Book Review – The Edge of Eternity

I hadn’t planned to do two posts in a row on book reviews, unless one of those was the next in the series I covered the first book of in my last review.

However, I feel compelled to process my perspective with a book I read this past weekend.  As with another book I read recently that had been on my bookshelves for a time, this book has a copyright date of 1998.   Author:  Randy Alcorn.

I don’t quite know what to do with this book.

I found it more compelling than most books I read to keep going forward and progressing through the storyline:  to the extent that I found it difficult even to break and start dinner, and so on.

Yet, in a sense that makes no sense because of the nature of the storyline.  Per what I have read about well crafted novels, this one had far too much mental action versus physical action and far too much description versus physical action.

Apart from compelling, I also found the storyline strangely disturbing.  Though I think the theology here more sound, I found it a similar experience to my response [and that of others] to The Shack, which many have noted constitutes a heretical tract opposed to Christianity:  a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Yet, this in a sense in a different configuration is the same thing:  in Edge of Eternity there is no Trinity.  Here, everything is the second person of the Trinity without reference to the Father or Holy Spirit:  except for a strangely symbolic likely interpretation of the Holy Spirit as a bird dwelling within the protagonist.

Yet, from a readership point of view, I think the most serious flaw involves that my suspension of disbelief in the end failed in the last chapter.  There simply wasn’t enough justification for the protagonist character – a lifelong skeptic and atheist – to accept as evidence of Christianity a near-death experience.  Such a character, I should think, would have written it off as suspect, a hallucination, or a dream.

Further, I work with Viet Nam vets, and know other ex-military people:  and the mindset of the protagonist does not work within that structure for me.  Military personnel are trained to see the team as more than the individual, and some of the things this character had trouble with as embarrassing or self-subjugating no ex-military personnel I know would have.  The Vets I know, including some from earlier wars than Korea and Viet Nam, would have lost their false pride long since.  And also would not find embarrassing the kinds of things the protagonist did:  they would have seen far worse in wartime circumstances.  This was a second fail in the suspension of disbelief.

I would consider that seriously poor research underlying the book:  and the experiences of Viet Nam veteran’s is very accessible.  Apart from working with about a half dozen of them, I know someone who counsels them.  And the kind of things that “embarrassed” the protagonist in this book would do so to no Viet Nam vet I know of from any of those contexts.

In the end, a very odd book.  Compelling, but strange and strangely disturbing.

It’s nearly done! I’m so excited!

            I’ve been working for quite some time on the text of an e-book [which I may eventually make available in print form, also] on tips for the “layperson” writer who must write the occasional business document.

            A combination of the style of the writing and other commitments has made the process slower than I would have liked.

            And it won’t be entirely wrapped up until I am satisfied with the text and the same fellow who designed my professional services website puts it together with cover art and some reproducible forms in the first Appendix, and he is only available on weekends. 

            I’m not sure I’ll make it this weekend, but definitely will next weekend if not.

            But . . . I’m so excited!  It’s almost done.  I did my last round of changes and wrote up some sample documents that last round of changes that had been giving me trouble.

            Pretty much all I have left to do is add one reference to the References section [there are only three], which I’ll probably do right after posting this blog entry since I saw the book handy.  And . . . write my Conclusion chapter.

            10 Keys to Effective Business Writing: Techniques for Writing Everyday Business Documents does what it can to make the rather dry topic of business documents a little more interesting.

            It has horses, helicopters, and a lovely luncheon menu . . . along with some humor . . . mixed into the very practical advice on building an effective business document.

            I’m thrilled that this project is just about done!

            Likely release:  one week from this coming Monday!

The Centurion's Wife - Book Review

I orginally wrote this book review for Street Articles, which rejected the article stating they do not take submissions related to religion.  Although, oddly, they accepted book reviews on two other Christian romances:  one at the same time.

Rather than dilute the review, I decided to post it to my own blog as is and follow up at some future time with blog posts on the two follow-on books in the series.
_____

I’ll start out the review by recommending this book to those interested in Biblically-based fiction. 

The first of a series of three books set in New Testament times, The Centurion’s Wife gives a window in the culture of the times and, in the final analysis, provides some deepened perspective into the days of Jesus’s ministry and the early church.

Giving a window into the culture of the time, however, also provides the rub in this instance. 

I found the book somewhat of a difficult read, and a part of that involved the difficulty of following the cultural aspects of the book as well as some confusion resulting from the setting.  However, the second and third books in the series I found much more enjoyable reads, and perhaps because I’d absorbed enough from this book I did not find the same difficulty in the later two books in the series:  which rely on the background for the major characters set up this one.

The Centurion’s Wife begins during the lifetime of Jesus, but continues into the earliest days of the “house churches” of the Acts of the Apostles days.

As one would expect with Janette Oke one of the co-authors, given that many regard Oke as having established Christian romance as a viable genre, the storyline of the book is that of a Christian romance. 

Oke and co-author Davis Bunn [who has first billing in the byline] set a romance against the background of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus and the establishment of the early church.  They take some traditional Scriptural personalities and build the storyline around them in unusual and sometimes unexpected ways.

It is, from that viewpoint, a worthwhile read that provides insights into the culture of the early church.  However, some of the events seem contrived and almost out of place and, in comparison to other books of Oke’s I’ve read, the sense of pacing seems a bit off.  Some aspects of the storyline seem too drawn out for what they are, and some seem to happen too fast given a lack of foreshadowing that prevents that “out of the blue” response from the reader.

The authors do not rely entirely on Scriptural personalities to people this novel. 

They mix several original characters in with personalities from the Scriptures and in more than one instance introduce a culturally-appropriate given name for characters who appear in Scripture but are not associated with a name. The storyline involves the building of a romance between the male and female protagonist set against the backdrop of individual conflicts each of these characters has concerning the establishment of the Christian church.  Some of the cultural customs can pose a struggle to the reader to come to grips with; as they certainly did me.

The book is structurally sound, and from my limited knowledge also seems historically and Scripturally accurate and from that perspective and the perspective that it is necessary background to the other two novels in the series, it is a worthwhile read.

However, I found it a more difficult and somewhat less entertaining read than Ms. Oke’s other works, particular the Love Comes Softly series.

Perhaps the reader will have the most fulfilling experience with this novel by thinking of it more as an educational read than an entertainment novel and as necessary background to the next two both of which I found more enjoyable.  However, The Centurion’s Wife still has enough of a romance storyline to recommend as a worthwhile read, all in all.

More on Audience for Business Documents

In a previous entry, I talked about how the first two things one needs to consider in writing a business document include identifying the audience, or the “who needs to know,” and identifying the nature of what it is that audience needs to know. 

In this entry, I’m going to talk a bit about the likely nature of your audience in what in my soon-to-be-released e-book I call the “who needs to know” element of the audience.

As a general rule, you will deal with individual or team roles in planning out your business document.

So, what roles are you likely to encounter?

Here are the most common roles you’re likely to encounter:

• Stakeholders
• Decisionmakers
• Prospects
• Regulators
• Customers (Internal and External)
• The Public

Stakeholders and decisionmakers overlap somewhat, and indeed, prospects can factor into that overlap as well.

But, when you set about planning your document, you may want to consider these types of role as to just who makes up your audience, and in that role(s) just what their need is from your document.

This will allow you to make an effective document plan that will afford you good results from your final document.

And on another nearby island . . .

My other most recent read has similarities in terms of setting and background to

Driftwood Lane

, which I reviewed in my last post.

This novel, also a contemporary Christian romance, also occurs on an island off the Coast of Massachusetts near Boston.  However, in this case the entire island is fictional as is the nearby town of Cape Light.

This book is a collaboration of two authors, who as nearly as I can tell have written two series in this fictional area:  a Cape Light series and an Angel Island series.

This book, The Wedding Promise, is the second of the Angel Island series.  An interesting side note is that this is one of two series Christian romance books I have read in the past year in which I found the second book of the series far more enjoyable to read than the first and that in both such cases these series were a two author collaboration.  [The other being the Davis Bunn/Janette Oke series beginning with The Centurion’s Wife.  In that case I found both book two and three more enjoyable than the first book].

In addition to the off-the-coast of Massachusetts setting, the two books share that the female protagonists initially arrive at the island community as the result of the decease of a relative and resolution of the deceased relative’s affairs.  In this case, there are no children involved but as with

Driftwood Lane

, the primary setting location involves a place of public lodging:  in this case a full-service Inn versus a Bed-and-Breakfast.

The matter of the deceased relative factors in The Wedding Promise as well, but it is more in the background than in Driftwood Lane because of the fact that all that history is more set up in the first novel of the series.

The Wedding Promise uses conflicts that arise around the determination of a young couple other than the male and female protagonists to have their wedding at the Inn, despite the Inn’s deteriorated condition and the female protagonist’s inexperience.

Authors Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer deftly build and resolve the conflicts in very organic ways, culminating in the literary epiphany that the male protagonist is hiding something.

In an unusual but effective move, the authors do not leave the full realization of the male protagonist’s mysterious past unidentified for long.  And they effectively use the “show don’t tell” principle by revealing the nature of the male protagonist’s secret through actions that speak far louder than words.

As with Driftwood Lane, the authors pack a good deal of action and resolution into the last few pages of the book.

In this case, however, as part of a series, although the romance advances towards the end of the book, we are still left without a full realization of the male and female protagonists’s romance as the book reaches its conclusion.  That is left for additional books in the Angel Island series.

Now, that’s a fine how-do-you-do . . .

I had the opportunity this past weekend to read a couple books, and they deserve separate coverage.

Ironically, I had been trying to avoid reading these two back to back since they have comparable settings.  However, although both authors handle the conflicts and literary epiphanies with panache, the details of the storyline differ in most other ways.

I’m going to start with the one I read second.

That is

Driftwood Lane

, by Denise Hunter.

This contemporary Christian romance is set on a fictional Lane at a fictional Bed & Breakfast on the actual island of Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts.

The author deftly keeps the reader involved in a series of conflicts and dilemmas that arise as the result of the sudden demise of relatives of the male and female protagonists and the issues that arise around the deceased couple’s orphaned children.

The reason I wanted to review this one first of the two involves the literary device the author uses to resolve what become seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the realization of the romance between the protagonists.

I’m not going to be a spoiler as to just what happens.  Let me just say that the author came up with one dandy way for a suitor to convince his lady of the genuineness of his profession of love for her.

An all around enjoyable read.

Identifying purpose for business documents

In earlier blog posts, I posted some tips for those who have to do some business writing as a subset of their work, but are not professional writers.  My first few posts on this topic gave some insights about where to start out and what to consider when beginning such a writing process.

To quickly review:  I mentioned that a good starting point for writing a business document involved first figuring out the nature of the reader for the document and, in tandem with that, figuring out what that reader [known as “audience” to business writers] needed to get out of the document.  The “what the reader needs” also refers to what professional writers call the rhetorical purpose of the document.  This evaluation then feeds into some form of document planning process, such as an outlining process.

In this blog post, I’m going to follow up with some further information on the kinds of purpose you are likely to find in business documents. 

For the most part, ‘layperson’ writers . . .those who don’t write as a major part, or the entirety of their job . . . will deal with a handful of specific rhetorical purposes in the business documents they are called on to write.

The first and second purposes are probably the most common and are related but not identical.  Those purposes are to inform and to summarize.

The difference between these two is subtle but does exist.  You can think of a document with the purpose of “inform” as one that provides new information, or primarily new information, to the reader(s).  Whereas, a document that has the purpose of summarizing will review material that is already known, or some of it is known, to the readership of the document.

For documents assigned to a professional who will only occasionally get assigned to write a business document on the job, these two rhetorical purposes will probably form the rhetorical purpose for most such documents.

The next three purposes also have subtle associations with each other.  Those purposes generally have the objective of generating some form of response.  Those purposes include to engage, to generate action such as through the issuance of an order, and to persuade.

You will structure your document around the “engage” purpose in an instance when you want to introduce interest in something.  An example of a document with the purpose to engage would involve something along the lines of an informational newsletter.  The nature of generating action such as through an order has an obviousness to it:  this would involve things like written announcements of mandatory training or briefings. 

A document that has the purpose of persuasion also seeks to generate an action.  However, a document that seeks to generate action through persuasion has an objective of convincing the readership that the action taken, often a purchase of some kind, provides a benefit to the individual.  While many persuasion documents seek to incite a “buy” response for a product or service, the rhetorical purpose of persuasion can also extend to a “buy in” response.  A business document may seek to convince management, for instance, to implement, extend, or up-staff a particular project or set of projects.

This second group of rhetorical purposes:  engage, generate action by issuing an order, and persuasion actually transition into the category of business document more often handled by a professional writer than by someone who writes business documents only occasionally.  However, these types of documents may well come up for the ‘layperson’ writer of business documents every so often.  For example, a cover letter has a “persuasion” purpose to it.  On the job, a project leader may need to persuade management about extending a deadline, changing a project direction, or modifying project staffing.  Additionally, even when a dedicated business writer . . . or often a team or business writers and editors . . .handles the writing of the persuasive documentation of a proposals to a potential client, technical personnel may have contributing roles to the final proposal.  It should give such personnel an advantage to understand a little about rhetorical purpose in such a case.

Three other rhetorical purposes factor into those kinds of documents that a ‘layperson’ writer may have an involvement in writing either in entirety or as part of a team:  although most often documents having rhetorical purposes in this third category will fall into the province of the professional business writer. 

Those three purposes involve:  to instruct [such as training materials], to provide a procedure on how to do something, and to give an edict . . . such as dress codes, codes of conduct, and statements on an organization’s business ethics code.

Once you define your readership or audience, the next step in preparing for the planning out of your document involves determining which of these purposes will drive the structuring of your final document.

While this is not an exhaustive coverage of all types of rhetorical purposes that could come about, by far these are the most likely rhetorical purposes for business documentation that the layperson writer of a business document is likely to encounter in their need to write business documentation.

Epiphany (religious) as revelation

So, I took the opportunity of the Feast of the Epiphany to transmutate that to literary epiphanies.

Now, it’s time . . . given that spirituality is a sub-genre of where I would like to apply my skills . . . to talk about the actual feast.

This is an interesting year for it.  The actual Feast of the Epiphany fell this past Friday.  For probably a couple decades now, the Roman Catholic church has observed this feast on the closest Sunday, or today.  Unfortunately, due to a combination of health and transportation challenges, I do not have the opportunity to attend.  Though I have many options for private observances at home.  Overall, though, we have a whole weekend of potential observance.

The Catholic view of the spiritual Epiphany involves discovery or revelation, also.

It involves the disclosure of Messiah, Christ, God’s Chosen, the Annointed One to the gentiles of the world of that time.

This is represented in the visit of the Magi, or Wise Men, or Three Kings in the Biblical story.

When I was a child, we set up a manger in a very particular way.  Mary and Joseph and the angels and so on came.  We were not allowed to put the child in the manger into the manger until Midnight on Christmas had passed.

Similarly, we set up the Magi with their camels, and represented their progress toward the stable in a slow, solemn procession.  They were not allowed to “arrive” until January 6^th.

In historical reality, the probability is that Mary and Joseph had found a home and the child Jesus was nearly two before the Magi/Kings/Wise Men actually appeared at that home.

That is why you read accounts of Herod ordering the massacre of all male children “under the age of two.”

I saw a documentary about five or six years ago that indicated that the reason there are no historical records of such a massacre is that it was not historically significant.  Bethlehem was a very small town:  even with the influx of visitors, rather than the hundreds of children we envision, the massacre probably at most involved 20 male children under the age of two, and possibly closer to 10 victims.

As to converting into later tradition:  there are still some cultures that celebrate Epiphany, rather than Christmas, as the day of revelation.  The day that involves the arrival of gift givers.   Sometimes the gift givers are the Magi.  But other cultures invoke gift givers for children on this day, other than the Magi such as LaBefana.

All around, however, this feast . . . which the Catholic Church observes today on the closest Sunday . . .deals with knowing one’s own heart and soul and understanding the Great Plan as well as human intellect and soul is able to do so.

Happy Feast of the Epiphany.

I messed up my schedule [with help]

I got distracted, and messed up my schedule.  The bottom line for the blog is that most likely the blog will get more posts than planned for this spiritual feast weekend.  Things in the oven, don’t you know . . .

Various of my necessary interaction experienced technical difficulties, so I had to fill the time.  I filled it by writing blog posts.

One author, two books . . .

So, this post entry on my most enjoyable reads for the past year or so will deal with two related books by the same author.

While my own focus is on Christian romance, which minimizes the intimate interactions of the characters in comparison to secular romance, I do look at some secular romance from time to time . . . especially the mixed genres.

And as with the other books I chose to mention here as my “best reads,” what I most enjoy seems to revolve around the deft handling by the author of the character’s [and reader’s] epiphany or personal revelation in the book.

An author who has demonstrated that she is becoming a master at this is Jana DeLeon, and after the first two books I mentioned as my “most enjoyable” reads for about the past year, her related books “The Secret of Cypriere Bayou” and “Bayou Bodyguard” bring character epiphany to a fine art.

Ms. DeLeon’s work is classified as romantic mystery, with a touch of paranormal, and she deftly manages these disparate elements in a unique and subtle way.

Romance has a short shelf life, and these may already be off the shelf as new books, but if you can find them I think you will enjoy the read.

On an older book

Last weekend, or one day early in the week, I was looking for a book to read that I knew I could finish on the same day I started.

So, I fished through bookshelves for things that have been around for awhile.

I came up with The Horsemasters, by Don Stanford, which has a copyright date of 1957.

I’d actually seen parts of the Disney television episode made from that book, but never read the book itself.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. 

How it fits in with the series of review/commentaries I’m doing over this weekend is literary epiphany.

The author does an excellent job structuring the book around the focal events of, or related to, a 15 week summer course not only in horsemanship but meant to equip the students to serve as assistant riding masters or mistresses in other schools and colleges by the end of the course.

Stanford does a great job connecting up little . . . and sometimes not so little  . . . personal epiphanies for the students, particularly the viewpoint character Dinah Wilcox, with the events of the horsemanship course.

I’ve read other writers who try to structure things similarly in more contemporary novels, and not always with as much success.

The book is surprisingly contemporary for a 1957 copyright, I didn’t find anything directly out of date as I have in other works of that era.

For someone who is looking at literary technique, The Horsemasters makes a good study while also serving as an entertaining read especially for those who enjoy reading about horses and horsemanship.  But, without ‘talking down’ to the audience, Stanford includes enough detail that I think even those who have no knowledge of horses will enjoy this book if they can find it given its “vintage” status.

 I plan to be back later today with another "best read."  And, then I should be due for some practical tips again in the blog.

I may toss in one more review than I planned, having just finished a book yesterday I greatly enjoyed again for the "character epiphany" reasons.  Interestingly, this is the second of a series and I didn't enjoy the first as much as the second.

But, I will probably add a post on practical tips before I cover that additional book; and perhaps try to capture some thoughts on the spiritual season of Epiphany, as well, before I add that review.

Using Epiphany [the concept] as a segue

I’m going to talk about the books, interspersed over a series of upcoming posts, that I most enjoyed in the past year or so of reading.

I’ll be posting about books in three categories, here.  Possibly get to four.

Why is that?

Well, I have done extensive reading in Christian romance for my own study of that genre.

BUT, it turns out, that while I would recommend certain of those over others, the three books I would most recommend from my reading of the past year do not fall in that category.

I’ll recommend one Christian fiction that is not a romance, a set of contemporary romances that are serialized, and an older secular book that is neither a romance nor Christian-oriented.

So, if and when I get to it, Christian romance is actually that “fourth” category.

Of all the works I’ve read this past year, if I had only one to choose to recommend to someone, and it is precisely because of the epiphany of the book . . .

The number one Christian book I would recommend is The Cross Gardener.  Not sure of the author and the book is not handy, but I believe the author's name is Jason Wright.

I have to admit the author managed the epiphany very deftly.  I read it and thought “should have seen THAT coming.”  But I didn’t, yet it seemed very natural both that I didn’t and should have.

Especially if you know any one who is in a grief situation, The Cross Gardener stands out in my rankings as 2011 pick of the year for Christian fiction.

Epiphany . . .

Today is the actual day of the Feast of the Epiphany.

Nowadays, in the Catholic Church, the liturgical observance falls on the nearest Sunday.  Because of the timing of a Sunday Christmas and New Year’s, that means the observation this year is this coming Sunday. 

“Spirituality and religion” is one of my sub-category niches.  I’ve written in that area quite a bit, and while I don’t regard that as a direct product or service niche, in my spec samples for catalog copywriting I have tied that into three of my niche areas:  books, games and toys, and educational services.

So, because of the timing this year, I thought the general idea of Epiphany would be a good one to get a weekend’s worth of blog posts and that sort of thing out of. 

Further, from the writing perspective, the term “epiphany” has a name in terms of a fiction technique.  The word translates to something like “revelation” or “discovery” in writing.

Indeed, a well-made “epiphany” can form the most satisfactory element of a book.

I’ve read a good number of books over the past year, and I find that writers tend to go about this in one of two different ways.  A novel either has a succession of small epiphanies for one or more of the essential characters; or there is one real, major “ah hah!” moment for one or more of the most central characters.

Either of these approaches, if well realized, can have a satisfying impact on the reader.

I have had some very fulfilling reading experiences over the past year or so with each type, although for a wide range of reasons I would have to say that the book that I would recommend if I had to choose only one out of last year’s reading was the single epiphany type.

Which kind do  you prefer?

Travel theme . . . nostalgia

Another of the niche areas I have identified to try to build some copywriting work within involves travel.

I haven’t, myself, gotten to travel a great deal.  But I have done some traveling.

As a writer, I find the idea of travel starts the minute you walk out your front door.  Should you walk, rather than drive or take public transit, you may find things right outside your front door.  I believe it was Thoreau who referred in one of his works to having traveled widely just within the town of Concord.

You can also mentally travel back in time and recall how things were in the place you grew up as opposed to how things are now.  Several of the municipal electric companies in this area build their annual calendars around precisely this concept.  Sometimes, you can even do some of this vicariously. 

I’ve often tried to reconstruct the landscape of bygone days in my paper journals:  and from time to time I’d get an occasional assist in that from my older brother.

I grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts.  I remember when Lynn was still pretty much a GE town.  I remember the Hillside Five and Dime and Sandy’s Barbecued Chicken in

Wyoma Square

.  I remember the Elm Farm grocery store in downtown, and the A&P near the high school I attended.

I’m not quite old enough to remember the movie house heyday, which my oldest brother does remember.  If I’m not mistaken, and the height of the age of movie houses in Lynn, the city reached a total of 12 theatres.  At least one of those was a drive-in, but most were regular movie play houses:  smaller versions of what we today call the cinema.  I remember the Paramount, the Warner, and Lowe’s, and vaguely recall the drive-in.  I don’t remember the Olympia and any number of others.

Much the same when I do travel:  I like an element of old-time-iness to the travel.  This is why I’ve enjoyed visiting places like living history museums, taking cruises on old-fashioned steam vessels, or travel by horse-drawn carriage or steam locomotive.

In some ways, there are forms of writing that revive that spirit of nostalgia.  Handwritten journals capture the way of the life of those who kept them.  And there’s still a certain grace and elegance involved in correspondence that involves letters written and exchanged through the regular postal service versus using e-mail.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons people so look forward to Christmas season mail:  that remains the time of year . . . even if as some people I know do defer the mailing of Christmas cards until about this time of the new year.

This allows them to separate the preparation and mailing of Christmas cards out from the rest of the bustle of Christmas and give the correspondence the attention it deserves.

The niches we don’t choose . . .

When I began this Blog, I decided to focus on writing as a craft as well as those areas in which I’ve both written a significant number of articles and really enjoy writing about and would like to develop more in terms of web content and copywriting niches:  with the occasional ‘tips to those who need to write in business’ post. 

I had defined seven types of services or products that represented those niches, and some sub-categories of those. 

While some of those categories implicitly touch on another topic area I enjoy writing about, and I’ve done one blog post about the craft of writing that more explicitly touches on that, it’s interesting that a topic area I didn’t identify for myself as a niche area is that of heritage.

The Spirit of Place post did explore that, and I’m sure in other ways I’ll touch on it at another time.

But, this is a topic that not only interests me but in terms of my personal and literary heritage, it’s an area I’m always redefining.  The writings of contemporary Christian authors has, for example, become a much larger element in my heritage as a writer over the last few years than it had been before that. 

In one way or another, I learn something from any author I read:  both fiction and nonfiction.  It may not involve, for the nonfiction authors, greater awareness of crafting a writing project:  although it typically does for fiction authors.

So that, in a sense, brings this post back around to the topic of this blog:  a shared heritage for writers involves that they begin as readers.  And, indeed, one of my product niche areas involves books and reading.

I find it interesting that the general concept of heritage is enjoying a kind of heyday in Christian publishing today.  Historical fiction enjoys a great deal of popularity just now.  There’s a generally wider selection of historical Christian romance than there is contemporary Christian romance.  While this may have its genesis in the preferences of the authors, certainly agents and publishers would have less interest in publishing if it didn’t sell.

Historical Christian fiction, generally, and historical Christian romance, in particular seems to break down into two overall epochs.  One epoch involves what I’ll loosely call “frontier fiction.”  That is, per Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis, any region within the United States qualified as “frontier” for approximately the first generation or so after initial settlers arrived.

Many of these historical Christian romances are set in areas that qualify as true frontier areas even now that Jackson Turner’s thesis has fallen out of favor among historians. 

The other epoch that has held an interest for authors, and readers, of Christian fiction involves the days surrounding the development of the New Testament itself.

At least two sets of collaborators have written series novels set around the time of Jesus and the early Church:  Janette Oke and Davis Bunn, and Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

I find it interesting indeed that, although historical fiction because it involves considerably more research that contemporary fiction poses a greater challenge to the author to write well, for the most part I have found the historical Christian fiction . . . and particularly historical Christian romance . . . better constructed fiction than the contemporary Christian fiction published around the same time.

There are, of course, exceptions going in both directions but as a rule, that is what I have found in my reading of Christian fiction over the past few years.

I’m not so up on secular fiction [there’s only so much time in a day and one can’t read anything] and have to wonder if this is a Christian fiction specific phenomenon, or if there is a wider society-wide sense of getting back to roots, and recalling bygone ways of life?

Avoid the pitfall that immobilizes most less experienced writers . . .

I had planned to mix things up a bit in this blog between three general topic areas:  1) things of interest to those who have a creative writing bent [which could be almost anything], 2) the areas I consider my “niche” writing interests, and when possible how they tie in either to business or writing concerns, and 3) useful tips for those who don’t care to write but sometimes must for business purposes.

So far, I have set a structure for this blog that follows that pattern.

However, given that today is technically the legal New Year holiday, and also prompted by the observations of one of my commenters, I thought I would do a kind of a New Year bonus and do two Tip style blog posts in succession.

So, although in a sense this post may be jumping ahead out of sequence on Tips, I thought I’d discuss an area that too many writers get hung up during their writing process.  I even know professionals who get hung up in this way, if through lack of proper instruction they developed a less-than-ideal habit.

To review a bit, the Blog covered that the first step in a good document creation process involves an in-tandem assessment of who the reader . . . or audience . . . is for your document along with what that reader(s) needs are from the document.

Then, the next part of the process involves planning:  as one of my commentors rightly observed, most without a good deal of specialized training will use a traditional outlining process to do that.

Assuming no research involved in the project, or that the research phase came in as a predecessor to the outlining/planning phase, this brings the author to the point where the composing, or writing, process phase of developing the document will actually begin.

Now, we’re going to reverse our perspective, here, from linear steps such as audience assessment to planning to writing.

What I’m going to discuss in this Tip post is:  the portion of the document you should hold off on writing.

Over and over again, I see writers get hung up because they pick up their outline, see “Introduction” . . . and try to write it.

That’s both an unwieldy and an unproductive writing process. 

You will immeasurably improve your writing process . . . and its outcome  . . . if you divest yourself of this routine.

Indeed, when you follow your outline to compose, you should choose one of your content points.  If you feel most comfortable in sequence, you can do that starting at the first content point.  Or, you may wish to tackle the most difficult, least difficult, or one with the greatest data volume and put the rest together like a puzzle.

One way or another, though, you should in your actual writing process dive right into your content points.

In an effective writing process, the writer (usually) puts off writing the Introduction . . . either until the very last piece of the document or to the last piece excepting the Conclusion.  Just skip right over that in your Outline, and come back to it later.

I was fortunate in my very first Technical Writing course, a pilot course and one of the first in the country, that the instructor of that course taught the class a rather logical concept:  “how do you introduce something when you don’t what it is you are trying to introduce?”  (For those who follow comments, this one was at Salem State College.)

Yet, I see even professionals trying to work sequentially starting with the Introduction.  And nearly all non-professional writers make this . . . well, if not an error, it certainly adds several degrees of difficulty to the writing process.

So, when you start to write from your outline . . . skip over the Introduction heading entirely.   [It bears purposeful redundancy on this point.]

Write your content, and come back to that later.  [In some types of documents, the Introduction can become quite clear in the writer’s mind about 3/4s of the way through, and if you suddenly have the light bulb effect at such a time, of course, go for it at that juncture.]

Try this technique if you have gotten hung up starting out with an Introduction section.

I think you’ll find it astounding how much difference this one technique can make both in your productivity and if not enjoyment, at least reduction of aggravation in crafting your documents.

If you have to write something when you don’t prefer to write, or you would if there weren’t so many other duties pressing but there are other duties pressing, wouldn’t you prefer to reduce the stress and frustration of the process by applying this kind of logical technique to your process?

Document Planning . . .

A commenter on a previous post brought up an excellent point.  I mentioned in that post that the place to start for those writing business documents only occasionally involves determining the nature of the audience for the document, and the nature of what you want your document to do for that audience.  That “what you want the document” to do is the rhetorical purpose.

The commenter responded by noting that outlining is also important.

Indeed, as I responded to her, structured documentation methodologies for the most part get away from traditional outlining methods.  However, most people who have to write business documents just on an occasional basis do not have that sort of training.  Therefore, outlining can serve such people quite well as an element of their planning process.

That, in the final analysis, is what it boils down to:  planning.  With rare exceptions, well executed business documents [or really any document, in this case even academic writings] come about as a result of a solid planning process.

Your planning process may take one stage or multiple stages.  Generally, if you have research or data gathering, you will have at least two planning stages:  planning the research efforts; and then, once you have the information, planning the actual document.

A good outlining or planning process involves sussing out the most effective order to present your information so that it most satisfactorily fulfills reader need from the individual document.

So, for the layperson writer, so to speak, who must write the occasional document on the  job, you will . . . as mentioned in a previous post . . . most effectively start with identifying who your reader is [or readers are], then you will next determine what that reader needs to get out of the document.

And then, your next step in creating the most effective document you can produce will involve planning how to organize your information and structure your data to meet your reader’s need in the document.

All of this goes on before you do any real writing, except for the minimal notes of making outline headings.

The better your plan for the document, the more effective your final product is likely to be. 

That is, the more solid planning you do "upfront," the more likely you are not only to find your final document more effective in terms of serving reader needs:  you are far more likely to find that actual composition part of the writing process easier to execute . . . and possibly even more enjoyable than you will with no plan or a poor-to-mediocre plan.

So, when you must write an occasional document on-the-job, take the time upfront for some good, solid planning using a planning method . . . such as outlining . . . that works well for you.

Speaking of New Year . . .

Another sub-niche of my article writing has involved writing about holidays and celebrations.

In a previous post, I talked about setting New Year’s resolutions.

That, actually, is not something I normally actually do.

I do try to do what I call a “look back/look ahead” activity.

Here, again, I hearken back to traditional in-a-blank book, with a pen, in longhand journaling.

I try to take some time . . . if possible, starting around New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day [I’m not into New Year’s Eve partying OR going to First Night events] to review any journaling I’ve done in the past year and make note and comment on things that have developed over that year.  I allow myself anywhere from a week to a month to complete the project [if I’m going to, some years I haven’t finished the full year review] and assess both achievements and disappointments in the course of that year.

From there, I try to define some objectives . . . ideas too loose to actually call goals . . . of what I want to work towards in the upcoming year.

I find this much more enjoyable than the traditional “resolution” exercise, and also, usually, more productive than the traditional exercise.

Do you plan to take time to review your past year and reflect on the things you’ve achieved, as well as project what direction you’d like to go for the coming year?