The necessity of transparency in one’s writing, I believe, comes down to the core instinct of the human soul. We can tell when someone is writing false: the characters seem wooden, the dialogue stilted. They do not move and breathe across the pages, and the flame of possibility does not flicker between the lines. We recognize façades the same way we spot inferior CG animation instantly in a movie.

For a lot of us writers, the idea of writing fiction starts out pleasant enough—we look forward to going to a place where nothing bad has to happen and we can make people do whatever we want. But as we mature and grow as students of the craft, we realize that Utopian visions of our world don’t necessarily foster characters that live beyond the borders of our book. They do not instill life and soul—and artistry—into our work.

In many ways, writers of “true” fiction---whether it be genre or literary—must take a journey through deliberate and incisive self-examination. We must learn to view the world, both real and fictional, with eyes that will not look away. We must see ourselves and others with a kind of x-ray vision and stomach the intrinsic realities of the tragic and self-destructive nature of the human condition.

Many writers never come to this point in their work, and their writing remains mediocre. But this principle proves itself in writing as well as in life and other artistic professions. You must deal with your own emotional baggage before you can write something that comes from a truly honest place within yourself.

For me, this was the hardest of all skills to master as a writer. Christian writers, I believe, have an even more difficult time with transparency because the tendency to judge a person’s fictional work as representative of their personal spiritual canon is tempting. In many ways, we have robbed Christian writers of the freedom to create characters which are sinful, because of the pressure to make pointed theological statements through the upstanding moral fortitude of characters. The story then becomes a puppet to the pedagogical and doctrinal agenda, and readers see the plastic sheen on the characters, their motivations, and their actions. Sometimes characters are just too good to be true.

I mean, come on. We don’t love people who are perfect. They make us sick. We resent them because we know they’ve got to be hiding something. Because nobody’s perfect. We fall in love with people like Johnny Cash, who was brutally honest about his weaknesses, and we forgive characters like him again and again because we see something of ourselves in them, and we respect their struggle to be good. Characters become real to us when we recognize the element of tragic humanity in them. But they must be transparent for us to see it.

Some critics might argue, then, that “honest” writing becomes overly depressing and nihilistic. If the basic nature of man is tragic, then how can we write true characters without having everyone fail or commit suicide at the end, if we take each storyline to its inevitable terminus?

I mention God here (you knew He’d make an appearance somewhere, didn’t you?). This is why I write fiction---because, in the process of writing truth about the dismal nature of humanity, I can also write truth about the goodness, forgiveness, and grace of God. The journeys of a sinner to redemption and of a saint to sanctification are paths that should ring true in every human heart, because we are all on paths like these in life.

There is hope. There is triumph through adversity. There is goodness and kindness and compassion in this world. All are gifts from the King. Why should I fear writing about the blackness of the world when there is a Redeemer who brings light to that darkness, hope to the hopeless, and rest to the weary?

Dare to be transparent, in life and in your writing. People will recognize truth, resonate with it, and hold your characters close in their hearts and imagination.

I believe in my work as a writer. I also believe that it will stand or fail on its own merits; I don’t need to explain it, write about writing, or try to promote the writing because I fear it won’t be a commercial success. The task of promoting my publications, when it becomes necessary, will be undertaken as part of the discipline and enthusiasm I have for my work.

This blog is about gushing about the Person I love. As an intensely private woman, sometimes I try to distance myself from the blog post, but I find that writing to generalizations dilutes the power of the message. Words become platitudes. What I also realized is that what is very personal can also become universal, because people care about real people.

I feel vulnerable talking about my life as my life, but perhaps this step of faith is simply another on the road toward complete fearlessness in Christ. Whatever good I’ve done in my life I can’t take credit for. The only reason I’m still here today is because Jesus first loved me. Every time I stop to think about how much He loves me, I start to cry. It is the truest, most real thing in my life. I am richly, deeply, and extravagantly loved.

We choose every day to love or to hate. We choose every day to believe, or not to believe. We choose every day to try, or to give up. In the heartbreaking journey of infertility, the road is fraught with devastation. Many young couples seek to bring life into this world, what God designed for them, and they are met with roadblock after roadblock, heartbreak after heartbreak. To some, the roller coaster ride of emotions becomes too much to handle, and they give up or settle for adoption. Marriages are made stronger by this, or they fall apart.

Sometimes we pray that God’s grace would become manifest in our lives, but then every time we think we’re getting close, something happens. A huge disappointment, a personal stumbling block that dredges skeletons out of our closets and makes us re-evaluate our self-worth, a personal loss—illness, death, divorce…the list goes on and on. When these terrible things happen to us, we blame it on the Devil. But perhaps the very thing we call the Devil is in fact the necessary “firestorm” God has allowed in order to manifest His grace more deeply in our lives?

When we look back at the tragedies of our life, if we look closely, we can see the marvelous sovereignty of God working through the midst of suffering, granting and developing the grace of Christ in us IN our suffering, not despite it. We choose to believe that “all things work together for good to those who love God” Rom. 8:28. This belief cannot grow us into better people if it is not tested by the hardest measure. If everything in our lives stays calm and happy, there is no refining fire by which God can shape us into instruments of His love and mercy.

Oswald Chambers says that men today are not asking whether Christianity is true, but rather, is it REAL?

Walking through the firestorms of life, unscorched by the most bitter of life’s tragedies, empowered by a grace that is not of this world—that is real. People respect real. And when they seek it, they will find the truth as well.