With everything you’ve learned over the years, have you ever thought how wonderful it would be if you could go back in life and have a “do-over”? Well, I just did exactly that. I just finished a major rewrite of a novel that was first published over a decade ago, using everything I’ve learned to go back and relive that part of life, and this time I did it better.

Not that there was anything wrong with the first time. They Shall See God was good in 2002. In fact, it was a Christy Award finalist because it brimmed with page-turning suspense and fascinating characters. Plus, you know you’ve god a winner with every single Amazon reader review is five stars. But I’ve learned a thing or two about storytelling and writing in the years since then. And with electronic books and print on demand technology, for the first time in the history of publishing it’s feasible to revise a novel that’s already in print. So I thought, “Why not?”

Most of the changes I’ve made were about polishing the language to make it read more elegantly, but some of what I did went further. To improve the way the plot flowed, I worked on the transitions between some scenes, repositioned a few scenes, combined some scenes together, and changed the point of view in others. I put chapter breaks in new places to increase suspense. I improved and strengthened the characterization in many subtle ways.

All in all, I’m as excited about this new edition of They Shall See God as I ever was about a brand new novel. I’m excited because I know all the readers who enjoyed it so much the first time will absolutely love this new and improved version, and I’m proud to recommend it to anyone who never read one of my novels, as an excellent place to start.

But I do wonder if this will be a little controversial. Some people think a novel should be like a work of art in a museum: once it’s presented to the public, it should never change again. What do you think?

 

COMING IN AUGUST: They Shall See God and three other new and improved Christy Award finalists and winners, with new forewords or afterwords by the author.

One of the pleasures of preparing to re-release Winter Haven has been to add a new forward. Here is a brief excerpt.

People ask how I get ideas for novels. It’s not an easy question to answer. Each story is different, and comes in its own way. I’m not even certain when or how some of the ideas start. Sometimes I just seem to notice them already fully formed and waiting in my imagination.

But every story idea does begin somehow, of course, and thinking back I realize the idea for Winter Haven was planted many years ago when a journalist with The New York Times interviewed me about one of my early novels. The interview did not go well. At first the journalist seemed pleasant enough, but I sensed something was bothering him. Eventually he got around to it.

“In your story,” said the journalist, “You have this man accused of murder and he tells his wife about it, and she says they should pray. Do you seriously think anyone would bother praying at a time like that?”

To this day it remains the most surprising question anyone has ever asked me in an interview. Of course one expects creative twists and turns from a journalist with such rarified credentials. But I wasn’t startled by the question’s creativity. On the contrary, at first I thought he must be joking. Surely nobody would be sincerely skeptical that a character might pray in a dangerous situation. Then I realized he was actually serious, and the atmosphere between us seemed to roll back like a curtain to reveal a topsy-turvy world. He didn’t merely have a different point of view; he came from a kind of Wonderland where the basic facts of life are utterly ignored.

I wouldn’t have been much of a novelist if something like that didn’t show up in a book someday.

Learn more about Winter Haven

The best friends of beauty in a novel are deep contemplation, honesty, intentionality, originality and love.

Deep contemplation, because lasting beauty is never superficial. Honesty, because duplicity is ugly. Intentionality because true beauty comes only from beautiful motives. Originality because again, nature’s variety proves it inseparable from beauty. And love, because it is both the purpose and the Source of all things beautiful.

Sadly, our culture values instant gratification above everything, even at the cost of ugliness and mediocrity. Television, fast food restaurants and tract houses testify to this. Even more sadly, Christian readers are as guilty of it as anyone. The popularity of simplistic answers to the many paradoxes in the scriptures is one proof of this.

Only pride or money could explain why a novelist would pursue readers who demand easy answers to the vast enigma of the Godhead, who have no time for sunsets, who find an ocean view too empty, who barely see the roses, much less stop to smell them.

We are told no one can serve two masters. Write for pride or money, and you do not write for love or beauty. Yet we are also told our novels must burst upon the reader’s mind with all the urgency of a fire drill. We must hook them. We must do it right away or they will rush off to the next shiny lure, and we must keep them on the hook, wiggling like a dying fish until the bitter end. But beauty does not operate that way. Beauty demands nothing. It does not insist. Beauty whispers. It entices.

For those who love in spite of the unknown and unknowable, for those who gaze in awe at sunsets, ocean views and roses all ablaze with color, there is another sort of hook.

Just to pick one fine example, consider One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Marquéz. I found little in the plot to justify so many pages, and today I do not recall a single character’s name, but the words . . . the words! Contrary to the usual advice, for me it was no page-turner. Instead my mind lingered, dreading the coming end because each page turned meant one page closer to the ceasing of those beautiful, beautiful words. The joy they sparked within me will not die until I do.

How I wish the world was filled with novels of such beauty! How I strive and strive to write such words, every single one an offering without blemish to the Source of beauty. And how I search for those who also strive to write that way, that I might have a chance to read them when the Lord is done.

An excerpt from an article which first appeared at Novel Rocket in 2011

Learn more about The Opposite of Art

As he had beneath the Sistine ceiling, Ridler paced the sidewalk. Back and forth beside the looming ramparts, he paced. All the years swirled through his mind, the cost of jungles, beaches, filthy alleys and bazaars, tortured and exploded, hungry, parched, lonely and alone, and of course Suzanna. Suzanna lost forever. He had surrendered everything to paint the Glory, trying it a thousand times, a thousand ways, miles of paint, gallons of it flowing across canvas by the acre. What were these imposters’ feeble efforts compared to sacrifice like his?

“I’ll show them,” he muttered, dropping to his knees and opening his backpack. “I’ll show them.”

Removing his kit he spilled his pastels out onto the sidewalk. Still muttering, he selected a piece of chalk and began to sketch. His arm swung broadly over the pavement, a giant motion from the shoulder. Line after sweeping, monumental line arched across the slates around him. He was no mere artist. He was an athlete, a zealot and a warrior. He was no propagandist. He was a partisan, a dogmatist in possession of all truth. He alone could show the Glory to the world, and he alone would do it.

Driven by his rage and his disdain, Ridler lost all consciousness of his surroundings. He did not see the crowd gathering about him as his colors rose from the pavement to the ancient ramparts of the Holy See. He did not hear their whispers, nor their gasps and exclamations as the image swelled and spread. He climbed the wall with only fingertips and the narrow edges of his boots, clinging to the bricks stacked earthy and steadfast for generations. Halfway up he released his hold and drifted. Gripping colored chalk in both of his hands, he drew with unerring beauty and precision on his left and right at once, a whirlwind of pristine intention, filling empty voids as if he was a witch conjuring a portal to a future or a past. He almost had it now. This time he would hold it fast. He would draw back the veil. He would reveal the Glory. He would not let it go. He would master everything.

Ridler drew among a cloud of witnesses. No carabinieri stepped forward from that growing crowd to protest on behalf of public property. On the contrary, the police in their white belts and chest straps stood entranced along with bankers and tourists, priests and beggars. Dozens of them turned to hundreds; hundreds turned to thousands. From the street and sidewalk, from the windows, balconies, and rooftops, all of Rome observed in breathless silence.

It never crossed the artist’s mind that he might run out of colors. Again and again he pulled more pastels from his pack, never realizing it had become a cornucopia, endlessly fertile, providing everything required. Nothing was withheld. The sun itself beyond the angry clouds did not betray him. On the contrary, it remained aloft long past the normal hour, granting the suspension of time. Even gravity and space surrendered, all created things in all directions bowing in submission to his genius.

In the end it seemed the only limit was himself, for when he stopped it was his own decision. Hands and arms and clothing choked with color, Ridler sat back on his haunches. At that very moment the sun began to move again above the clouds, but it took a while to regain its usual velocity. And like the fading of the day, Ridler’s own return was gradual, a slow recognition of the image spread out all around him. Shadows gathering, he gazed upon the work.

It covered half a block along the sidewalk. It climbed forty feet up the wall. It was of course his grandest effort, superior to anything that Rome had ever seen. Thousands knelt around the fringes, hands clasped at their chins, palms turned up toward heaven. Their whispered prayers combined and interlaced in midair, flowing hot across his face. Their adoration of the image plucked him to his feet as if he were a puppet pulled by strings. He disappeared into them, staggering with painful joints, fleeing yet another failure, for he was well aware that this was merely one more flawed beginning. As he had so many times before, he had reached the end of Ridler without capturing the Glory.