Originally published December 6, 2021. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

The Original Charitable Purpose

The original release included a direct fundraising appeal for a specific family seeking fertility treatment. That campaign has ended, and the old payment request is no longer active. The history still matters because it explains why contributors shared deeply personal experiences and why the book was organized around giving hope to another family.

My own family had received similar generosity. A donor helped pay for fertility treatment that brought our daughter Maggie into our lives. Her arrival was followed by another crisis when my wife’s water broke seventeen weeks early. Maggie survived despite frightening odds and became the joyful center of the title story.

The “boss level” is the part of the journey that appears impossible—until courage, skilled help, faith, community, and unexpected mercy carry someone through it.

The Fifteen Stories in Volume I

1. “The Boss Level” by Michael D. Young

My title story recounts the chain of generosity and medical intervention that brought Maggie into our family. A donor helped make fertility treatment possible, and then a dangerously early rupture of membranes placed the pregnancy at risk. The story follows the fear, uncertainty, and improbable survival that transformed an abstract hope for a child into a daughter we could hold.

2. “A Medical Miracle” by Norma Pyper Mitchell

Norma describes a summer of severe medical struggles that changed both her life and the practice of medicine around her. Her experience placed her at the edge of emerging treatment in a way that may have influenced care later received by many other patients and families.

3. “Tender Mercies” by Betsy Love

A car crashed into Betsy’s house in the middle of the day. The account centers not only on the violence of the impact but on the remarkable significance of who was not standing where they normally would have been when the vehicle entered the home.

4. “A Pattern of Miracles” by Kyle and Chelsea Woodruff

This husband-and-wife account follows a house fire and other disasters that might have overwhelmed their family. Intervention from people around them repeatedly arrived at critical moments, turning separate acts of help into a pattern they could recognize only by looking back.

5. “The Miracle of Grace” by Sydney Hill

Sydney writes about a little girl named Grace whose life was brief but deeply meaningful. The story does not pretend that loss becomes easy when faith is present. Instead, it explores how one child’s life can continue shaping a family after death and how hope can coexist with grief.

6. “The PHP Fairytale” by Cami Shaskin

Cami’s unusual romance begins through circumstances connected with the programming language PHP. The story traces the large and small events that brought two people together and made a technology-centered meeting feel like an unexpectedly modern fairy tale.

7. “Our Mortgage” by Cami Shaskin

Continuing the family story begun in “The PHP Fairytale,” Cami describes the circumstances that allowed her and her husband to find a home where their family could grow. The account focuses on provision arriving through timing and opportunities they could not have arranged alone.

8. “My Real-Life Miracle” by an Anonymous Contributor

The contributor was born with significant physical and cognitive challenges and received discouraging predictions about education and independence. The story follows the long process of defying those expectations and progressing toward an honors degree in computer science.

9. “Scarlet’s Miracle” by Brae Lee Bennion

Brae recounts a freak accident at home that left her daughter Scarlet fighting for her life. The crisis becomes a setting for receiving help, confronting helplessness, and developing a deeper understanding of her relationship with Heavenly Father.

10. “Jesse’s Story” by Douglas Allan

Douglas writes about his brother Jesse, whose life changed suddenly when an intense medical condition left him almost completely paralyzed. Jesse survived and continued to build a meaningful life, using limited physical ability to bless others in ways that challenged expectations about what he could accomplish.

11. “Hope Over Reason” by Bonni Mergenthaler

After a miscarriage, Bonni became pregnant again while facing a frightening medical diagnosis. Her story follows the emotional movement between fear and hope and the way uncertainty deepened her reliance on God rather than providing an immediate, uncomplicated answer.

12. “Leaning on the Promise” by Marta O. Smith

Following surgery to repair her esophagus, Marta continued to experience terrible pain and shortness of breath. Additional medical attention did not initially resolve the problem. The help she needed arrived through an unlikely source and required her to keep seeking answers when the expected path failed.

13. “A Gift from the Past” by Madonna D. Christensen

A Catholic woman searching for a new rosary receives one with unexpected personal significance. The object becomes more than a devotional tool: it creates a connection between faith, memory, and a gift that seems to cross time.

14. “A Heavenly Welcome” by Madonna D. Christensen

Madonna shares the story of her sister Billie, who lived with Alzheimer’s disease. Near the end of Billie’s life, the family received remarkable comfort through an experience that connected generations and helped them imagine her transition as a welcome rather than only a loss.

15. “A House and Four Miracles” by Linda Beauvais

Linda’s account begins with the opportunity to buy back a former home while raising four children on her own. That provision becomes the first in a series of four events she identifies as miracles. The original spotlight did not summarize the remaining three events, leaving the full story to the anthology.

Different Meanings of Miracle

The stories do not all use the word miracle in exactly the same way. For some contributors, it describes survival that seemed medically unlikely. For others, it means protection through timing, an answer found after expected solutions failed, the arrival of generous people, or spiritual comfort that did not remove grief.

That range matters. A collection of miracle stories can become emotionally dishonest when every account ends with the outcome the person originally wanted. Several stories in The Boss Level involve permanent disability, death, miscarriage, illness, or consequences that remain real. Hope does not require rewriting those losses as victories.

Editing Personal Testimony with Care

• Preserve the contributor’s interpretation. The editor can improve clarity without claiming authority over what the experience meant to the person who lived it.
• Respect medical and family privacy. Not every identifying detail belongs in print.
• Avoid promising identical outcomes. One person’s recovery does not guarantee another person will receive the same result.
• Let grief remain grief. Faith and sorrow can appear together.
• Check names, titles, and sensitive facts carefully. Small editorial errors can be painful in stories involving real people.

From One Volume to a Series

The project continued beyond the first fifteen stories. The Boss Level now includes three volumes, each collecting true accounts of people finding help, hope, grace, and meaning in circumstances they could not fully control. All three volumes are also available as audiobooks.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published December 5, 2021. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

Why the Stories Matter

A Christmas concert can offer beautiful music without narration, but a well-chosen story gives the audience another path into the meaning of the season. A story places generosity inside a human life. It turns history into a relationship. It helps listeners imagine the decisions, losses, sacrifices, and moments of grace behind the songs.

The collection Keepsake Christmas Stories: Holiday Favorites as Performed with The Tabernacle Choir gathers twenty years of narrated stories from these productions. The selections range from literary classics such as “The Gift of the Magi” to accounts connected with beloved hymns and remarkable people. Together, they show how many kinds of stories can lead an audience toward hope.

The Scale of a Conference Center Christmas Concert

The Conference Center allows the Choir and its collaborators to create scenes that would be impossible in a traditional concert hall. From the Choir seats, I have watched enormous scenic elements move into place, dancers fill the stage, narrators step into carefully lit worlds, and technical effects appear at exactly the right musical moment.

What the audience sees for a few seconds may require weeks or months of planning. Singers rehearse music and staging. The Orchestra at Temple Square prepares complex scores. Directors, designers, technicians, costumers, dancers, ushers, and many others contribute work that remains mostly invisible when everything succeeds.

That scale is impressive, but the purpose is not spectacle for its own sake. The production serves the message. The best moments use every available tool to make a familiar truth feel newly personal.

Gail Halvorsen and the Candy Bomber

One of the stories that means the most to me is the account of Colonel Gail Halvorsen, the Berlin Candy Bomber. During the Berlin Airlift, he dropped small candy-filled parachutes to children living in a divided and war-scarred city. A simple act of kindness became a symbol of friendship and hope.

The Christmas concert presentation was narrated by Tom Brokaw and included Gail Halvorsen himself. At one point, tiny parachutes descended from the ceiling of the Conference Center. The effect was memorable because it translated history into something immediate: thousands of people watched a gesture of kindness fall gently into the room.

The story had a personal connection for me long before the concert. I met Colonel Halvorsen as a teenager. Later, I served as a missionary in Germany and visited Berlin. Those experiences made the performance feel like several parts of my life meeting in the same place.

Many Roads into the Christmas Message

The stories in the collection do not all approach Christmas in the same way. Some are humorous. Some are historical. Some center on sacrifice, family, music, or unexpected generosity. That variety reflects the Christmas concerts themselves. The season contains celebration and grief, wonder and memory, pageantry and quiet devotion.

A story such as “The Gift of the Magi” asks what love is willing to give. The account behind “It Is Well with My Soul” places a hymn of faith beside profound loss. The Candy Bomber story shows how a small gift can carry meaning far beyond its material value. Each story offers a different answer to the question: What does hope look like when it enters an ordinary human life?

What I Have Learned from Singing These Concerts

• Preparation creates freedom. The most moving moments feel spontaneous because hundreds of people have prepared carefully.
• Music carries memory. A melody can bring a person, place, or feeling back with extraordinary force.
• Stories make large themes personal. Peace, sacrifice, and charity become easier to understand when we see one person choose them.
• Tradition can still surprise us. Familiar carols gain new meaning when placed beside a fresh story or visual image.
• The message matters more than the scale. The lights, sets, and effects are most successful when they direct attention toward faith, generosity, and Jesus Christ.

Add the Stories to Your Christmas Season

I enjoyed revisiting these narratives in book form because reading creates a different kind of attention than watching a large production. A family can read one story at a time, pause to discuss it, and return to favorites from year to year.

More Christmas Music and Stories

Keepsake Christmas Stories belongs to the “Other Christmas Writing” branch of this site: a Tabernacle Choir reflection rather than one of Michael’s Advent anthologies or the An Advent Carols Countdown devotional. Explore the complete Christmas-project map at Christmas Books, Stories & Music.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published November 3, 2021. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

A Long-Awaited Change

In the summer of 2021, our family welcomed a baby girl after more than a decade of trying to expand our family. Her arrival felt miraculous, and it changed the rhythm of our home almost immediately.

After raising two boys, we suddenly found ourselves beginning another journey with a daughter. The differences were not only in clothes, toys, or nursery colors. Her arrival made me think differently about time. We had already watched our sons pass through stages that once seemed permanent—first words, first school days, changing interests, growing independence. I knew from experience that the baby stage would not last, even while sleepless nights sometimes made it feel endless.

A Life Suggested by Shoes

The painting’s sequence of shoes suggested an entire life without showing a face. Baby shoes gave way to the footwear of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and eventually another generation. Each pair represented a stage that would arrive, remain briefly, and then become memory.

Our daughter was wearing baby shoes then, but the painting invited me to imagine the years ahead. She would learn to walk, choose her own clothes, begin school, discover talents, face disappointments, develop convictions, and become someone whose future I could support but not control. Someday, she might build a family of her own.

The Temptation to Look Ahead

Parents spend much of their time preparing for what comes next. We teach children to speak, read, work, serve, make decisions, and care for themselves. That preparation is necessary, but it can make the present feel like a hallway leading toward a more important room.

There is always another milestone ahead: sleeping through the night, walking, kindergarten, baptism, graduation, a mission, college, work, marriage, or whatever path a child ultimately chooses. A family can become so focused on the next transition that it fails to recognize the ordinary beauty of the current one.

Cherishing Does Not Mean Idealizing

To cherish a stage does not mean pretending it is easy. Babies cry. Toddlers test boundaries. School years bring schedules and struggles. Teenagers need growing freedom at the same time parents still feel responsible for protecting them.

Real gratitude includes the difficult parts. It says, “This is tiring, complicated, and sometimes frightening—and it is also temporary and precious.” The goal is not to manufacture constant sentimentality. It is to remain awake to the life occurring inside the work.

What I Wanted to Remember

• Take photographs, but also put the camera down and participate.
• Record the funny phrases and small habits that will otherwise disappear.
• Notice growth without rushing a child toward the next stage.
• Let older children know their current lives matter as much as their earliest milestones did.
• Accept that loving a stage includes allowing it to end.
• Trust that each new season can bring gifts that were invisible from the previous one.

The artwork became meaningful not because it predicted exactly who our daughter would become, but because it reminded me that her life would unfold through many versions of herself. My responsibility was not to hold her forever in baby shoes. It was to love the child in front of me, prepare her for the road ahead, and remain grateful for the privilege of walking beside her.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published September 1, 2021. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

The Moment That Started the Project

The idea came to me in 2015 while I was visiting a congregation and listening to its choir sing. The music prompted me to think about the many hymn texts and tunes that exist beyond the selections most congregations hear regularly.

I began brainstorming a collection that could preserve beloved texts, introduce fresh musical settings, and give composers and lyricists a place to contribute new work. What began as a set of notes became a multi-year collaboration involving many people.

A Collection Shaped by Restoration Themes

Christian hymnody contains an enormous treasury of music about Jesus Christ, scripture, discipleship, prayer, grace, worship, and eternal life. As Saints We Sing draws from that broad tradition while also highlighting themes with particular resonance in Latter-day Saint worship and history.

The collection includes 176 hymn settings and brings together familiar texts, less frequently heard works, original contributions, and music suitable for seasons such as Easter and Christmas. The arrangements provide four-part SATB harmony so the book can support choirs as well as congregational and home use.

Beloved Hymns in New Settings

Among the hymn texts represented are:

• “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief”
• “Dearest Children, God Is Near You”
• “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”
• “God Be with You Till We Meet Again”
• “I Need Thee Every Hour”
• “O Holy Night”
• “The Spirit of God”
• “Nearer, My God, to Thee”

A new arrangement should do more than make an old hymn sound different. At its best, it helps singers notice a phrase, doctrine, emotion, or scriptural image that familiarity may have allowed them to pass over.

Working with Composers and Lyricists

No collection of this size is a solitary accomplishment. Composers, arrangers, lyricists, editors, engravers, reviewers, and other collaborators contributed skill and time. Each selection needed to function musically while also respecting the meaning, meter, and theology of the text.

Collaboration also required decisions about variety. A large hymnbook benefits from contrasts in tempo, texture, range, difficulty, emotional tone, and season. The goal was not to make 176 pieces sound as though one person had written them. It was to bring different musical voices into a coherent worship resource.

Why SATB and Spiral Binding Matter

The four-part format makes the music accessible to traditional church choirs and to singers who enjoy exploring harmony at home. The spiral binding was chosen for practical use at a piano or organ. A music book should remain open without requiring the performer to fight the binding during a prelude, rehearsal, or performance.

Hymns as Theology We Remember

People may forget the details of a sermon or lesson, but a line of hymn text can remain available for decades. Music gives doctrine a form that can return during worship, grief, celebration, uncertainty, and prayer.

That is why hymn work matters to me. A hymn is not only a musical object. It is a way for a community to remember what it believes and to express those beliefs together.

What the Project Taught Me

• Large creative projects grow through consistent work over many years.
• Good collaboration requires both a clear vision and room for other people’s gifts.
• Practical design decisions can determine whether a resource is actually usable.
• Old texts can remain spiritually alive when artists approach them with care.
• New sacred music becomes stronger when it is rooted in scripture, doctrine, and the needs of real singers.

Visit Music and Poetry for current information about As Saints We Sing, sacred choral music, recordings, hymn texts, and other musical projects. Explore Sacred Days, Sacred Songs for a Holy Week musical journey centered on Jesus Christ.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published April 1, 2021. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

Where the Story Begins

The first book establishes a world in which people depend on magical Sustenance. Those who cannot obtain enough are threatened by deformity, exile, madness, and death. Azil begins as a scholar drawn into forces much larger than his private studies, while Kaval, Evelet, Jamith, Sarhah, and others reveal different ways people survive inside the same broken system.

By the beginning of The Thirst, survival is no longer defined by the rules the characters understood. The aftermath of the Wrath has changed both the physical world and the magical balance beneath it.

A sequel works best when the first book’s victory creates new consequences rather than resetting the board. The characters may have survived one crisis, but their choices have altered what comes next.

The Mals and a New Kind of Hunger

The Mals were already driven by a desperate dependence on Sustenance. In the second book, they begin speaking of something different: the Thirst. This new sensation drives them deeper into madness while also raising questions about what the curse is becoming.

Changing the vocabulary of a threat changes the reader’s expectations. Hunger suggests emptiness and survival. Thirst suggests urgency, fever, and a need that may intensify more quickly. The distinction allows the sequel to remain connected to the first book while developing its own identity.

The Mals are not only obstacles. Their condition exposes the moral failure of a society that benefits from magical power while allowing vulnerable people to become disposable. As the curse changes, the characters must decide whether the Mals are enemies to defeat, victims to heal, or something more complicated than either category.

The Aspects at War

The different Aspects of Rahim are no longer moving toward a single purpose. Some seek to reunite the full power of the Aspects, believing restoration will save the Realm. Others fight to keep that power divided, convinced that reunification would repeat or magnify an ancient disaster.

This conflict turns magical theology into political action. Each faction interprets the same history differently. Each believes it understands the danger. Each can point to real evidence, which makes compromise more difficult and manipulation easier.

• Is divided power safer because no single person can control everything?
• Is reunification necessary because fragments cannot repair a broken world?
• Can power be restored without restoring the failures that shattered it?
• Who has the right to make a decision that affects every person in the Realm?

Azil after the Wrath

Azil enters the sequel with greater power and greater responsibility. Knowledge that once seemed safely academic now has immediate consequences. Allies look to him for answers, enemies understand his importance, and prophecy threatens to turn his identity into a role he did not choose.

The central challenge is not merely whether Azil can become stronger. It is whether he can remain recognizably himself while using forces capable of changing the world. Power can solve immediate problems while creating distance from the people the hero intended to protect.

A Journey Below the Earth and into the Heavens

The keys to ending the conflict lie in places that expand the scale of the series in opposite directions. One path leads into a long-forgotten city deep beneath the earth. Another reaches toward the moons hanging over the Realm.

Those settings reflect the story’s thematic movement. The underground city asks characters to confront what history buried. The journey toward the heavens asks what exists beyond the world they assumed was complete.

New locations should do more than provide impressive scenery. Each one needs its own rules, history, dangers, and revelations. The environment should change what the characters can attempt and what they learn about the larger conflict.

Escalating a Sequel Without Repeating Book One

• Change the problem. The Thirst is related to the Hunger but not identical to it.
• Complicate the factions. The Aspects have goals that cannot be reduced to one obvious good side and one obvious evil side.
• Carry consequences forward. The Wrath reshapes the world rather than disappearing between volumes.
• Expand the geography. Forgotten depths and distant moons enlarge what the characters believe is possible.
• Deepen the personal stakes. Azil’s growing power affects relationships, identity, and trust.

Themes at the Center of The Thirst

Need and Dependence

The series asks what happens when survival depends on a resource controlled by institutions, traditions, and people with unequal power. The changing curse makes that dependence even less predictable.

Unity and Control

Reuniting divided power may promise healing, but unity created through domination is not the same as reconciliation. The book places those ideas in conflict.

Knowledge and Responsibility

Azil’s scholarship gives him access to truths others have forgotten or concealed. Knowledge becomes morally significant when acting on it can save or destroy entire communities.

Hope after Catastrophe

The characters are not trying to restore the exact world that existed before the Wrath. That world contained the conditions that produced the catastrophe. Their task is to imagine a new dawn without repeating the old darkness.

Read or Listen to The Thirst

The Thirst is the second book of The Penultimate Dawn Cycle. Readers should begin with The Hunger to experience the world, characters, and consequences in order.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published May 18, 2015. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

The examples and specific production tools reflect the time when the presentations were created. Technology has changed, but the core principles—using sound intentionally, preparing a script, directing performance, recording clean audio, and revising by listening—remain valuable.

Weaving Threads of Song: Using Music in Fiction

Music can do more than decorate a scene. It can reveal character, establish culture, trigger memory, shape pacing, and become part of the story’s conflict or magic system.

The presentation considers ways writers can use music to:

• Give a character a musical identity
• Connect songs to memory and emotion
• Build fictional traditions, rituals, and communities
• Use rhythm and repetition to influence prose
• Make musical performance part of a scene’s goal and conflict
• Research instruments, performers, and terminology accurately
• Avoid relying on song lyrics the writer does not have permission to reproduce

Creating Audiobooks

An audiobook is not simply a person reading text into a microphone. It is a performance and production project that requires preparation, consistency, technical care, and patient review.

The presentation introduces topics such as:

• Preparing the manuscript for narration
• Choosing a narrator or deciding whether to self-narrate
• Developing distinct but sustainable character voices
• Maintaining pronunciation and performance notes
• Creating a quiet recording environment
• Monitoring pacing, breath, mouth noise, and consistency
• Editing mistakes without making the performance sound unnatural
• Listening to the finished audio as an audience member

A Useful Exercise: Read Your Work Aloud

Even writers who never plan to produce an audiobook can learn from narration. Reading a chapter aloud reveals:

• Sentences that are too long to speak comfortably
• Repeated words and sentence patterns
• Dialogue that does not sound natural
• Unclear speaker attribution
• Awkward transitions
• Names or invented terms that are difficult to pronounce consistently
• Places where the emotional pace changes unexpectedly

Record a short sample and listen without reading along. The distance between speaking and listening can expose problems that remain invisible on the page.

Questions to Ask Before Using Music

• Does the musical reference reveal something about character or culture?
• Will a reader who does not know the song still understand the scene?
• Am I describing the emotional and physical experience rather than merely naming a piece?
• Do I have permission to reproduce any lyrics included in the manuscript?
• Could an invented song, hymn, chant, or musical tradition serve the story better?

Questions to Ask Before Producing Audio

• Is the manuscript fully edited and proofread?
• Who is the intended listener?
• What performance style matches the book?
• How will pronunciations and character voices be documented?
• Is the recording environment quiet and consistent?
• Who will perform quality control on the final files?
• What distribution and technical requirements must the finished audio meet?

About These Conference Materials

I originally posted these files for conference attendees who wanted my notes and for writers who could not attend the sessions. They remain available as historical teaching resources. Because software, platforms, and audiobook specifications evolve, verify current technical requirements before beginning a commercial production.

Find more practical craft lessons through Fiction Fundamentals. For book layout, covers, audio-related project preparation, and other creative support, visit Professional Creative Services.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published March 7, 2013. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

What Is a Story Crucible?

In metalworking, a crucible is a container that holds material under tremendous heat. In fiction, a crucible is a setting, relationship, or condition that keeps characters together while pressure rises.

Imagine two people whose relationship has deteriorated. If either can leave without meaningful cost, the conflict may end before the story becomes interesting. Give them a shared child, a joint responsibility, a dangerous mission, or a secret that binds their fates together, and the tension has somewhere to build.

Crucibles of Setting

A limited setting traps characters in the same physical space. A snowed-in cabin, a damaged spaceship, a besieged city, a courtroom, a school during a lockdown, or a ship at sea can all prevent an easy escape.

The setting does not have to be literally sealed. A small town can function as a crucible when everyone knows everyone else and reputations travel faster than facts. A workplace can become one when two rivals must complete a high-stakes project together. The important feature is constraint: leaving would create a greater problem than staying.

Crucibles of Relationship

Family ties, marriages, friendships, rivalries, military units, questing parties, and sworn alliances can all bind characters together. The relationship itself becomes the container.

A hero may despise the only guide who can lead the group through hostile territory. Two siblings may disagree about everything but share responsibility for an aging parent. Former friends may be the only witnesses who know what really happened years ago. Each connection forces continued contact and gives emotional consequences to every choice.

Crucibles of Condition

A condition can bind people who might otherwise separate. Illness, poverty, war, political oppression, a deadline, a natural disaster, or a shared supernatural curse can all create an unavoidable problem.

For example, two detectives who distrust each other may still need to stop the same criminal before another victim is harmed. Competing scientists may have to combine their research to contain an outbreak. A fantasy kingdom divided by old grievances may still need every faction to survive an approaching enemy.

Why Crucibles Strengthen Conflict

• They prevent easy exits. Characters must confront the problem rather than avoid it.
• They increase repetition with variation. The same personalities collide in new situations.
• They expose character. Pressure reveals priorities, fears, loyalties, and hypocrisy.
• They make escalation believable. Small tensions accumulate because the characters remain in contact.
• They connect external and internal stakes. Solving the plot problem may require repairing—or finally breaking—a relationship.

A Crucible Revision Exercise

Choose the central conflict in your story and answer four questions:

1. Why can the protagonist not simply leave?
2. What binds the protagonist to the antagonist, rival, or difficult ally?
3. What would be lost if that bond broke?
4. How can the setting, relationship, and condition reinforce one another?

If the answer to the first question is “nothing,” the story may need a stronger container. Add a promise, deadline, shared need, enclosed location, moral obligation, or consequence that makes continued engagement unavoidable.

David Farland influenced generations of writers through his fiction and teaching. This practical concept remains useful because it addresses one of storytelling’s most basic problems: how to keep conflict from dissolving before it reaches the necessary heat.

Continue Developing Your Story

Explore more story-development lessons through Fiction Fundamentals. For hands-on manuscript feedback and publishing support, visit Professional Creative Services.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published December 25, 2012. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

Start with Clear Rules

I decided that only writing intended for publication—or prewriting directly connected to a publishable project—would count. Work assignments, routine email, and other everyday writing did not. Those rules kept the goal honest and prevented me from inflating the total with words I would have written anyway.

A large goal becomes easier to manage when you decide in advance what counts, what does not, and how often you will measure it. A word-count goal is only one option. You might track scenes revised, submissions sent, minutes spent writing, or days on which you kept an appointment with your manuscript.

Make Progress Visible

I built a spreadsheet with a tab for every month. Each writing session went into the next open cell, and formulas kept monthly and annual totals. That simple sheet became a scoreboard. I always knew where I stood and whether I needed to adjust my pace.

• Record progress immediately, before you forget.
• Use a system simple enough that tracking does not become another form of procrastination.
• Review totals weekly, not every five minutes.
• Measure trends rather than judging yourself by one difficult day.

Today, the same idea could live in a spreadsheet, writing app, project board, calendar, or notebook. The tool matters less than having one reliable place where progress is visible.

Work with Your Natural Process

I work best with several projects in motion. Rather than fighting that tendency, I mapped out the novels, stories, nonfiction, scripts, music, and serial projects I wanted to advance. I gave the highest-priority projects the most attention early in the year and rotated among them when my energy changed.

Some writers thrive by finishing one project before touching another. Others stay productive by alternating between drafting and revision or between a demanding project and a playful one. The useful question is not, “What system do successful writers use?” It is, “What pattern helps me return to the page consistently?”

Use Small Pockets of Time

I carried a laptop whenever possible. When I did not have it, I wrote on an iPod or in a notebook. I also used walks, commutes, and routine tasks to solve story problems so that I could begin quickly when I reached a keyboard.

Ten or fifteen focused minutes will not feel dramatic, but repeated sessions accumulate. A phone note can capture a line of dialogue. A voice memo can preserve a scene idea. A short lunch break can finish one paragraph. The goal is to reduce the distance between inspiration and a place where the idea will not be lost.

Protect Your Most Productive Hours

I learned to identify the times when words came most readily and defend them from avoidable distractions. That meant checking messages before a writing session, closing social media, and deciding what I would work on before I sat down.

Your best writing window may be early morning, late evening, a quiet commute, or a weekly block at the library. Treat that time as an appointment. Motivation helps, but a protected routine carries you through the days when motivation does not arrive.

Expect Setbacks

The year included rehearsals and performances in The Secret Garden, Tabernacle Choir commitments, demanding work deadlines, illness, and a complete hard-drive failure. Some weeks fell apart. A few months ended with frantic bursts of writing because I had slipped behind.

Those bursts helped me reach the total, but they were not the healthiest part of the system. The more durable lesson was to resume quickly after disruption. Missing one day did not require abandoning the month. Falling behind did not erase the work already completed.

What 609,548 Words Taught Me

• Persistence produces more pages than waiting for ideal conditions.
• Tracking can motivate you, but the measurement should serve the writing rather than control it.
• High output still requires revision. A large first-draft total is raw material, not finished art.
• Ambitious goals work best when divided into ordinary daily actions.
• A missed target is information, not a verdict on your ability.

I would not recommend that every writer pursue 600,000 words. I would recommend choosing a goal large enough to excite you, building a system that makes the next step obvious, and continuing long enough to discover what steady work can accomplish.

Keep Building Your Writing Practice

For more practical craft lessons, visit Fiction Fundamentals. For manuscript feedback, book design, and publishing-project support, explore Professional Creative Services.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published December 10, 2012. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

Beginning with a Familiar Rule

Most readers already know the rule: Santa checks his list, determines who has been naughty or nice, and distributes gifts accordingly. That familiarity gives a writer a useful starting point because the audience understands the system before the story begins.

The creative opportunity comes from applying pressure to the rule. What counts as naughty? Does one bad choice define an entire year? Are children judged by the same standard even when their circumstances are different? Can a list measure repentance, growth, intent, or a quiet act of kindness no one else noticed?

A Santa Who Must Reconsider

In “Checkin’ It Twice,” Santa is not simply the all-knowing authority who enters the story with every answer. He has to examine a tradition he has followed for a very long time. That makes him both a recognizable mythical figure and a character capable of change.

I enjoy stories in which a familiar character discovers that the old method no longer fits the situation. The tension does not require turning Santa cynical or cruel. It comes from placing a well-meaning person inside a system with blind spots.

Balancing Humor and Heart

A story about Santa examining an enormous moral recordkeeping system naturally offers comic possibilities. Bureaucracy, lists, rules, and Christmas logistics can all become funny. Humor makes the premise inviting, but the question underneath it is serious: how should we judge another person?

The best version of the story needed both tones. If the piece became only a joke, the central idea would feel thin. If it became only a lecture, it would stop feeling like a Christmas story. Humor opens the door; empathy gives the ending weight.

Writing with a Mythical Character

Using a figure such as Santa Claus gives the writer access to a large body of shared expectations. Readers recognize the red suit, the North Pole, the elves, the reindeer, the gifts, and the lists. That saves explanation, but it also creates a danger: the character can become a bundle of borrowed details rather than a person in this particular story.

To make a familiar figure feel fresh, I ask questions such as:

• What part of the traditional role creates a problem?
• What belief does the character hold at the beginning?
• What evidence forces that belief to change?
• Which familiar details are essential, and which can be reimagined?
• What emotional experience belongs specifically to this version?

Becoming the Title Story

The story was later selected for a multi-author Christmas collection, and the anthology took the title Checkin’ It Twice. Having a story become the title piece was an unexpected honor. It also showed me that a strong title can do several jobs at once: evoke a familiar song lyric, signal Christmas, introduce the story’s central object, and suggest that something deserves a second look.

The anthology included a range of uplifting stories, from lighthearted pieces to more reflective ones. That variety allowed the title story’s humor to sit beside other approaches to faith, family, service, and the meaning of the season.

The Question Behind the List

Children need boundaries, accountability, and consequences. They also need room to learn, apologize, improve, and be understood in context. Adults need the same things. A simple list may be efficient, but people are not simple.

That idea is what continues to interest me about “Checkin’ It Twice.” Christmas celebrates a gift offered not because humanity has earned a perfect score, but because grace, love, and redemption are larger than a record of failures.

“Checkin’ It Twice” is a separate Christmas story that became the title piece of a different multi-author anthology; it is not one of the three Advent story collections beginning with Sing We Now of Christmas. Explore the complete hierarchy of anthologies, carol devotionals, podcasts, audiobooks, translations, articles, and music at Christmas Books, Stories & Music.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books

Originally published October 2, 2012. Substantially revised and expanded July 2026.

Christmas Carols as Story Prompts

Christmas carols already contain characters, settings, images, conflicts, and emotions. “Good King Wenceslas” suggests a winter journey and an act of charity. “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” holds sorrow and hope in the same song. “Silent Night” invites reflection on peace, worship, and the circumstances surrounding a beloved hymn.

Instead of asking contributors to retell the lyrics, I wanted each writer to use a carol as a doorway into an original story. Some pieces became historical. Others were contemporary, humorous, speculative, or devotional. The shared source gave the collection unity without forcing every author into the same tone.

Twenty-Five Stories for Advent

The final anthology included twenty-five stories—one for each day from December 1 through Christmas Day. That structure turned the book into more than a collection to read in a few sittings. It could become a family tradition, with one story opening a small daily space for reflection during a busy season.

An Advent format also required variety. Twenty-five solemn stories would feel heavy, while twenty-five comic stories might miss the season’s deeper dimensions. The collection needed laughter, wonder, sacrifice, memory, faith, and hope.

Creating the Book for Charity

The anthology was created to benefit the National Down Syndrome Society in honor of my son Bryson, who has Down syndrome. That purpose gave the project a center beyond publication itself. Contributors donated stories, and the collection connected Christmas creativity with practical giving.

Charitable publishing still requires the same care as any other book. A worthy cause does not excuse weak editing, unclear permissions, inconsistent formatting, or an unattractive finished product. Readers should receive something valuable while supporting the mission.

What Editing a Multi-Author Anthology Requires

• A clear concept: Contributors need to understand the audience, theme, length, tone, and content expectations.
• Careful selection: Each story must work individually and also strengthen the complete collection.
• Editorial consistency: Spelling, punctuation, formatting, and style should feel intentional across many voices.
• Communication: Authors need deadlines, revision notes, permissions information, and production updates.
• Thoughtful ordering: The sequence should vary mood and subject while building toward Christmas Day.
• Shared purpose: Contributors should understand how the charitable goal shapes the project.

Stories Included in the Collection

The anthology invited readers to walk with Good King Wenceslas, hear the bells of Christmas in new ways, and encounter characters facing both ordinary and extraordinary December challenges. One story followed a soldier who had lost his voice as he encountered the legacy of “Silent Night.” Other stories used carols to explore family relationships, generosity, reconciliation, and unexpected miracles.

The best pieces did not simply attach a familiar title to an unrelated plot. They found an emotional or thematic connection between the song and the story.

What the Anthology Taught Me

• A strong shared theme can support many different genres and voices.
• Seasonal books become more useful when readers can build traditions around them.
• Collaborative projects need clearer communication than solitary ones.
• Charitable purpose can motivate contributors, but quality earns the reader’s trust.
• Familiar songs still contain unexplored stories.

From Anthology to Later Christmas Work

Sing We Now of Christmas strengthened my interest in the stories behind Christmas music. That interest later continued through other anthologies, devotionals, scripts, arrangements, recordings, and carol-history projects.

The project began with multiple writers and twenty-five creative interpretations. The larger lesson has remained the same: a familiar carol can become newly meaningful when we pause long enough to listen for the history, scripture, faith, and human experience inside it.

A Second Advent Anthology and Expanded Giving

The first anthology raised more than $1,000 for charity. That response encouraged me to continue the idea with a second carol-inspired collection, Carol of the Tales.

The second volume continued the family-friendly anthology format and was released early so readers, reviewers, and distributors could receive it before the beginning of Advent. Proceeds from that historical campaign supported Autism Speaks in honor of my son Jarem.

The project also expanded beyond publishing. At the time, I announced plans for a Utah charity concert connected with the anthology and its fundraising purpose. The event announcement itself is no longer current, but the idea represented an important step: using stories, music, performance, and collaboration together in support of a cause.

These charitable details describe the original campaigns and should not be read as a promise about current proceeds or beneficiaries. Visit Music and Poetry and An Advent Carols Countdown for current Christmas and sacred-music projects.

Sing We Now of Christmas is the first of three separate Advent story anthologies. It is not part of An Advent Carols Countdown, which grew from The Carols of Christmas podcast and focuses on carol history and devotion. Explore the complete Christmas hierarchy—including the later anthologies, Portuguese edition, audiobooks, articles, and music—at Christmas Books, Stories & Music.

About Michael D. Young

Michael D. Young writes family-friendly fantasy, devotionals, hymn history, and books for young readers. He has sung with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2010 and works as an instructional designer. Explore his books, music, and creative projects.

About Michael Explore His Books