Character, Plot, or Message-Based Novels?

(A discussion of my own approach to developing character goals, part 2)

Short Story Character Goals

I take a big-picture, plotter approach to developing the goals of characters within novels. But for shorter fiction, my character goal formation is more relaxed and possibly more creative. I keep in mind my basic novel order of author goal (message) first, followed by a character’s macro-goal governing the story arc that I punctuate with micro-goals.

This time, rather than plotting each scene ahead of time, I sketch out my main story message, then occupy the page with people developed along the way. Shorts don’t need as much attention to keeping track of actions, more focused because of the brevity of this “slice-of-life” style. Thus, I give my short story characters only one main macro-goal, based upon my authorial goal of message, and then as many micro-goals as needed, according to length and number of scenes.

Blurbs Keep Me Focused

What helps me keep to the basic direction and character goals of my short story is to write out a very condensed blurb that often ends up introducing the story once published. I follow the format of online movie descriptions. For example, here’s the blurb for the film Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris:

A widowed housecleaner in 1950s London feels invisible until a Dior gown sparks her imagination and sends her on a life-changing journey.

Reading the blurb, one suspects the grieving traveller—feeling insignificant and needing her soul awakened—is looking for joy, her apparent goal. The blurb of another recent movie—the theologically and politically charged flick Conclave—indicates main plot, conflict, and, again, implicit goals:

When Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with leading one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events, selecting a new Pope, he finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could shake the very foundation of The Church.

The wording of this brief come-on hints about the Cardinal’s goals: to take responsibility, to break through secrets from the past, to battle a world-shaking conspiracy.

Writing a blurb before starting to draft my short story often helps guide me to clarity of character goals. Following are several of my blurbs appearing in my 2024 collection of stories and novellas. In parentheses I’ve included the theme for each—that is, the authorial goal driving the message—with sub-points giving examples of character macro- and micro-goals:

• “The Curious Tourist” (His Word, a never-changing standard, is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.): Terra Célèste, visiting mystical Montpellier in the South of France on a subconscious quest for more than store-bought souvenirs, bunks in the attic of wise and aged mapmaker Great-Uncle Elroy, who warns her against straying from the safe and true path.
  • Terra Célèste’s desire to tour the “real” Montpellier (macro) leads her to the door of an antique shop specializing in the occult (micro), from which she bolts (micro) as she rejects evil (macro).

• “Wet” (Trinity is God as one in essence and three in persons.): Drowning in trauma and pursued by pain-soaked memories, Beth has bolted from the west-coast island home of her childhood for the drought-ridden Canadian prairies, returning home now to face her sorrows, responsibilities, and long-lost joys.
  • Beth’s immersion into a farmhand identity (macro) has her building a barbwire fence (micro), exposing her to a prairie storm (micro) that makes her face her identity (macro).

• “Clanging Symbols” (Symbolism without substance leads nowhere.):Doran, an American tutor in 1970s’ Japan, disenchanted with love and the Christian faith he once embraced, plunges into Kyoto’s pantheistic culture.
  • Doran, rejecting the cross of Christ in favour of Eastern thought (macro), finds himself praying at a Shinto shrine (micro), exposing him to a false “deity” (micro) that eventually proves to be empty (macro).

• “Reconstituted” (Resurrection is the ultimate answer for our resistance to getting old.): Aging ex-pat Dolores tours a Mexican mummy museum to face the fear that drove her from family and the grace that calls her back.
  • Dolores, hating her wrinkles (macro), compares her aging to corpses (micro) and to the dewy youth of her granddaughter (micro), who also exudes a spiritual life (macro).

A Few General Tips

• Do brainstorm imaginative character goals (possibly using the 101 fun ideas from last article). You might employ the “SMART” framework popularized by the business-management community to ensure your character goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound.
• Don’t get too many story goals going at once. Even longer pieces and novels must be boiled down to the minimum in your mind so that your direction is clear.
• Do allow character goals to formulate the plot, conflict, climax, and resolution.
• Don’t force your characters to do or be what doesn’t suit the story—even if you’ve set up goals for them. Allow yourself to rewrite goals as your story unfolds, but do this within reason, as changing too much in the midst of the tale can leave you (as it has me) rewriting large chunks of earlier story segments.
• Do resist the impulse to clump all resolutions at the end of the story. Instead, with the macro-goal unfulfilled but ever in mind, allow the character’s micro-goal actions during the course of each scene to produce a change in the next scene’s micro-goal. Nurture the most conflict-producing problems and character goals scene by scene to heighten tension until the story climaxes, and only then resolve the macro-goal.

Character, Plot, or Message-Based Novels?

(A discussion of my own approach to developing character goals, part 1)

In the audience of a long-ago Christian writers’ conference, I sat entranced before a panel of book editors describing the types of manuscripts they were looking to acquire: character-driven novels and plot-based books, but never, ever stories written primarily for message. I knew right then I might be in trouble. You see, I begin plotting and peopling my fiction pieces with, first of all, an underlying but specific point I am dying to share.

Many authors don’t start to draft without a well-developed set of characters in mind whose goals form a predetermined plot, whereas other writers create these elements as they go along, writing by the seat of their pants, so to speak. I myself am more a plotter than a pantster (at least for my longer works). And I stand by my decision to write literature that comes out of a message bubbling up in my soul.

Not beginning a story focused on character means it’s imperative for me to understand how to create goals that move the plot along—first my own overarching goal (the message that in effect works out as theme) and then two levels of characterization fueled by the individual macro-goals and micro-goals of my story characters.

Authorial, Macro-, and Micro-Goals

In my novel The Red Journal, I purposed to write an allegory taking the shape of the Book of Hebrews (my authorial goal, as I wanted to point the readers to my subtle biblical theme: “The promise of entering His rest still stands”). Keeping this main theme in mind, I then created a suitable setting before plotting and populating it. I built each character’s main macro-goals (that is, driving motivations, such as my protagonist’s desire for long-term security in a home of her own), which in turn supported their micro-goals (that is, smaller objectives they hold at the beginning of each section and how these targets create problems for themselves or others, demanding response and redirection through new goals). Generally speaking, the protagonist’s goals must be constantly frustrated and the antagonist’s goals consistently fulfilled—until the conflict comes to a climax and resolution. I find, then, that my novels are definitely message (not character or plot) driven.    

To summarize so far:

• I first identify my authorial goal (resulting in theme or message of the story),
• I identify each character’s underlying macro-goal, then work towards supporting both message and goal while
• I plan chapters, sections, and scenes, building character personalities around such elements as virtues and flaws, background lives, and personal histories—each informing that section’s micro-goals.

Goals Interacting with Plot

So how do I decide what sort of goals a character should have? I begin by composing a list of the areas of human inner and outer life as it relates to the personalities and plot I’m coming up with. I might think of physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual aspects. That is, my goals tend to be about:

• the storyline itself (in The Red Journal, the two main characters are touring a mansion museum together, offering me a canvas upon which to express my main Hebrews goal),
• psychological needs (such as the sensual, controlling compulsion of my power-hungry antagonist, her macro-goal),
• relational aspects (for example, family connection of daughter, mother, grandmother, providing my protagonist’s macro-goal), and
• the spiritual realm (the wanderlust of my antagonist and the “holy homesickness” of my protagonist giving clear purposes to each).

Finally, in rounding out my planning pages for my story, I create brief notes outlining each scene, jotting down:

• the viewpoint character’s section goal or micro-goal from the preceding scene (for instance, my main character begins one scene determined to clean out her dead grandmother’s apartment),
• the conflict created by that last scene (she takes a bag of Gram’s garbage to the outside bin only to find her estranged mother lurking there; she pushes that woman into the path of a careening car), and
• the change in direction or new micro-goal this conflict creates (to justify her guilt, my main character lies to herself about other bloody images from her past that she wants to deny).

Here’s a great list of 101 character goals I happened upon online that act as a springboard for brainstorming, including such fun items as break a curse, find a muse, explore the world: https://www.dabblewriter.com/articles/101-character-goals-that-dont-involve-anyones-dead-wife. Although these seem to me more macro- than micro-goals, it’s a great place to start, and you can refine them for your specific scenes.

FICTION: LITERARY OR GENRE?

Back in 2010, when my newly acquired agent asked for the genre of my debut novel (The Third Grace), I identified it as literary fiction. He immediately corrected me: “No, no. We’ll call it contemporary women’s fiction. No one today reads literary fiction.”

I almost gasped. Was it true? My own library was full of literary titles, my writing brain of literary characters and themes:

• Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff’s smouldering passions teaching me about the human condition and societal influences (the author’s one and only novel);

• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter exposing Hester Prynne’s shame inside the punitive culture of the New England colony (imbued with Christian and religious themes);

• C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia with Aslan pointing to a transcendent world beyond our physical realm (a fantastical series heavy on symbolism).

I loved literary fiction’s motifs, tropes, and allegories conveying abstract ideas—the physical story hinting at the metaphysical meaning demanding active reader learning rather than passive entertainment. But at the point of publishing my first novel, I didn’t yet understand the difference between genre and literary—the two fiction classifications known to the world of general publishing.

Of course, what my agent really meant when saying no one reads literary fiction nowadays was that literary fiction doesn’t sell widely and that publishers must, above all, sign multi-title authors who will produce many books—and genre fiction sells more than literary.

This distinction between genre and literary fiction came into being only in the twentieth century, when publishers began to use labels for mass marketing. Publishing houses were seeking the next bestseller, so they developed main categories (securing genre authors with huge advances):

• Romance (e.g., Nora Roberts)
• Mystery and Crime (e.g., John Grisham)
• Science Fiction and Fantasy (e.g., Ray Bradbury)
• Horror and Thrillers (e.g., Stephen King)
• Westerns (e.g., Louis L’Amour)
• Historical (e.g., Ken Follet)
• Young Adult (e.g., Judy Blume)

What actually is genre fiction?

In broad terms, genre fiction is popular narrative focusing on entertainment and written within the narrow specifications of each category. For example, in general:

• Horror intends to arouse reader dread, terror, even repulsion;
• Mystery/crime centers on the investigation and resolution of criminal acts;
• Romance is about love relationships with happily-ever-after endings.

What is literary fiction?

In contrast, literary fiction is a bit fuzzier to define, aspiring to be artistic; it emphasizes meaning through character, theme, and story style over plot action and prescribed outcomes. In literary fiction, you might find:

• Ambiguous endings not always neat and clear;
• Plot structure not necessarily following rules of particular genres;
• Exploration (sometimes unresolved) of ideas, philosophies, aesthetics, conceptions, and social/political commentary.

Can’t genre and literary fiction overlap?

Of course, the rigidity of black-and-white genre rules versus the open-ended nature of literary fiction blends in all manner of grey tones. We see this fusion when we consider literary titles employing subgenres, or genre stories adopting literary approaches. Take, for example, these blockbuster genre novels of great literary value:

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is considered historical fiction, its subgenres including suspense and survival. On a literary level, Doerr’s lyrical style encompasses sensuous detail and employs a nonlinear plot structure, ethical and political critique, anti-war themes—and a blighted romance.

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is a murder mystery with a coming-of-age subgenre, yet Owens’s literary style poses two timelines through atmospheric setting, symbolism around wild animal behaviour, and themes of justice and loneliness.

• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is wildly popular and one of the best-selling books of all time. It’s what I would call literary fiction but is known as a classic of the fantasy genre. LOTR is another hybrid of literary and genre fiction.

A third classification

In addition to the two broad classes of literary and genre fiction (with, of course, subgenres of religion or spirituality in many flavors), traditional American publishing today distinguishes between the streams of ABA (American Booksellers Association) and CBA (Christian Booksellers Association). “Christian” writing, then, is a third entity, viewed by the publishing world as distinct from both literary and genre fiction recognized by the general market. Writers are forced to decide whether they are targeting secular or Christian readers, as most ABA agents and houses don’t accept explicit faith messages, and most in the CBA won’t abide the grittier aspects of violence or sexuality.

A true crossover between the world and the church doesn’t seem feasible unless publishing independently—outside of both CBA and ABA. I might wish that the distinctions would ease, as I attempt to write literary fiction with genre attributes available to the secular world but understood at a spiritual level. However, I suspect even more polarization is developing in our constantly changing culture.

Literary Fiction with a Theological Twist

As a reader, I crave the entertainment value of popular genre fiction, and yet I love to delve into deeper themes accessible through literary fiction. I’m saddened over the hollow feeling I’m left with by a strictly genre novel I can’t analyze for spiritual meaning, while I’m also overwhelmed by impenetrable ramblings when faced with an artsy literary read that doesn’t grip me through at least one or two genre conventions.

As a writer who is also a Christian, I don’t pen what many would call “Christian fiction”—I don’t swim too easily in that genre stream. At the same time, my own love of Scripture demands fictional expression. To top it off, most of my stories don’t follow rules of the main genres (for example, some of my romantic characters have their hearts broken and some of my endings are unresolved); instead, I try to use symbolism pointing readers back to the Bible.

(For more of my thoughts on this subject, check out my preceding post, “Read It Anew,” found below on this website.)

READ IT ANEW

Symbols of the Old, Old Story Reused in Literature

When you read a novel or short story, do you sometimes suspect the author is trying to say a whole lot more than the words on the page?

I’m no expert by any stretch, either as reader or writer (much less as scholarly analyst or philosophical novelist). But I have put some thought into how fiction might carry meaning beyond the first level of narrative by employing such elements as allegory and allusion and emblem, trope and type, motif . . . That is, the message can be conveyed through symbolic method.

I can’t begin to sort through the literary mass of information, opinion, and theory. For example, Dante’s Divine Comedy alone has been analyzed to death through eight centuries by untold numbers of intellectuals in every discipline—the arts, history, philosophy, sociology, religion. And all throughout the reading ages, classics of literature have deeply reflected the Bible; I think specifically of the period sweeping from Shakespeare, Milton, and Bunyan through Dickens and Hawthorne to Tolkien and Lewis.

So for simplicity in my own use as I cogitate (and attempt to write) literature imbued with deeper meaning, and given my fascination with Christian theology, I can use a tripartite categorization of persons as made up of body, soul, and spirit. That is:

• for the first level (body), I follow the surface story through elements of plot, setting, characters;
• level two (soul) engages immaterial aspects of the emotions, philosophies, relationships; and
• the third level (spirit) deals with metaphysical truths rooted and revealed in Scripture.

Two examples of my analytical reading might explain my adopted levels of body, soul, and spirit: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851).

• Robinson Crusoe comprises the storyline of a shipwrecked sailor (body) struggling to survive emotional loneliness (soul) and finding solace and deliverance in a salvaged Bible (spiritual). This fictional work by Defoe, a Puritan, is considered by many a religious autobiography, with imagery including the sea (illustrating defiance against his father), the pet parrot (giving fellowship of a sort), and the wooden cross he erected on the beach to notch out the passing of days (alluding to his personal salvation). 
• In Moby Dick, the storyline follows a whaling ship’s captain (body) obsessed with hunting down his enemy (soul) in a fight between good and evil (spirit). The author, Melville, was a committed Christian; the whole of this novel is packed with innuendo and clear testimony that point to a biblically allegorical reading. For example, the captain seeking the terrible but god-like white whale echoes the scriptural Jonah in the belly of the great fish as he “offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.” This line from Moby Dick connects it with Scripture’s Jonah story and, incidentally, with Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (all three characters running off to sea against father/Father) to show how pliably the older literature used a common text.

Before I began a serious attempt to produce meaningful fiction myself, I researched, wrote, and eventually published a seminary thesis titled Roots and Branches: The Symbol of the Tree in the Imagination of G.K. Chesterton. I know—it’s a mouthful. But the study convinced me that novelists pass along in their writing what they themselves have read, often through shared symbolism.

The common text preceding Chesterton (and Lewis, Dickens, Shakespeare . . . ) was the Bible, the founding literature of Western civilization read by a population that intuitively ascribed to fiction particular biblical meaning through symbolic use of objects (such as whales or birds of the air) and character names (Dafoe’s drowned shipmates Moses, Elijah; Melville’s narrator Ishmael). By Chesterton’s day (Victorian/Edwardian England), readers of foregoing fictional classics—even if not the Bible itself—still inherited a body of easily understood biblical symbolism from the writings of those more scripturally knowledgeable.  

I ask myself, How in this day might I pass along religious symbolism through fiction to spiritually enrich a readership that no longer possesses a subtext of biblical reference?

That’s tricky. Few secular readers see God in today’s stories; how would they think to compare and contrast Melville’s whale with Jonah’s, or Defoe’s cross-shaped calendar with the Crucifixion? How can my creative writing support, illustrate, and confirm—but not rewrite or reinterpret—scriptural truth? I decided to return to imagery already established in the Bible and, instead of always making new meanings through new metaphors, try to subtly refer my readers back to Scripture as the literary truth source.

You might be interested in taking a look at an ongoing commentary I write on this website under the MOTIFS tab exploring cultural and literary images found in the Bible to unearth God’s meaning in His pattern of usage.

QUESTION FOR YOU: What allegorical fiction has stimulated your curiosity about underlying spiritual meaning?

In The Third Grace, my character Ebenezer MacAdam owns Incognito Costume Shop and individually recommends rentals based on a client’s personal character. He says,

I’d like to think the purpose of my costumes has been to reveal the real in this masked and disguised generation. But on a grander scale, I myself am being unmasked and my failure laid open to my own view. So many of my years I spent fearing to be discovered for the fraud I really am. Yet here it is the autumn of my life and I stand naked, as it were, before a Judge more kindly than myself.

Eb’s words issue from a conflicted spot in my own soul. I’d like to think the purpose of my writing is to speak a message of truth to this generation and yet—like him—the very act of my service exposes me to the truth of my own shortcomings. Doesn’t my choice of words (like his choice of costumes) say more about my own heart attitude than that of the reader whose heart I’m judging?

It started early in my life—this suspicion that I wasn’t all that I wished I were or that I portrayed myself to be. When I memorized my spelling list and won the elementary bee, I was self-satisfied but suspected the triumph was a fluke. When I earned honours in graduate school, I delighted in the accomplishment but credited grade inflation. Innately knowing that proficiency can become the breeding ground of pride, I tend to demur: “Oh no, I’m not that talented. It was luck. I don’t deserve the praise.”

There’s actually a psychological label slapped on this condition when it’s pathological: “Imposter Syndrome.” I rush to say that I’ve not been diagnosed; most healthy people to some degree attribute success to luck, reject compliments, or think, “Anyone could have done this.” I suspect it’s a well-intentioned attempt at humility.

Jesus denounced as hypocrites those who ostentatiously fulfilled religious responsibility for public applause, describing the sanctimonious Pharisees with hearts full of greed and self-indulgence as whitewashed tombs and dirty cups (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 23:25-28). The word “hypocrite” comes from the Greek stage, where an actor would hold up a mask indicating one emotion while displaying a juxtaposing facial expression revealing his true feelings. “These people honor me with their lips,” Jesus said, “but their heart is far from me” (Matt. 15:8 NIV). Hypocrites receive their reward in time; no reward awaits them in Heaven.

The deciding factor between true humility and the falseness of hypocrisy, then, seems to be the heart intention of the worshipper/writer; honoring the Lord with my lips/keyboard for temporal reward isn’t synonymous with bringing my heart close to Him. The very public nature of writing for reader feedback (comment on a blog, payment for an article, placement in a competition) forces me to investigate my motives.  

The sixteenth-century Reformer Jean Calvin wrote in his Institutes (1.1.1-2),

Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God . . . Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self.

The only way to know God is through His Word (Living via Written). Humility is seeing myself as I really am, in light of God’s gifting. When I look clearly and honestly at my own heart, I am driven back into the Bible, where I must face my motivation and ask myself truly:

The stardust of long-awaited, hard-won, now-realized publication threatens to blind me. The only way I see to avoid hypocrisy—that veneer of false humility—is to face the “shaming nakedness” (as Calvin put it) of my own insufficient human efforts. This readies me for the revelation of the righteousness that exists in God alone, the thrill of embracing His gifts to me. I can see myself in perspective not as I measure up to my idea of authorial success but only as I see God’s flawless provision for my imperfection. On this basis I take joy in unearned grace (of salvation, of course, but also of ongoing achievements) while simultaneously facing my fear of exposure without hiding behind a mask of self-effacement. God is the ground of my humility, the Giver of all gifts for the purpose of His glory.

(Originally appeared in a blog of Janet Sketchley)

FIND THE DIVINE IN PARIS

My favourite destination is known as the “City of Lights,” and God is called the “Father of Lights.” Merely coincidence? Hmmm, I think not . . . Paris, to me, is heaven on earth! I invite you to observe the following steps if you’re planning a trip to the capital of France:

SEEK OUT NATURE: Paris encompasses more than four hundred parks—some dating back to the seventeenth century. A tourist can hardly escape the requisite gardens of the Champs-Elysées, Tuileries, or Versailles–but keep a lookout for pockets of green that sprout up behind school gates or on street corners or atop department stores. In Paris I’ve strolled through a Japanese garden, I’ve watched nuns eat a bag lunch on a bench behind the Notre Dame Cathedral, I’ve tasted strawberries and petted goats in the children’s amusement park in Bois de Boulogne. Even the starry backdrop to the Eiffel Tower as I floated down the Seine at midnight reminded me that something exists beyond mankind. Nature has a way of extending my vision past pavement and progress to refocus my attention on a greater reality.

LISTEN TO THE MUSIC: Nothing transcends the bustle of humanity like strains of Debussy or Berlioz. Even if you (like I) don’t care to invest time and money in attending a formal concert when there’s so much else to do and see in the city, many inexpensive events are held in churches or other public buildings. Besides, Parisian buskers are some of the most talented musicians in the world: I’ve tapped my toes to accordion playing on the train, lounged on the steps of the D’Orsay Museum near a violinist making her strings sing, and enjoyed a full-blown orchestra in the underground hallways of the Métro. Live music is everywhere, and one of my favourite memories is of the jazz band in a smoky bar on Île Saint-Louis. Thomas Carlyle (a Scot who wrote a book on the French Revolution) once declared:

Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.

OGLE THE ARCHITECTURE: Medieval cathedrals were designed to turn illiterate eyes heavenward, a religious instruction fully employed all over Paris. Don’t neglect to pop into churches for a peek as you pass by. I did just that with the thirteenth-century Sainte-Chapelle, the stained glass windows of which tell the grand sweep of biblical story from the Creation in Genesis through to the Apocalypse of Revelation. I fictionalized this visit in one scene of The Third Grace, when my character entered the lower level of the

Gothic space, devoid of notable ornamentation, that cast no prediction of the celestial splendor she’d find upon climbing the dank stairwell. But upstairs, multi-colored sunlight fractured the air above her head, the stained-glass kaleidoscope surrounding her like a halo of rubies and sapphires and emeralds. She rotated in a slow circle, head tipped upwards. Fifty-foot windows soared around her within a framework of marble arches extending into the vaulted ceiling like the ribs of an overturned ship, a thousand glass pictures she couldn’t at first interpret for their sheer profusion.                          

GLORY IN THE VISUAL ARTS: Every arrondissement of Paris houses museums full of art. Online listings include close to two hundred official galleries throughout the city, making overload a real threat to a tourist’s peace of mind. So go easy when planning your itinerary and choose carefully—but let the art make its way into your soul. The Louvre, as arguably the world’s greatest museum, is a perfect starting place and, if you’ve got the stamina and can be satisfied with an overview, you can do a preplanned run-through in a few hours (although, of course, thoughtful enjoyment could stretch out for days). My first visit to the Louvre in 1989 showed me works from prehistoric pagan sculpture to Renaissance manuscript illumination, from the Baroque painters to the Impressionists, from pre-Enlightenment religious painting to the didactic style in the Age of Reason. The Louvre introduced me to the icon of my debut novel when I came across the marble statue grouping of The Three Graces, Greek goddesses that got me thinking about the essential, gritty earthiness of creation that contrasts the yearning we all have for the divine.

HEAR HISTORY: The limestone foundations of Paris were set into the Seine River over two thousand years ago, and the city has been the center of cultural history-making ever since, its ancient cobblestones feeling the soles of Celtic tribesmen and Roman soldiers, emperors, monks, artists, and wandering minstrel jongleurs. Paris has known plague and war, royal intrigue and peasant revolt, religious massacres and philosophical movements. Marie Antoinette was beheaded in Paris, and there Voltaire theorized, Robespierre revolutionized, and Napoleon Bonaparte militarized. The city is saturated in history, an integral part of any trip. Whenever I visit as a tourist, I’m reminded that God, who from His own throne in the heavens oversees the coronation of all earthly powers, is the King of kings who governs time and eternity.

RESPECT THE SLEEP OF DEATH: Nothing brings spirituality into focus quite like a brush with mortality, and two top tourist attractions come to mind. (Both of the real-life scenes below appeared fictionalized in my second novel, The Red Journal.)

• You might choose the Catacombs of Paris—an ossuary (or “bone yard”) situated in the underground tunnels of abandoned stone quarries beneath the city, housing the carefully arranged consecrated remains of six million people. Carved into the rock above the entrance to the museum is the phrase “Stop! This is the Empire of the Dead,” and throughout the rather macabre tour you can read other such reminders of life’s brevity as “Believe that every day is your last” and of divine eternality as “God is not the author of death.”
• I enjoyed a sunnier stroll through the Père Lachaise Cemetery, resting place of the likes of Balzac and Proust and Oscar Wilde, of composer Chopin and rocker Jim Morrison. Though a “city of the dead” with lanes and flowers and shady trees, this much cheerier graveyard is highly decorated in religious symbols: headstones and sepulchres are surmounted with statues of angels, crosses, praying hands, and Bibles; stone effigies of prone corpses and lively skeletons immortalized in marble hint at eventual resurrection; carvings of the dove of peace and the pelican of crucifixion spread their wings above the deceased as testimony to the Christian teaching of the afterlife.

PAUSE TO PRAY: While in Paris, I often find myself responding in prayer to the thumbprint of the Creator visible on so many of the city’s surfaces—when I trace His face in the natural elements of park or garden, hear the celestial strains of music, view art and architecture, engage with history, and observe death’s reality within urbanity’s vigour and vibrancy.

How do you experience spiritual reality when you travel? What stimulates you to consider the metaphysical when you visit foreign places?

I was born for uptown living.

True, the view from the maternity ward of the Mennonite village that first heard me squawk showed only flat Canadian prairie—not a mall in sight. But my parents soon moved me and my sibs to the big city, and, by the time I was a teen, I could shop nonstop from store opening to store closing. During senior high, my dramatic extroversion kicked into full force and I fought laryngitis from constant chattering. College years in Minneapolis put the polish on my love of metropolis and led to summer studies in Japan—Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka—where I gloried in the lights and crush and din of clustered humanity.

So I was totally unprepared when my cowboy groom swept me down a long gravel road to the vast and empty sand hills surrounding his secluded cattle ranch, where the ceaseless wind and the endless sky would bring me face to face with myself.

Only months into the marriage—before I’d yet learned to help round up the herd on horseback or cook for branding crews of a hundred—I experienced a pivotal moment, a tipping point in transition.

I was baptized into rural reality.

It was a blustery morning in April during my first calving season on the ranch. Not suspecting the crisis in store for me that day, I’d kissed my new husband goodbye at the door of our cozy bungalow as he set out for chores. I’d admired my choice of wedding stoneware as I washed up the few breakfast dishes, wearing rubber gloves to protect my delicate hands. I might even have perused the latest issue of the fashion magazine that was my connection to civilization. Now here I was in the bathroom, steam rising about me as I removed my elegant trousseau robe and dipped my pedicured toe into the tub full of fragrant bubbles.

Out of the blue, my husband started hammering on the bathroom door and yelling, “Open up!” I barely grabbed my wrap in time as he and his father broke in with a freezing newborn calf—slimy and shivering violently. “Oh, good!” they both exclaimed in surprised tones of approval, as though marveling that I demonstrated such foresight and rural mettle. “She’s got hot water all ready for us!” And then they plunged that filthy beast into my bridal bubble bath—and, oh, how that ghastly creature’s eyes rolled in ecstasy!

(Had it, in fact, lived, it might well have been tethered, bottle-fed, named “Pie,” and fattened for slaughter—as had Georgie, Porgie, and Puddin’ before it.)   

This moment is symbolic of my own immersion into the grit and glory of cattle ranching, and the next two decades domesticated me out of my city ways. Sure, I longed for sophistication, fine dining, and foreign adventure (and in time my introverted, country-lovin’ husband—who’d never even eaten lasagna before meeting me—expanded his tastes to include classical music, foie gras,and international travel). But what I found during those years on the ranch I believe would have been lost to me had I remained a distracted city-dweller.

I was forced by the silence of the wilderness to listen for the voice of God.

Because of my upbringing, as a child I’d placed trust in Jesus Christ for the salvation of my soul. However, until my move to the ranch, my spirituality included a component of sociability: all my religious learning took place in a classroom or a pew or a youth group. Now my geographical isolation put most believers out of my reach. I managed to drive two hours on most Sundays for corporate worship, but I met God much more immediately and intimately through reading the Bible alone at the kitchen table, and raising my voice in prayer and song out in the wind among the sand dunes without another soul in sight.     

My conversion from the public to the pasture refined me.

Father, Son, and Spirit continue to transform me through Scripture by renewing my mind, taming my appetite for the constant stimulation of others, and testing me to develop my discernment and keenness in practicing God’s will (Rom. 12:2). I have no doubt that He would have effected this transformation even if I’d held on to my city-slicker status (2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 1:6). And don’t get me wrong—I take every opportunity to shop for five-inch heels and silk scarves in Paris and Buenos Aires and Istanbul!  But I faced my “dark night of the soul” out on Canada’s western plains and grasslands, where I learned to embrace the holy loneliness necessary to true, communing fellowship with God and others.

Of course, there’s no sin in loving civilization (the Tower of Babel notwithstanding)! But to serve humanity properly, we must have our spirituality in order. To that end, you might want to follow these steps:

Step #1: Recognize your setting. I was predisposed to approach God through social relationships. Emotionally, where do you “live”? How do your lifestyle and friendships influence your spiritual outlook? What is your natural bent, and can you see the potential limitations of your viewpoint?

Step #2: Face your conflict. Admitting the profound difference between my life in the city and my life on the ranch helped me pinpoint my underlying problem: I can get side-tracked spiritually by an audience. What “calf in the bubble bath” are you facing right now? How are you reacting and responding to your circumstances? At what point has your one-on-one relationship with God broken down?

Step #3: Discover your resolution. Pastoral tranquility was just what I needed to shut out metropolitan noise and pay attention to the voice of God. What distracts you from listening to Him speak in Scripture? How can you adjust your lifestyle to hear Him better?  What will you do today to focus on your primary and foundational relationship with God?

(Article first appeared on the blog Patti’s Porch)

***

The Third Grace is set in the cities of Paris and Denver and on a farm in Nebraska’s sand hills, where the main character lives out some of my own urban/rural experiences (albeit in the opposite order–Aglaia raised in the country and migrated to the city, whereas I transitioned from city to Canadian sand hills–the boonies!). But this award-winning novel here:

US: https://amzn.to/3oS8PM5 Canada: https://amzn.to/3abtzdz

Let’s have a conversation with Aglaia (aka Mary Grace Klassen), main character in the book The Third Grace. She’s a designer at Incognito Costume Shop (rentals for parties, stage, and screen) in Denver, but she grew up in small-town Nebraska and her author (Deb Elkink) has finally allowed her to visit Paris . . .

Thank you so much for this interview, Aglaia.  Now that the book has been written, do you feel you were fairly portrayed or would you like to set anything straight with your readers?

Thanks for inviting me here. You can call me Mary Grace, if you find it easier to pronounce than ah-glay-ah. I go by both names now. I used to hate the name my hayseed parents gave me, so the summer I was seventeen, I decided to change it—and myself!—into the personification of grace. Aglaia is the name of a Greek goddess, you know.

As to your question, I think I wasn’t portraying myself very honestly to begin with, rubbing shoulders with influential Dr. Chapman like I was some sort of diva, and ignoring my boss’s careful warnings and my childhood friend’s overtures. But in self-defense, I’d worked hard at erasing my rural past, and—what with this work trip to Paris coming up—the last thing I needed was another reminder about that long-ago affair.

Actually, the author was brutal with me. She forced me to take a look at who I really was and where I was heading. And she caused me a great deal of pain when she flooded me with non-stop memories of that long-ago summer of love and loss.    

Do you feel the author did a good job colorizing your personality?  If not, how would you like to have been portrayed differently?

What a loaded question! Wouldn’t we all like to come across as something we’re not? My boss put it well when he said, “I spent so many years fearing I’d be discovered for the fraud I really am.” And he’s one of the most genuine people I know! It’s rather ironic that he’s in the business of disguises, isn’t it?

As for myself, I deliberately left the Nebraska farm girl far behind when I moved to Denver, and I’ve been climbing the ladder to success in the posh world of the arts ever since. So when Dr. Chapman—Lou—was up in my apartment that evening sipping wine with me, and my backward mother barged in with the smell of the barnyard and her ridiculous request, I almost choked with embarrassment. I think the author did me a service in the end, though. You see, I wasn’t facing myself. I’d been denying an aspect of my real personality that she insisted on showing me by putting me in some very uncomfortable—albeit exciting—situations.  

What do you believe is your strongest trait?

Definitely my creative imagination! It’s what’s taken me to an international level in artistic accomplishment despite my lack of academic credentials. I was born into a religious environment that looked down on “vain imaginings.” My dad didn’t even like to hear my brother and me sharing our nightmares at the breakfast table, for Pete’s sake, and I had some doozies—not to mention my conscious daydreams! Of course, sewing was valued at home, and early on it became my main outlet for expression. But I harbored a rich inner fantasy life, especially once François entered the picture with his own storytelling, whispering in my ear and filling my heart with a yearning for something more.   

Worse trait?

Again, I’d have to say my creative imagination. The flip side of the coin has been that I’ve almost drowned in my reveries, my soul overflowing with emotions and saturated with a dark obsession over mythology, sensuality, and troubling thoughts about God. I mean, with all these voices going on in my soul, who’s to say which one I should listen to, anyway? That’s the question I had to ask myself throughout this novel.  

If you could choose someone in the television or movie industry to play your part if your book was made into a movie, who would that be (and you can’t say yourself!)?

I think Drew Barrymore would be able to represent the conflict between my two selves, the country girl Mary Grace and the sophisticate Aglaia. Barrymore plays glam with a sort of self-conscious naiveté, doesn’t she? There’s a humility and rootedness about her. Also I think she’d really enjoy the food she’d get to eat in the movie—foie gras and cream sauces and French cheeses and even some good old Mennonite fare that still makes my mouth water! (For all her flaws, Mom’s a fantastic cook.)

Do you have a love interest in the book?

I’ll say, though he’s lived mostly in my mind. I mentioned him already—François, the French exchange student my brother invited to the farm that summer fifteen years ago. Boy, he was a breath of fresh air! All the girls in the village were crazy about him, but he chose me over any of them. I least, I thought so . . . Anyway, that summer ended very badly and I’ve been mourning on several fronts ever since. So I was so thrilled—and anxious—for the chance to actually look him up again.

At what point in the book did you start getting nervous about the way it was going to turn out?

Everything was going fine with my life until my mother pushed that Bible onto me. She had the silly idea that I could hunt François down in Paris after all those years and return it to him. Ludicrous! I could have shut her up by just dumping the thing—like I’d burned my own copy back on the farm when I decided to push God out of my life.

But when a museum postcard fell out of that Bible, picturing The Three Graces that François had been so hung up about, and then when I noticed his very own handwriting penciled into the margins of that book—well, I couldn’t resist checking it out. The first two of his phrases, noted right there in Genesis, read, “In the beginning, the gods created” and “Naked and we felt no shame.” Did I blush! I grabbed that book and kept it away from prying eyes until I had time to look through every one of those margins. My suspicions turned out to be right: François had jotted down many snippets that brought to vivid recollection all the seduction of that summer, step by delicious step!

If you could trade places with one of the other characters in the book, which character would you really not want to be and why?

Definitely Joel, my brother. He’s dead.

I don’t want to talk about it . . .

How do you feel about the ending of the book without giving too much away?

Well, put it this way: I’m satisfied that everything was neatly tied up. I sure was surprised at the turn of events in several of my relationships, though, and can’t say that I’d have written this book the way the author did. I’ll say this in her favor: She did allow me to have a good time in Paris (she loves that city, you know), and she let me take great satisfaction in my craft of costume design (she’s done her fair share of that, as well). Also, if I’d been left to my own devices without the author’s invention, I’d never have figured out the mystery behind the Three Graces! 

What words of wisdom would you give your author if s/he decided to write another book with you in it?

I’d beg her to bring back Eb—I’m talking about Mr. MacAdam, manager of Incognito Costume Shop. That man is so wise, even if he does remind me of a funny little Scottish garden gnome! And I think the author should send me on another exotic trip. I hear she’s writing up another book now with some fascinating foreign destinations! 

Thank you for this interview, Aglaia—or, I should say, Mary Grace.  Will we be seeing more of you in the future?

No, sorry but I’m too busy with my current successes.

(Adapted from an interview first appearing at Beyond the Books)

Greek mythology tells of ambrosia, the food of the gods bestowing immortality, but I’d give up my place at Zeus’s eternal table for a bite of French gastronomy any day. My salivary glands activate just thinking about my next trip to Paris. Here are some foodie tips I’ve picked up that guarantee a nonstop feast while in that gourmet city: 

• Plan ahead when necessary, but only if reservations are mandated. I dreamed of dining in the Eiffel Tower and so, in preparation for my first trip to Paris in 1989, I phoned ahead to the Jules Verne restaurant to book a table for two for my mom and me. The chef and his staff delivered a divine haute cuisine meal of quail pâté, tender fish filets in creamy sauce, a cheese board, and meringue with fresh fruit in a raspberry coulis. Another Parisian adventure in 2011 with my own daughter required reservations at Brasserie Julien, an Art Deco gem where the traditional French onion soup had a wine-laced bite and the sweet finish of melted Comté cheese. Neither establishment would have been accessible without reservations.

• Be spontaneous whenever possible. I contend that the best food in Paris is found in the markets or along the sidewalks. During a family road trip in 1994, we grabbed many a warm and crusty baguette from the closest boulangerie to fill our bottomless pit of a teen son; the back seat of our rental Renault was carpeted in crumbs! French fries really do taste better in France, and heirloom tomatoes plucked from the shelf of a greengrocer smell of the sun-soaked garden. But I consumed my favourite Gallic fast food from a vendor on a curb near the opera house: crêpes hot off the griddle, sugary with crispy edges and dripping with butter.

• Forget about calories; you’ll walk them off. The title of Mireille Guiliano’s classic French Women Don’t Get Fat is my mantra when I help myself to cheeses from Normandy, and foie gras from the south, and rich quiche Lorraine,and flaky pain au chocolat (the first treat I buy when I get off the plane). After strolling the Champs-Élysées hand-in-hand on a romantic stop-over in 2003, my husband and I celebrated our final-that-trip meal in Paris with a flute of nose-tickling champagne and a burnt-top, vanilla bean crème brûlée. And the wild cherry sorbet I discovered at Berthillon in 2006 is definitely worth the tromp across the Seine to Ile Saint-Louis! 

• Don’t overeat. There’s more culinary delight around every corner, and dining progressively only multiplies the pleasure. I usually begin my morning in Paris with a café au lait and a melt-in-the-mouth croissant grabbed along the way, then picnic on gleanings from whatever specialty store takes my fancy: cured sausage from a charcuterie, yogurt from a laiterie, a wedge of cheddar-like Cantal from a fromagerie. Drinking wine in a park or on the banks of the Seine (if sipped discreetly) will not attract the attention of police. If in fact you feel bloated, grab some greens, as I did with my first salade Niçoise piled high with tuna and anchovies and eggs,from a random eatery near the impressionist Musée d’Orsay.But don’t forget to save room for chocolate—lots of chocolate—which might actually have been the ambrosia the Greeks dreamed about!  

•  Do judge a restaurant by its appearance. I find that in Paris you can almost never go wrong when sitting to eat, so feel free to select an establishment based on the condition of the floors or the comfort of the chairs. One time my travel companion and I, ravenous after an hour or two of fasting, set out to find our supper. We passed over one location because a diner we spotted through the window eschewed his glass and drank straight from a bottle (how crass!), and we disdained a cabaret when we noted the absence of white linen. Finally we settled on a cozy bistro with a fixed-price menu. I ordered the mini pasta pockets stuffed with cheese and topped with creamy sauce and a pile of lardons (yummy bits of sautéed smoked ham). It so reminded me of my mother’s ethnic cooking (in Low German: Varenikje, Schmaunt Fat, Schinkje) that I exclaimed aloud, “The French even make Mennonite food better than the Mennonites!”

•  Expect the unexpected. We devoured pepper steak glazed with burgundy sauce at Ma Bourgogne in the Marais district, and got talking to a guest seated at a nearby table who turned out to be a famous French singer (Emmanuelle Mottaz, top of the charts just then). She invited us up to her apartment for after-dinner decaf and a peek at her signed lithograph by her father’s friend, Salvadore Dali. Talk about dessert!

• Linger. In my opinion and despite the vast epicurean choice in the city, the quintessential Parisian experience will always be “wasting time” at a sidewalk café. The waiters can be rude, dogs are always welcome, and tables are not necessarily clean, but this makes no difference when the platter or mug is set before you. For example, Café Charlot is positioned on a noisy street corner across from the foreboding exterior of the Pompidou Museum. Its renovated 1950’s décor with white metro-style tile walls is very cool, but even so I was unprepared for my first (or most recent in 2015) sip of their chocolat chaud. Bittersweet and thick as molasses, it excited my taste buds to such heavenly ecstasy that I was fairly transported to the Elysian Fields.

So, if you’re on your way to Paris, go hungry, make eating your destination, and expect gastronomic delights of mythical proportion!

***

(Like me, my main character in The Third Grace grew up under the marvellous cooking of a Mennonite mother and freely samples Parisian fare at every turn!)

Are you planning a day trip to the countryside or visiting a farm? Go prepared! 

I was a bred-in-the-bone uptown city girl, attended a large Canadian high school, studied in the Twin Cities, shopped in San Francisco, and fearlessly strolled Tokyo’s Ginza at midnight. All the while I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the difference between a heifer and a Hereford. So when I transplanted myself upon marriage to a remote cattle ranch in the Great Sand Hills of Saskatchewan, I learned to survive the hard way. To save you other urbanites my pain, I’ve recorded the unwritten rules for city-slickers on the homestead.

• Do watch your step. Of course, I mean more than taking care over where to place your high-heeled sandal when debarking the car—although it bears reminding that mammals and poultry, with their varying quantities of excrement, might have free run of the yard. No, I mean that you need to watch carefully and imitate how the farmers do what they do: When they whisper, don’t shout or you’ll scare the bull; when they run, you run. I remember the sport introduced to me on my first visit to the ranch—shooting birdies in the barn. I held back the tears as the sparrows fell one by one, but got over it quickly when I realized I was a natural dead-eye—the first “athletic” endeavor I’d ever aced!

• Don’t glamorize. Maybe you’re a starry-eyed, tender-hearted, pesticide-free, agrarian-wanna-be who’s always dreamed of having a few acres and a cow so that you can live independently off the land. Get over it, at least for the day you’re visiting the farm. You can go back to buying cello-wrapped carrots from the natural-food market in the mall tomorrow; for today, when grandma asks you out to the garden to dust the cabbages (she means kill the cutworms), don’t forget to use bug spray on your own skin. Out in the country, it’s eat or be eaten.

• Do eat what’s put before you. This might seem common courtesy, but in our age of macrobiotic ovo-lacto-vegetarianism (with gluten sensitivities thrown in), remember that farmers in economic servitude to low food prices tend to be intolerant towards finicky diners. Sometimes it’s best not to ask your host what you’re eating, but just assume it’s edible. If you turn up your nose at the plate of turkey with bread stuffing swimming in gravy, for example, they’ll likely get even. On our ranch, a regular revenge menu item was battered and fried “prairie oysters,” and I’m not talking seafood. They have a rather “nutty” flavour.

• Don’t wear silk (or nail polish). Of course you’ll know better than I did that first time I went out to the ranch. My future mother-in-law had just churned the butter (seriously—some people still do this!) and asked me to knead out all the buttermilk, then pack the butter into one of those antique wooden molds. When I was done, my nicely lacquered nails were very patchy and my future father-in-law buttered his toast with flecks of brilliant red. Which matched my cheeks.

• Do admit your citified inexperience. Country folk tend to put you to the test if you brag about your superior life knowledge. One smug visitor to our ranch swaggered when he boasted that he could easily wrastle a 130-pound calf to the ground and keep it immobilized while a red-hot branding iron seared its side. Funny how that guy ended up with a burn of his own through his designer jeans. I’m not saying this torture was planned, but I’m just sayin’ . . .   

• Don’t assume their rural ignorance. Look, my husband (now decades off the ranch and just as successful in other pursuits) still wears patched denim when he pops into the city for groceries. It’s a mark of his status. Most rural folk aren’t known for their high style (even if their wives might be), but it’s a mistake to assume this means they’re uneducated or sheltered from culture. Although we now no longer keep livestock ourselves, we’re surrounded by working farmers and ranchers who—like us—travel internationally, study academically, work professionally, and think critically.   

• Do stay out of the way and listen to instruction. All kidding aside, agriculture is serious business and you can get hurt if you don’t pay attention. Have you ever noticed how many cowboys are missing thumbs from getting tangled up while roping a calf? One of our neighbors smothered to death in a grain bin. The bucolic life is fraught with inherent danger, so do what I do when I’m unsure of procedure—watch from the other side of a glass window.

• Don’t bring your yappy city dog along to the country. This is my husband’s contribution to the blog post. He recalls guests who found it cute when their Fifi barked the chickens into consternation or scared the milk cow into kicking over her bucket. In addition to the danger of your host farmer’s murderous responses, your pet might come to a nasty country end on the talons of an eager eagle. Be warned!

• Do carry your own toilet paper. I know, it sounds ridiculous in this day and age. But if you go for the requisite horseback ride out in the hills, don’t assume that your host has been thoughtful enough to pack tissue—as can be confirmed by my traumatized brother, now a university prof in a high-ranking business school down east. His summer endurance test as a tender 14-year-old city lad on the ranch culminated in his rounding up the herd behind the real cowboys. When nature inevitably called, he resorted to using a two-inch-square remnant of orange shag carpet dug up from the bottom of a saddlebag to do the dirty work. It troubles him to this day.