Writing Lessons from the Bible: Guest Post by Katheryn Rivas
June 2, 2010 by Lillie
The inimitable Nobel Prize-winning American writer Ernest Hemingway once said to his friend and contemporary, F. Scott Fitzgerald, in reference to the Bible, “I found the source of practically every good title you ever heard of.” Aside from this obvious truth (as something of a writer myself, I’ve certainly found my fair share of veritably epic, Biblically-inspired story titles), the Bible, I’ve noticed, is an unbelievable fount of writing inspiration, one that keeps on giving, and in the process, enhances your personal life as well.
The thing about Christianity, perhaps also religion in general, is that its foundations are rooted in the age-old tradition of storytelling. In the case of the Bible, of course, these stories are true—whether you read the Good Book from a literal or metaphorical perspective. The following are some lessons that you can learn by simply picking up your Bible whenever the Spirit so moves you (and hopefully it moves you every day).
- A good story, whether you are writing a memoir, short fiction, or a novel, must have complex characters.
The Bible itself is rife with complex characters. Some are evil—like Lucifer, of course—and some are absolutely good, like Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But in the Bible there are many in-betweens, basically lost sheep. Think: Jonah; the prodigal son of Jesus’ parable, recounted in Luke; the narrator of Ecclesiastes, the list goes on and on. Take these examples and make your characters interesting; make them face challenges.
- A good story needs good dialogue.
The Bible is a perfect example that testifies to the need for solid dialogue in a good story. Even though, sure, in the Old Testament you will find inordinately long lists of a character’s family lineage, the dialogue found in the New Testament is unimaginably artful. One of my favorite examples of well-written dialogue in the Bible is found in the Book of John, where Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan woman. He asks her for a drink from the well, and at first she refuses because he is a Jew. The Samaritan woman asks him where he will get his water from if He has nothing with which to draw it from the well. Jesus responds, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14). Is this not the most stunningly artful dialogue, both rich in its prophetic splendor, and clever in its plays on words? In sum, the writing lesson to take away from the Bible here is to make sure your dialogue both speaks from the character’s heart and uses words delicately to convey meaning and emotion.
- A good story should teach a lesson.
Many writers may disagree with me on this lesson, but it is obvious by reading nearly any story in the Bible that every anecdote teaches a life lesson, no matter how small. Of course, there have been legions of novels written that have no apparent didactic point per se, but I firmly believe that every good story ever told has at least a kernel of truth—a truth that we all can learn from, even if the lesson isn’t obvious.
These are only the most basic lessons I’ve gleaned from my study of the Bible, but there are tons more. If you read the Book every day, you will be surprised by how much it can improve your writing.
Byline:
This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes on the topics of online universities. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.
photo credit: ryk_neethling
When reading books or watching movies the biblical references I see more often than most (with the obvious exception of our Lord and satan)relate to The Prodigal Son.
That parable in the New Testament is one that I tend to notice but as you say there many references regarding storytelling that we could garner from The Bible.
Dave,
The Prodigal Son is one of the most well-known and popular Bible stories.
I notice that it is not only writers who use the bible for inspiration, the Irish rock group U2 have several references to biblical stories in their songs, including “40″ which is the words to Psalm 40 put to music, and “Walk On” which features a reference to heaven in which Bono sings “You are packing a suitcase to a place you’ve never been, a place that has to be believed to be seen”
There are many more references to the bible with U2 songs these 2 happen to be my favorite.
I didn’t know that, Dave. Thanks for telling us about it.
I never thought of Bible as a reference that could help writers. Though I completely agree that Bible has many complex characters and they are often put in difficult situation and they must choose between the good and evil. This also gives us the ‘lesson’ from that story.
Bible does have it’s share of memorable quotes so that’s a rather obvious lesson which I missed until I read this post
Paul,
Obviously the first lessons we should learn from the Bible are the messages being conveyed. However, secondarily, we as writers can learn writing lessons as well.
Best minds are oftentimes found in the bible. As a matter of fact, I get thoughts of life in the book of proverbs. The guidance that the bible provide is much different than what the human mind could conceive for himself. As I understand, these words are guided and were given by divine being we believe in which I myself believe is God. Even in writting my criticisms, I got a lot of help from the given by the bible. I still say we could be more productive when we read the bible everyday. I difinitely agree keep posting.
Marisa,
I completely agree with you that the words of the Bible are the Word of God, given by Him through those He chose to write the words down. And we definitely should read the Bible every day.
In my own writing, I frequently fall back on biblical themes, and even use biblical phrases in chapter titles. Some of my book titles also have biblical references, including the one I’m now self-publishing, Let Not Man Put Asunder. Stories based on the Bible tend to have more drawing power, because they are, after all, real life.
~ VT
Victor,
Interesting. The title captures my attention.
Now that was something new bible as inspiration for writers, great
.-= Vinish Parikh´s last blog ..Types of Dividend =-.
Vinish,
The Bible can inspire us in many ways. This is just one—a nice one, but not as important as the message of salvation.
I really liked the way you used examples from the Bible to give writers an understanding of what is needed to enhance a story. Very clever and a different approach that is interesting to your readers.
John,
The credit goes to the guest poster, Katheryn Rivas. She did a nice job.
Every always mentions the prodigal son but not many get the other meaning to the story about the elder brother. He was worse than his brother he didn’t even want to go to the party and he fusses his dad out.
bobby key@articles, writing, books, book publishing recently posted..Does God Exist? | Relijournal
bobby key,
I suspect many of us who have been Christians our entire lives can identify with the older son. It doesn’t seem fair that someone who has lived a life of terrible sin is given the exact same grace as someone who has tried to live their faith their whole life. But that is the Gospel message: all of us are sinners redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, and we are treated no differently at all by the Lord. Praise God that He is no respecter of persons.
I never really considered the bible to be an inspiration in a literal sense until now. Your blog hit it spot-on! There are so many good secular and Christian books that use all of the different parables that are illustrated in the bible. What an inspiration! Thank you so much for sharing.
Sandra,
Katheryn wrote an excellent post.
I think the complex characters are the most important. If you have interesting characters interesting dialogue will come natural. I’ve read stories where nothing cool happened at all, but the characters were so fascinating I didn’t care.
Dave,
I agree that characters are most important. I’ve written a whole series on creating characters, starting with Characters are Story People.
It is unfortunate that the infallible Word of the Living God is ever mentioned in the same breath a “fiction” or “tradition.” …
Jeremy,
I am sorry you are offended, but there is nothing here that expresses anything other than belief in the infallible Word of God. The author’s purpose was to use the example of God’s Word for writers who do any kind of writing. I read a lot of Christian fiction and find nothing offensive about the word fiction. Jesus often delivered His message in parables, which are stories rather than straight facts. That doesn’t take anything away from their absolute truth. And I certainly don’t understand what’s wrong with tradition. But whether we agree or not, I am truly sorry that you are offended, and I assure you I would never publish anything that I felt was in the least bit disrespectful of God’s Word.