Becoming Writers Who Write the Truth Beautifully
In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes about how her students often want to know all about being published—their questions revolve around getting literary agents, what publishers are looking for, and how to grow their platform. But she wants them to focus on becoming better writers. She writes, “The problem that comes up over and over again is that these people want to be published. They kind of want to write, but they really want to be published. You’ll never get to where you want to be that way, I tell them” (p. 13).
In elementary school, I wrote short stories and novels. As a teenager I still dabbled in that but focused on poetry. In university, I wrote Christian living articles. What kept me going was the love of writing, but over and over again I came up against the dream of seeing my work in print (other than in my mom’s keepsake trunk). I spent hours at the computer researching writing competitions, literary agencies, the publishing industry, and how to grow my platform. I would watch the writers and authors I admired and try to mimic what they did to grow my platform to match theirs.
Yet what I’m learning is that good writing isn’t about platform, publication, or recognition. To be published doesn’t mean you’re a good writer. There are many books out there; some contain the most beautifully written heresies while others contain solid truths slapped together with cringe-worthy analogies and dense, dry paragraphs.
As believers, we want to be not just published writers but good writers. Someone who brings truth and beauty together in the written word. That won’t always collect the likes. That won’t always receive the publishing deal. However, if we truly love the craft, if we truly care about the message burning in our hearts, if our aim is to glorify God, then we need to be writers who care about truth and beauty.
Handling the Truth
My husband builds and fixes guitars for a living. One day he came into the house, face drawn down, with the guitar he’d been laboring over the past couple of weeks. To my eyes, it appeared beautiful; the variety of woods flowed together and were matched seamlessly, and the grain was sanded smooth. Yet his trained eye showed me a single flaw that had the potential to ruin the entire instrument. When it comes to building guitars, the wood must be flawless and there is little room for error.
In a similar way, we have the power to write something beautiful, but one falsehood within it could tear down our entire piece. As we write, whether it be fiction or nonfiction, we must write carefully so that the themes and truths we communicate aren’t only beautiful but true. We need an attentive and discerning eye for accuracy. We don’t want to be like the people Paul warned Timothy about who are “desiring to be teachers of the law,” yet are “without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions” (1 Tim. 1:7 ESV).
It’s not just about reading God’s Word but rightly dividing it (2 Tim. 2:15). Are we interpreting the passages correctly? Are we taking any verses out of context? Are we coming to Scripture to prove our point, or are we coming to Scripture to be taught and share the truths we learned? Have we checked our conclusions against other respected commentators and theologians?
Further: If we’ve shared the view of someone we disagree with, are we accurately and fairly portraying them? Or are we simply spouting out common stereotypes and straw-man arguments? Have we received our information from reliable sources (i.e., not Facebook, Twitter, memes, Wikipedia, etc.)? And have we properly cited those sources rather than plagiarizing them?
I started writing articles at eighteen years old. Only seven years later, I’m still young. When I first began, there were ideas and beliefs I held to that I no longer hold to. My theology has shifted and changed (though the content of the gospel always remained the same). I cringe at times when I read old blog posts. As we write, we must always tread with care and humility that we don’t lead others astray, cause harm with our words, or exude prideful confidence where Scripture isn’t all that clear.
Truth and beauty are so intertwined that our words cannot be beautiful unless they are also true. Our beautiful words must always adorn the unchanging, eternal truth.
Telling it Beautifully
Having learned the truth from God’s Word, our duty as writers is to learn how to tell it beautifully. Truth is important, but that doesn’t mean our writing should be boring, bland, and monotone. As Lore Wilbert writes, “if theological writing is the bones on which our body hangs, creative writing is the flesh. It fills out the muscles and fills in the crevices. It takes what is foundationally real and true about God and man, and fleshes it out.”
When I first began writing articles, my writing was more skeletal. I didn’t want to waste time with storytelling and laboring over my words to tighten every phrase. I wanted to simply write. I only wanted to tell people the truth that burned in my heart. Yet I wrote like Tolkien’s goblins worked in The Hobbit: “They make no beautiful things, but they make clever ones” (p. 73–74). I told the truth, but despised the beauty of good writing.
Through beautiful writing, we take the truths that the average person may consider boring, unimportant, and lackluster and compel them to come and learn more. We take the abstract ideas and put them in their hands to use. As writers, we show them that these truths we care about can change their lives too. With our words, we lead them to an orchard and show them they aren’t just picking apples, but they could take those apples and make butter, sauces, pies, and cakes. But if we refuse to write beautifully, they may leave the orchard without bothering to glean anything—because all they saw was useless, sour fruit.
How We Learn and Grow
Beautiful writing takes skill, and often isn’t learned by a few simple step-by-step tutorials. Poet Richard Wilbur describes writing like a bird beating itself bloody trying to escape from a house in his poem “The Writer.” If we want to be writers of truth, beauty, and goodness, we must be ready to take up this battle.
It also comes from reading other beautiful writers. Like how my fifteen-month-old twins watch their older brother and try to mimic him, so we likewise take note of the ways our favorite writers capture us and adorn the truth. Writers must always be avid readers.
Overall, it simply takes practice. It’s learned through the discipline of sitting down to write and rewrite. It’s learned through the patience of working on a piece for days (or even weeks) until we have it right. It’s even learned through toiling over five hundred words that you will read the next day and decide to scrap. These are the ways we nurture the skill of writing beautifully.
When I put more effort into growing my platform so I can be noticed, my writing suffers. I have less time to be thoughtful and creative. I have less time to simply write—and writing takes time and tending. When I become so focused on the end goal of the finished work or published words, I forget to do the tending work of simply writing.
Perhaps, for a time, it’s helpful to set aside platform-building and grappling up the mountain of publishing. Perhaps it’s better to simply focus on the craft and take the time to learn how to write not just truth and not just beauty, but the two together. Both of which take years of experience, practice, study, and wisdom.
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