The Delightful Dyers

My favorite characters in my book Living Between the Ditches were not the hero or the heroine—Layton and Amy—nor their precious 4-year-old Brianne. Surely it would have been Pastor Frank or his wife Myra (the subject of my next and yet unwritten post).

Surprisingly, it's the Dyers, Amy's parents. I'm surprised because when we first meet Jan and Phil, they are the starched perfectionists who kiss on the cheek and have impeccable table manners. To some degree they helped create Amy's willingness to take the blame for the breakup of her marriage and not to fight for it. Amy was taught compliance and conformity.

Then, during Amy's college years her parents become Christians—the radical type who talk about their faith! Amy is turned off by their zeal yet aware that something or Someone has changed them for the better. Jan's favorite expression is uttered several times throughout the book (and even makes it into the Epilogue--oops! don't peek if you haven't gotten there yet): "God is up to something!"

When retirement comes, the Dyers head for a volunteer mission assignment in Ecuador, which is where we find them in chapter one. Brianne's unscheduled surgery has left them scrambling for plane tickets to Nashville while awaiting a replacement couple. Their delayed arrival gives Layton and Amy time together, time to talk and try to clear the air.

The Dyers are Meme and Mepaw to little Brianne, who adores them. She can't wait to show them her scar, as though it were a prized possession. When they finally get to her house, life is in turmoil and Brianne is in tears.

Layton is pretty sure he knows how Jan and Phil feel about him after the divorce. And it's not good. Instead, they give him a warm reception. The reader is clued in as to why the Dyers react as they do. And then come my favorite lines in the whole book. You can find them at the top of page 147--second paragraph.

The Dyers are the best of what Christianity has to offer—the God of the second chances, forgiver of our sins, and champion of our futures.

Pastor Frank: A Model Minister

Layton's pastor, Rev. Frank Norwell, had baptized him, performed his wedding, and counseled him through his divorce. He had been there for Layton through all his ups and downs, especially when Layton's dad died. So why isn't Layton thrilled to see Pastor Frank in the waiting room during Brianne's surgery?

Pastor Frank's appearance is a stark reminder to Layton that his relationship with God isn't exactly cozy at the moment. Sensing Layton's spiritual struggle, the minister gently probes with the skill of a surgeon for those tender places of the heart, looking for a point of entry. Pastor Frank is a rare blend of caring and confronting. Being a minister of God's comfort is his calling, but he's equally willing to make a person uncomfortable. "How are things between you and God, Layton?" he asks.

It's the last question Layton wants to hear—or answer—yet he can't get it out of his mind. Eventually, Layton will have to deal with it. But first, he must go through some intense pruning of his soul to make it ready for new fruit. Pastor Frank waits and prays. He shares when Layton wants to talk, but he's also happy to listen.

We discover the human side of Pastor Frank quickly. He loves sports—especially Vanderbilt football—and his dear wife Myra. He also knows how to suffer. Pastor Frank doesn't think he's earned any chips with God that he should be able to call in when needed. He deals with adversity like we all must—one step at a time—with a confidence in God that develops over many years of faith in His Person and plan.

Pastor Frank knows what we're up against, and he also knows that the church can't make the difference. There aren't enough hours in a lifetime of church-going to replace a relationship with God honed through daily encounters with Him and His Word.

Pastor Frank knows God without being stuffy or unapproachable. He's comfortable around those who aren't where he may be spiritually. He's not likely to hold a grudge but extremely likely to lend a helping hand. Does this make him a super saint? No.

He worries that he hasn't been the pastor Layton needed. He thinks his divorce counsel was inadequate. He isn't sure that it's not too late for Layton and Amy, but if not, what to say? Like all of us, Pastor Frank can't make things right for others, but sadly, he can't even make them right in his own family.

Do many people have a minister who is this involved in their lives? Who cares this deeply? Who models such love and compassion? Probably not. But wouldn't you want him to be like Pastor Frank?

Brianne: Our Precocious Preschooler

In Living Between the Ditches: When God Makes No Sense, Brianne is definitely the character who pulls our heartstrings. At four years of age she is a victim of divorce and disease. Brianne has done nothing to cause her circumstances yet she must still deal with the consequences.

Her dad calls her "a tough little girl" and we see her spunk in the way she deals with her upcoming surgery. "Mommy said the doctors are going to make me all better." But we also feel Brianne's pain as she whimpers and sleeps fitfully in the big hospital bed. We want her to be "all better."

We watch as Brianne tries to make sense of the divorce. "Are you still mad at Mommy?" she asks Layton with a child's honesty. When Layton tells her he'll stay with her after she's released from the hospital, her eyes fill with tears as she replies, "But I want you to stay all the time."

We also enjoy Brianne. We chuckle at her playful teasing with her dad, her vivid imagination, and her lively conversation. When Layton calls her Kitten, she usually replies, "Meow." They share pretend picnics and conduct business at her toy cash register.

Brianne tells us more than she could possibly understand. She talks about the regular visits of her new friend, Taylor, which has ominous implications. She's literal with her words, as are all children her age, but readers get the deeper meaning. She names her white bear "Paychunts" because she had to have patience waiting on Daddy to return from his business trips.

Brianne also has childlike faith in God, a mystery to her father who is trapped in a figurative ditch of unbelief. Layton doesn't confront her or try to talk her out of it. In a way he wishes he could believe.

We are talking in our blogs about character development. As I explain in the Acknowledgements, Brianne's character was based on my four year old granddaughter, Sara Elizabeth. Thankfully, Sara is not sick nor are her parents divorced. However, observing Sara with a great deal of intense interest(!) taught me much about a child's mind and reasoning. Also I teach preschoolers at my church. I'll have to admit that they are my favorite students, and I've taught every age group at one time or another (remember I'm a pastor's wife).

So Brianne must be my favorite character, right? Actually, she's not. But we'll discuss that later.

Amy: Villainess or Heroine?

At the beginning of Living Between the Ditches: When God Makes No Sense, Amy is Layton's nemesis— a thorn in his side, a burr in his saddle. Not too original a description but accurate.

Amy is the whining ex-wife who seems unaware of the pain she's caused Layton. Amy appears to care mostly about her needs getting met and having someone to cover the base with Brianne, her daughter, while she goes back to work. I challenge those (few) of you who have finished the book to go back and re-read the first three chapters! How has your impression of Amy changed?

Amy needed to start the book as the villainess because that was Layton's perception of her. After all, we continued to look at life through his filters. Perhaps there's a lesson in that. Often we take someone else's opinion of an acquaintance as the gospel truth. Perhaps if we got to know the person better, we'd discover another side to the story.

Amy helps us take that second look. Things aren't always as they appear, and even at that, we all need forgiveness and a chance to begin anew. Amy takes responsibility for her actions. I like that about her. But I wasn't prepared to like her at all. Similar to the situation with Layton, Amy grew with the book, and her character took on deeper and more brilliant hues.

Amy is a good mother. Her interactions with Brianne are warm and nurturing. Amy tried to be a good wife. Her obstacles are similar to those many of us have faced: a busy husband with a demanding job and not enough of him left at the end of the day for his family. Amy tried to be a good daughter. As an only child, she had the burden of being everything to her demanding parents. Pleasing others became a lifestyle that got her into a mess when she blamed herself for everything that went wrong.

Amy becomes a sympathetic character. We can learn a lot by how she handled adversity, and especially how she learned to trust. Amy, you're my heroine!

Layton: A Work in Progress

Layton Brooks is the main character in my book, Living Between the Ditches: When God Makes No Sense. Whether you've read the book or not, you may be interested in the general subject of fictional character development. Or not. Stick with me on this. If you're still reading the book (true for 9 out of 10 of you!), don't worry. I'm not going to give anything away. I really do want you to finish it and write me a good on-line review!

At the beginning of the book Layton is angry and frustrated. Those of us who have been in a serious relationship (or grew up in a family!) can relate to his feelings. Layton is angry with his ex-wife (not too surprising) but he's also angry with God. I think most of us can also relate to this predicament. We don't feel comfortable being angry with God, and we certainly don't want to tell Him that. Why be too confrontational with Someone who can zap you right off the planet!

Layton is a kind of Everyman. If I may be so bold, we're all a little self-centered, caught up in our own side of things, and out of touch with some of our feelings. In fact we may be uneasy about sharing feelings, period. We can identify with Layton's foibles without too much discomfort. These are normal human emotions.

Layton's view of God is also fairly common. At some point in our lives, most people feel God let them down. I know I did, and I share that in the book. Layton thinks he's at least as good as most anybody he knows, yet he's dealing with some serious stuff. Is a God who seems to have turned His back on you a good God? Is He a giver or a taker?

In my main character I needed someone who represented being in a ditch—or one side of a spiritual paradox—as a means of illustrating my analogy. Layton is a vehicle, as it were, for helping us visualize our own ditch-dwelling and then, finding our way out. Of course, we need God's help to do that.

To some degree developing a fictional character resembles watching a movie play out in the author's mind. Although I had a story line in mind, Layton grew in depth and character as the story unfolded. I didn't know I'd come to care for Layton so much, or share his struggles, feel some of his pain, and wish him well in the conquest of his demons. You see, I wasn't prepared to like Layton because he represented a side of myself I don't like very much.

Perhaps in the end I learned to accept myself more—warts and all. Hopefully, that will be true for you, as well.

In my next post I'll tell about Amy, Layton's ex-wife, who I wasn't prepared to like, as well.

Merging Fiction and Nonfiction: A Busy Intersection

In my previous blog I described how the combination of fiction and nonfiction came about in my book Living Between the Ditches: When God Makes No Sense. Although the idea originated with my son, Mark, the idea took root and began to grow right before my very eyes.

I soon discovered problem one: the story line didn't keep up with the content, or—was it the content that didn't keep up with the story? Interspersing them proved more difficult than I would have imagined. For example, Layton's visit to the gift shop on p. 49 was added after the chapter was finished in order to break up the teaching into chewable bites. As it turned out, the bear Paychunts became part of the character development of Brianne, as witnessed by her dialogue on p. 138.

A second problem was transitions. How would I get from Layton's story into the biblical truth and back again? Would the reader feel that he or she had been pulled from one world into the other in jerking motions, or would the manuscript flow? My copy editor, Bethany, helped immensely. All she had to do was insert the words, say what?—or some similar comment to let me know I had lost her. Occasionally, she'd guess at the invisible link!

A third problem was distinguishing the dialogue of the story from the text of the content. By putting the dialogue in italics, the fictional portion looked different. Thinking up subtitles was harder than you might imagine because again, they had to help with the transition. A last minute idea was almost my undoing. By labeling each fictional portion with a day and hour, I attempted to help the reader keep track of the time line. Unfortunately, my due day to the printer came around before I had adequately proofed the text. Did any of you catch the error on page 49? It should read "Tuesday." (I've had it corrected for subsequent copies.)

The fact that the fiction and nonfiction came together at last into a cohesive whole (or am I being too optimistic?) is proof that God is still in the miracle-working business! I learned a lot in the process, and now I'm putting what I learned to good use in my second book. The main character is Parker, and like Layton, he's having some trouble wedging himself into to this book's paradox. Pray that he makes it!

Speaking of main characters, we'll talk about the development of Layton's character next.

How A Non-Fiction Book Turned Fictional—Not Ficticious

A funny thing happened on my way to writing a nonfiction book of spiritual insights God had so graciously given me. I let my 30-something son Mark read the fledgling manuscript, and if you've read Living Between the Ditches: When God Makes No Sense, the dedication recounts his reaction.

"Mom," he said, "I think you've got something here." The rest of the story: he began to explain his generation to me. "If you want me to finish the book, you've got to peak my interest. I'm easily distracted, so even though I like your book, when something else grabs my attention, I probably won't come back to it. Then something else will divert me from that."

A little depressed by his prognosis, I asked,"So what can I do to keep you interested?"

Mark listed some options, including telling a story. He suggested, "Since you're talking about life as a journey, make up a story about a guy going on a cross-country trip." Then he left me to my machinations. I didn't know if I could write more than a short story, and Mark seemed to be implying one that would follow the book to its end. Hum—a novelette.

Boing! An idea began to form—I'll claim it was from above until someone can prove differently. A young man going on a trip from the east coast to—to—where? The town I knew best was the one I live in, so obviously he would be going to Nashville.

I knew he would be a young man because I wanted my nonfiction portion to be for both genders. From my experience as an editor I knew men would read about a man but not likely about a woman. I also knew he'd have to have a name unlike anyone I'd ever known personally. No sense in ruining a relationship.

So Layton Brooks was born. He was, of course, in between the ages of my two grown sons—a span of time I figured I knew something about. My writing instructors always told me to write about something I knew, and I thought I had a few clues about 30-something men.

But why would he be making this trip? It would have to involve the thesis of my book: that Christians walking the narrow road on the path to God's house would easily fall into a ditch on either side of the road—unless they learned to stay in the middle. Christians needed to live between the ditches. 

Layton needed to be a ditch-hopper: someone who'd bounced from one ditch to another as I had done on my Christian pilgrimage. I figured Layton had stepped off the road for the same reasons many of us do, so I had a plot. All I needed was merely to make it an interesting story with believable characters and a tug or two at the old heartstrings. How hard could that be?

If you haven't read the book, I'm not going to give away any secrets. After all, you yet-to-purchase-my-book bloggers are my only hope for retirement. But I do want to share something about developing fictional characters.

In my next blogs I'll talk about Layton, then Amy and Brianne. At some point you'll learn who was my favorite character(s). I think you'll be surprised.