Better Fiction: The Blog

Evangelism: The Journey Begins

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Wade Ogletree

For the moment, I'm going to believe there are three types of people in the world: Benjamin Franklins, John Adamses, and everyone else.

The John Adamses of this world find fault in everyone but themselves. Arguments are seen as won by being hard, blunt, and brutal. The Benjamin Franklins find common ground and ask Socratic questions to guide their audience to finding the right solution. Franklins are willing to compromise. Adamses are not.

Everyone else falls somewhere in between.

People who share the opinions of a John Adams admire him. People are often not sure where a Franklin stands. John Adamses often insult the opposition to the point that no one will listen to them, other than those who already share their beliefs. People listen to a Franklin and are often swayed by them.

Are you more a Franklin or an Adams?

Which would you more likely vote for?

These are not trite questions. I think there is much value in the Franklin approach, but in looking for a man to represent me, a Franklin might raise too many doubts. The Adams would ruin much with his bluntness, but I would know where he stands.

It's as if I want a man to speak to me as an Adams and to the world as a Franklin.

How about when it comes to witnessing? Should we be more the Adams or the Franklin?

I have seen many Adams insult the world in the name of Christ, thinking they do God a favor by bluntly standing up for His name. I am more a Franklin, and I think God can take care of Himself. He did not send me to protect His honor. He sent me to join in His work of wooing others to Himself.

Which leaves me with the idea of a Teddy Roosevelt witnessing style: speak softly and carry a big cross.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Wade Ogletree

We, of the Artistic and Literary Antimanifestoist Movement, declare:

We hereby unite against the use of manifestos.

Therefore, we stand against all declarations that use bullet points.

We stand against all artistic and literary uses of manifestos to define a movement, especially those who are solely defined by what they are against. We rise against that by the very definition of who we are.

We are against such movements in general, and have formed the Antimanifestoist Movement in protest.

We stand against all movements formed as a means of protest.

We find that the use of manifestos seeks to artificially separate communities into two opposing groups, those who agree and those who are maligned and demonized by the manifesto. Those who disagree with us are demon-possessed and hereby much maligned.

We stand against ourselves and hereby refuse to join our organization.

We hereby form the Anti-Antimanifestoist Movement in protest. (See manifesto to come.)

We are without anyone left to finish this manifesto, without which the Anti-Antimanifestoist Movement shall have no means to define itself by what it is against.

We hereby declare the Anti-Antimanifestoist Movement dead. (Ignore previous parenthetical note.)

We protest the hubris we have shown is denying ourselves our right to form the Anti-Antimanifestoist Movement and plan to sue ourselves in court.

Signed,

The Former Members of the Antimanifestoist Movement

I woke up early this Saturday morning and, unable to get back to sleep, I decided to get on the computer and download a song. One song in particular had my interest. It had been bumping around in the back of my head for years, and now was the time to do something about it. I sought out "Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World" by Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole, found it, bought and downloaded it, and that's when the frustration began.

It was the right song by the right artist, but when I played the clip at Amazon, something didn't seem right. It sounded lower than I remembered. I couldn't be sure, as it had been a while since I last heard the song. Before I bought it, I searched out the full song on the Internet and heard the same song I was playing on the clip. I searched for other artists' versions of the song, but they certainly were not what I was remembering.

I finally decided that my memory was playing tricks on me. I bought, downloaded, and played the song. Only then (why then I don't know) was I certain that this was not the version of the song that had so enchanted me. It wasn't even close.

I did another search and discovered the problem. At Amazon, the song is available as recorded on the album "Unforgettable". The version of the song I know and love is by the same artist but from his album "Facing Future". Two versions of the same song made up of rehashed lyrics, sung by the same artist. One I never would have thought twice about, the other I can't get out of my mind.

After the frustration wore off, I began contemplating the implications of this as a writer. The changes between the songs are minor. The one I love is sung in more of a haunting falsetto and the song returns to the opening "Over the Rainbow" chorus instead of ending on "What a Wonderful World". That's about it, but those differences mean everything.

Iz's experimentation with the song presents dramatically emotional results. Emotional connections like that are what drive great works of literature as well. I want to learn how to transform my own works from merely good to something beyond, something that contains that spark that separates the good from the great and the great from the classic.

One of the greatest hindrances we may have as writers is our attachment to what we have written. Do we have the courage to take a piece we've just polished, something that has already gone through all the rewrites and is ready to go out the door, and try imagine doing it another way...to find some small magical difference that could turn the story into something greater than it was before?

That can be a hard thing to do, but with my latest project, I will take that extra step. I will rethink and reconsider, and, most probably, the story will begin the submission rounds without any dramatic, fate-altering change. On the other hand, just maybe, that special something will happen.

Anything Iz possible.

Wade Ogletree

Edit: See "Feedback" for a comment from Iz's producer, Jon de Mello, and more insight into the two versions of this song.

JP Dellova is a good friend of mine, and one I've never met. This Christmas I was saddened to hear that he had lost his wife to complications with breast cancer. I asked him if I could share this article with you as it touches beautifully on the writer's struggle with life, inspiration, and the false guilt of diminishing life by letting it inspire us.

Through A Tunnel

JP Dellova

Someday I'll be able to write about it, about the process, about going through this wormhole, or tunnel, or whatever it is that happens when moving from the death of one you couldn't bear to survive, to the point of actually surviving that person. But, though this isn't the day, or even the year for it, it is at least the moment of emerging from the cocoon of grief.

I'll be able to finish paying the funeral expenses soon, and after that other things will open up, and close -- such as having to move from the house we paid for in so many ways, but never owned -- and the next step will be sitting in a large sunny room in Florida, listening to the music I love while writing. Marion wanted the writing to be a success, and she wanted it even more than I did, and do now. Perhaps that's the thing that keeps me from wallowing in this tragedy, the knowledge that what Marion wants (sorry, I can't see her in the past tense) is what I want. It means I can write without feeling selfish.

The strange part is I don't want to, haven't really wanted to write for at least a year. But at the same time I want it more than ever, and more than I've ever wanted anything else, except my wife.

This thing we do is an incredibly insane activity. I've always said it, but it's never hit home to me before. A thought sticks in my head that being with my brother so many hours a day during the last week of his life last year, and being by Marion's side almost constantly for three weeks, watching her slip away, watching my brother holding his course, bawdy sense of humor even in agony, these are the sort of things that make us better writers. And I hate myself for thinking it.

But, in a creative sense, there's something to be said for leaving that darkest black shroud, that bottomless agony of unending grief. And there's something to be said of it in a human sense as well.

Marion is in my heart, in the soul whose existence I'll argue over till it's my own turn to find out for sure. She's always been in my writing, and I feel her now, constantly, as I think about the stories I'll be writing, and the ones I'll be rewriting.

It came to me today, such a really simple thought, that Marion isn't dead. I still hear her beautiful laughter, still remember how maddening she could be -- and her thinking the same of me from her side -- I remember how happy she was about losing 75 pounds last year, and how terrible it was for her to see her stomach swelling, her body bloated from the infection that would kill her. I remember how, while that was happening how she'd smile as I moved my hand along her forehead and told her how beautiful she was, calling her my doll-girl, my beautiful doll, all the corny things I could think of. And I remember that final moment, holding her hand while the nurses tried to get her heart to start pumping again, the moment when we both died.

And came to be alive again, both of us, today, while I looked at her photograph and told her again that she's my beautiful doll. And she smiled back at me. Forever.