guide for faith and morals.
Many times, when we try to show that certain actions are right or wrong, we’re tempted to have our characters sermonize about the issue. Harriet Beecher Stowe did this so much in Uncle Tom’s Cabin that I had to grit my teeth to keep reading when she started pontificating to the farmers, merchants and mothers of America for the umpteenth time about how slavery was bad, and they were all complicit in it through their apathy.
Fine, I wanted to say when I saw the fourth or fifth of these monologues, I get it. Slavery is wrong, bad and awful. Now, could you get to something interesting?
So, I’ve gone on about how not to do it; what, then, would be the right way?
Eventually, Stowe did get to something interesting. Eliza started leaping from ice floe to ice floe in an effort to bring her child to a life of freedom. And that did more to galvanize me against slavery than did any ten of the finger-wagging paragraphs that Stowe seemed so fond of earlier in the novel.
Just as with any good writing, wherever possible, show, don’t tell. Eliza’s acting by risking her and her baby’s lives for freedom says so much more than any sermon could.
In a more modern context, showing consequences for actions is the best way to show an act to be right or wrong. A teenager suffering believable consequences for their wrong choices can say a lot more to a reader than having Father Feeney show up ten pages from the end to give a speech on the evils of …(insert teen temptation here).
Showing a teen boy’s friends shunning him on Monday morning after Saturday night’s alcohol fueled foolishness would make a great case for sobriety to the reader, more than Pastor Miller’s godly speeches on the subject. Showing a girl having arguments and trust issues with her current dream-beau because of a lack of chastity in her pervious relationship would convince far better than detailing Sister Perpetua’s talk with the class on the subject.
A good example is the best sermon, so the saying goes. I’d say it goes just as much for fiction writing as it does for raising kids.
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John McNichol writes from Vancouver Washington. He is the author of the Young Chesterton Chronicles, a Catholic-themed Steampunk series that stars a teenaged GK Chesterton!
The Bestselling First Volume, The Tripods Attack!, is available from Sophia Institute Press., and is also available in E-book format on Kindle.
Hi Victoria.
Never fear. I'll never complain about the length of a comment that adds to and/or approves of something I've written. 🙂
God bless,
JDM
p.s. (I guess this is really ridiculously long now.)
What made Stowe's sermons particularly tiring, I think, is that the subject itself is so sad and emotionally draining. It's like you have this layer that is so bleak and dark, and then there's preachiness on top of it. So, for modern readers, it's just hard to get all that. I found myself just wanting desperately for things to happen because the reality of their lives was so bleak and tragic.
Still, that book was hugely influential. So, the lesson is there that one should know one's audiences.
OK. Now, I'm really, really done.
Well-said, John. Those long sermons might have been better-suited for Stowe's days (and C.S. Lewis's hero, George MacDonald), but it gets a little wearying at times. It's better to show a character being cruel/mean/fun/awesome/annoying than to tell me that they are that way.
It's the same for business writing; people don't care about the specs of a product or service. They want to know what's in it for them, what happens next (after they buy it). Or for reporting (people want to know the details).
Sorry this comment is as long as one! 😉