I find it very telling that my posts seem to always bounce off what others are writing about. If you haven’t already read Liz’s post, you’ll want to do that. Gideon also raised the question of individuality vs. the group. I guess this can be taken as a “response” to them, although that’s not my primary intention. I was already going to write about this.

I’ve been thinking alot about the discussion sparked last week with the attempts at defining a Mormon “genre” as well as my musings on expectation as a reader. I want to now address how this affects what I do as a writer, and why that matters to this conversation.

As an aspiring LDS author, I feel that I have the opportunity to be one of the crafters of this illusive Mormon genre, and there are a number of ways I can achieve that, especially when my writing is geared to more than just LDS readers. As Gideon noted, and Laura agreed, personal essay/memoir seems to be a very salient format for perpetuating truths about how we experience the world. I have written one personal essay myself, Hope Without A Sugar Coating, about my little brother’s diagnosis with diabetes and how that affected me. The piece revolves around the principle of hope, and discusses my coming to terms with God’s will in giving my brother that particular challenge to deal with. I think that is the first way we can work toward creating the Mormon narrative that seems to be lacking: Broad, sweeping gospel principles that occur in everyday life and affect our relationships and views of the world, which can be taught without any overt scriptural references. I’d say this is something efficiently done quite often, and thus not something that warrants more discussion or a list where it has been employed.

Considering myself to be more of a short story writer (with novel-istic tendencies and inklings) than an essayist, I’m going to place my focus there because short story/novel writing affords me some of the same opportunities as personal essay/memoir if I decide to craft my material in certain ways. The second way I see that we can create Mormon literature is to use gospel principles and stories (not necessarily unique to the Book of Mormon) and integrate them into our stories for teaching purposes, to draw parallels, or to produce relevant and understandable analogies. This (and my previous point) again raises the problematic issues already discussed (in earlier posts) of what is distinctly Mormon and what is generically Christian, but we’ve already had that conversation, so I see no need to repeat it here. Likewise, many authors make use of this principle, so I will again forego attempts at making a list. An example of such a strategy is evident in one of my more recent short stories, Love and Salvation (a psychological thriller), as one of the main characters wrestles with flawed logic and pathology over whether or not he should kill his girlfriend:

“He looked down at the dropped blade. This was like Abraham sacrificing Isaac, except he hadn’t been commanded. He was toying with the idea of actually killing her, something Abraham had been opposed to even when he was raising the knife over his son. This was different. Driven by want.”

Finally, the last of the ways we can shape Mormon narrative in creative works, is, in my opinion, the most important: drawing on the particulars of our religion that distinguish us from others. This includes specific references/examples from works like the Book of Mormon. Although some people might be opposed to this usage of sacred material to create complicated stories of experience and relationship, I will state that I feel that as long as it’s tasteful and not sacrilegious there’s no problem with this type of fiction. We had a good discussion about this at the AML conference; I’ll go ahead and add here that this creation involves making fiction that accentuates/reinforces the cultural/historical narrative already in place and does not make any attempt to add to it. I’m not going to write a short story talking about the “secret” unknown parts of Alma’s ministry. That to me is sacrilege. But taking a scene, say the women and children being burned because of the teaching of Alma and Amulek (Alma 14:8), that is treated in just one verse—that could be added to, and blended with a fictional family/person(s). Orson Scott Card’s Homecoming series has drawn both acclaim and criticism as a “thinly veiled science fiction version of the Book of Mormon.” Gerald R. Lund’s Work and The Glory series plays off the same principle with more recent Church history, and Chris Heimerdinger has taken full advantage of this notion in his series Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites. The Book of Mormon is rich in exciting war stories, political plots, assassinations, prison walls falling down, etc etc. There’s more than a few stories that could be used with fiction added in to produce excellent works. The Church itself implemented this idea with the movie The Testaments, where the fictional story of Helam and Jacob is blended effortlessly with the larger Book of Mormon narrative regarding the coming of Christ to the Americas.

One of my favorite stories I’ve written is Oath and Covenant which delves into the intricacies of a father-son relationship. The father is one of the people of Ammon (the Anti-Nephi-Lehis), and has taken the oath to never shed blood again. Not understanding his father’s covenant, his only son resents him for letting people die. If he won’t fight, the son will–deciding to join the stripling warriors, even though he is his father’s only son. The storyline centers on the conversation they have over the son’s decision to fight and how the two of them are able to reconcile with one another over this. While this particular piece might not specifically/wholly appeal to a more national audience, it’s a good look into human relationship and experience framed with fictionalized narrative drawn specifically from an LDS background.

I believe that LDS writers (including myself) working toward the furthering of Mormon narrative (and genre) should be using to our advantage the resources provided us to enrich and inform our creative works, taking the opportunities such resources offer. In doing so (whether with personal essay/memoir, short story, or otherwise), we will be enabled as we actively work toward achieving that distinct genre/voice we seem to be seeking, individually and as a group.