Writing faith for teens

How do you go about writing about faith in a way that isn’t off-putting to contemporary teens, but feels like it’s part of normal life?

My approach begins from understanding that a life of faith isn’t lived across a line in the sand, that this spot over here is where I have a spiritual life, and on the other side is where the rest of the world goes about its business. Real faith doesn’t need a sanitized bubble in order to exist. It walks with courage into dark places through the power of the Holy Spirit, and tries to act as Jesus did. He reached out to those who were at the margins, who were hurting. I write what I hope is an invitation to teens of faith to see their purpose in this way.

In my Christian YA series, faith is a piece of the heroine Dani’s framework for understanding the world, just like her artistic ability is. The imagery and stories of her faith weave through her thought world as much as the language of painting and drawing. Like any teen raised in a Christian home, she goes through a coming-of-age process in which she has to decide if she truly believes for herself, rather than believing in a parent’s belief.

Infusing lots of humor into the story where possible is also important. People of faith are often stereotyped as dour, fault-finding folk who take themselves way too seriously. So my heroine has a bit of a sarcastic streak and finds the funny in things, quite often the funny in her own foibles—a self-deprecating kind of humor that makes her approachable.

Most centrally, I wrote my novels as dramatic stories, not handbooks or manuals on “how to grieve well/how to handle a family crisis well.” Readers walk with Dani through sadness, longing, first love, turmoil, broken relationships, confusion, and doubt. The adults in her world sometimes help, sometimes fail her badly. She has to come to grips with what is really real, with who God is, and with how she must grow and change in order to become her best self.

Preachiness in literature comes when characters aren’t given this space to “come to their senses” on their own. Jesus’ example of how to show a transformation well is the prodigal son story. Did someone come and preach at the younger brother, and tell him he had been a selfish jerk and he should just go home and apologize to his family? No, the story events led him to that conclusion. So it is with my characters. They make their mistakes and gradually learn from them. When epiphanies come, they act on them, and test their new understanding. They move from blindness to insight to realized truth.

I don’t think you have to be a Christian to read stories like mine and get something positive out of them. I’m not Jewish, but I really love Chaim Potok’s stories, which give me a glimpse into Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish communities. One of the most lovely things about literature is how it opens a window into other worlds, gives us a chance to understand other perspectives by living inside them for just a little while.

About the books

Never Gone

Sunday school never prepared her for this kind of life after death.

Teen artist Dani Deane feels like the universe has imploded when her photographer father is killed. Days after his death, she sees him leafing through sketches in her room, roaming the halls at church, wandering his own wake. Is grief making her crazy? Or is her dad truly adrift between this world and the next, trying to contact her?

Dani longs for his help as she tries and fails to connect with her workaholic mother. Her pain only deepens when astonishing secrets about her family history come to light. But Dani finds a surprising ally in Theo, the quiet guy lingering in the backstage of her life. He persistently reaches out as Dani’s faith falters, her family relationships unravel, and she withdraws into a dangerous obsession with her father’s ghostly appearances. Will she let her broken, prodigal heart find reason to hope again?

Read an excerpt.
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Almost There

How do you find hope when a family crisis threatens everything you love?

Paris, the City of Lights. To seventeen-year-old Dani Deane, it’s the Promised Land. There, her widowed mother’s depression will vanish and she will no longer fear losing her only parent, her arty New York life, or her devoted boyfriend.

But shortly before their Paris getaway, Dani’s tyrannical grandfather falls ill, pulling them to rural Pennsylvania to deal with his hoarder horror of a house. Among the piles, Dani finds disturbing truths that could make Mum completely unravel. Desperate to protect her from pain and escape to Paris, Dani hatches a plan with the flirtatious neighbor boy that only threatens the relationships she most wants to save.

Why would God block all paths to Paris? Could real hope for healing be as close as a box tucked in the rafters?

Add it on Goodreads
Read sneak peek scenes for FREE on Wattpad
Purchase the ebook on Amazon (US) / Amazon (UK) / Amazon (Aus) / Amazon (Can)
Barnes and Noble / Smashwords / Kobo / Apple iTunes

Purchase the paperback from Createspace / Amazon (US) / Amazon (Can) / Amazon (UK) /
Barnes and Noble / Book Depository (free shipping)


Do you find characters of faith compelling or off-putting? Why?

Thanks to Cecelia Earl for inviting me to write about this topic for her launch party. I repost it for broader sharing here with her blessing.

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Writing lessons from Sarah Dessen

Image: https://morguefile.com/creative/EsquadrilhadaFumaa

I've enjoyed Sarah Dessen's YA contemporary novels for many years now, and her most recent, Saint Anything, did not disappoint.

Dessen carved out a niche for herself when YA was still a fairly new genre, prior to the early 2000s, when the Twilight phenomenon took the publishing world by storm. Despite the proliferation of paranormal romances that followed--and a number of other trends that have come along, from boarding school stories to dystopian--Dessen has stayed the course. Realistic fiction all the way.

Her books remain top sellers, and some have garnered awards from the ALA and the School Library Journal. There are a number of things Dessen does well--and frankly quite differently from many others in the genre--that are worth studying and perhaps even emulating.

Good kids have stories worth telling

Some critics consistently ding Dessen's books for focusing on a "passive" protagonist. Indeed, her heroines are not the kind to deliberately seek out trouble. They'd knock politely, not kick open your door with their biker boots and attack you with nunchuks. They resemble kids you're likely to actually meet in real life, rather than a comic book.

What makes her good-kid stories worth reading are the very real dilemmas they face because they're good kids--striving to succeed academically, navigate friendships and dating, be a good daughter and sister, hold a part time job, and somehow figure out where they're going in life. You know, the kinds of problems most every teen has, not just the ones who own nunchucks and biker boots.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to call her heroines role models--each has flaws, especially a tendency to be less than truthful with adults in their lives. But these girls have strong consciences--they strive to do the right thing, even when it hurts. How they navigate the good girl way when life keeps throwing them curveballs is where the drama happens, which brings me to point 2.

Inner arcs are where it's at

Dessen's books tend to be lighter on plot, or what you might call surface problems. In Saint Anything, the biggest problem occurred in the narrative past. Sydney's older brother morphed into party-boy in recent years, went on to drive drunk, and permanently disabled another kid. The story begins at his sentencing hearing. It explores the aftermath, especially how his sin affects the family dynamic. Their varied responses to the crisis put them at cross purposes, and also expose deep problems with how each character copes.

What Dessen especially does well is showing how strengths and weaknesses can often be two sides of the same coin. The always-agreeable character can be cowardly in the face of conflict; the super-organized person can become frenetically controlling when hardship hits.

Let the judgement commence

Developmental psychologists say that a key task of the teen years is "individuation"--that is, building a unique identity. Part of this process involves evaluating everything and determining whether it's something to embrace or reject.

In Dessen's books nearly everything is fodder for evaluation, including one's socioeconomic status. Most kids become aware of income disparity in their community if they have occasion to leave the bubble of their comfort zone. Dessen's heroines always rub up against this reality, whether going from rags to riches, as in Lock and Key, or being rejected by the "haves" and choosing to align themselves with the "have-nots," like in Just Listen.  Contact with other classes opens critical evaluation of everything the heroines have considered normal, and they each begin to consider which pieces of life as they knew it they want to hang onto or jettison.

Family matters

While most adventure stories for younger readers have the heroes striking out on their own and leaving family, Dessen's stories always involve family conflicts in the main plotline or as a subplot. Because the reality is, most people under 18 can't --and won't-- simply take off on their own.

Rather than chafe against reality or create nothing but dead or absentee parents, Dessen sees dramatic potential. Because a big piece of the individuation process I mentioned above involves beginning to see parents as people instead of functional roles. People with flaws, yes, but also people with histories and hurts and loves and aspirations and even wisdom. Peer relationships can certainly push teens away from family, but family continues to have a strong pull on their self-concept. That tug-of-war plays out differently for each teen, and it's a rather gripping process to watch.

The importance of extracurricular world

Teens spend most of their day in school--it's equivalent to a full-time job. So the last thing they want in pleasure reading is for it to feel like they're having to sit through classes all over again with a fictional person. And yet, kids also gravitate toward spaces where they can have quality time with peers. In Dessen's books, there are always non-school spaces where much of the story action takes place. In What Happened to Goodbye and Keeping the Moon, it's a restaurant where the heroine works part time; in Saint Anything and Just Listen, a lunchtime hangout spot. In The Truth About Forever, it's the local library.

Quirks make the character

Dessen especially makes her secondary characters memorable by giving them particular quirks--often funny likes or dislikes--that appear again and again, like a running gag in a comedy film. In Saint Anything, the heroine's BFF Layla is obsessed with finding the perfect French fry and has some peculiar rituals around eating them. The quirk becomes a way for others to connect with her, and even rebuild the friendship after a falling out.

In Along for the Ride, the heroine's father named her Auden, after the poet, and his new baby Thisbe, after a minor Shakespeare character. That he is often absorbed in his own fiction writing isn't surprising, considering this quirky penchant for obscure literary references.

Forsake not the symbol(ism)

Dessen doesn't shy away from the occasional literary fiction technique, like using symbolism to undergird her themes, often using everyday objects to carry an important meaning for the heroine. In Along for the Ride, Auden's desire to master riding a bike symbolizes not only a sense of rebuilding a stunted childhood, but also learning to balance herself and become self-propelling. In Lock and Key, the recurring motif of doors, keys, fences, houses are used to examine what makes a place home, and people around us family.

Bibliography

Here's a list of Dessen's titles to date, for further reading.

1996 – That Summer
1998 – Someone Like You
1999 – Keeping the Moon
1999 - Last Chance
2000 – Dreamland
2002 – This Lullaby
2004 – The Truth About Forever
2006 – Just Listen
2008 – Lock and Key
2009 – Along for the Ride
2010 - Infinity (novella)
2011 – What Happened to Goodbye
2013 – The Moon and More
2015 – Saint Anything

Have you read any of Dessen's books? Have a favorite? 
What author's works have been influential for you and how?

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Teen me: a St. Patrick's Day reminiscence

Dublin photo by flokke from morguefile.com

Just for fun, I thought I'd post an entry from one of my high school journals describing my experiences marching in the St. Patrick's day parade in Dublin, Ireland, with my high school band.  I haven't altered the words I wrote at 16, except to remove names. Read on to learn about the magic of magpies, dueling saxophones and how to preform emergency surgery on a parade route.

March 17, 1985

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Up at the crack of dawn, we dressed and made our appearance at breakfast. Corn flakes and juice, followed by bacon, mutton sausage and eggs became an all-too-familiar breakfast. After loading the buses with instruments, everyone donned uniforms and boarded. To Dublin, Ho!

Conn [tour guide] told us of an ancient superstition about magpies, those huge crow-like birds of Europe. If you see a single magpie and wave to it, you’ll have good luck all day. If you see two, you needn’t wave, that is automatically good luck. If you wave to three magpies, you’ll have a girl child, and waving to four will bring a boy. We got caught up in the amusing Irish superstitions, to say the least—we waved at every big, black bird we saw for the rest of the week.

Entering the city, we stopped waving at magpies and started waving at the magnificent people. Everyone waved back, even some of the dignified guarde (police). We really got a kick out of that. With a little coaxing and much waving, we urged a peddler to come over to the bus and sell us Irish flags. Now we had flags to wave, as well as hands.

After lining up, we were in for quite a wait. A group of curious, kilted bagpipers came over to talk to us. They were intrigued by American saxophones, and we were intrigued by their bagpipes. One of the bagpipers challenged John S., an alto saxophonist, to a duel. We called it a draw.

The time finally came to enter the parade route. I swear, Dublin’s entire population must have come out to see us. They were so thick, we had to go single file at times. About 5/6 of the onlookers seemed to be under 18. I almost wished we didn’t have to march the parade—I just wanted to reach out and cuddle some of those adorable children. The little rosy-cheeked girls with ponytails in green ribbon and rosy little naughty boys were just too cute! The crowd seemed to love us too, asking as we passed if we knew their cousins in Pittsburgh or Scranton or Philadelphia.

The cord that suspends my xylophone upper keys [like the black keys on a piano] broke as I played the cadence, while we were squeezed into single file formation. One of the parents, Mr. F., saw my grimace, and thinking I’d hurt myself, rushed to my side. We were now two groups away from the judging stand, and I began to feel panicked. I restrung the bars, trying to keep moving and not swing my xylophone into anyone. Then Mr. F. pulled the cord taut and together we tied it, hopefully well enough to make it through our routine for the judges.

At the moment of truth—the Lord Mayor’s judging stand—we did our “Thriller” routine with utmost flash and precision. The crowd went wild. They’d probably never seen a drum major in a sequined glove moonwalk while color guard and instrumentalists alike did a Jackson-esque dance routine.

====

The entry goes on to describe the sightseeing tour they dragged us on after we’d marched in a parade and were still very jet lagged. We did take first place for our division with that homage to MJ, which was quite a thrill for our band from rural central Pennsylvania.

If you have no old journals to dig through, you might enjoy trying your hand at one of the following prompts.

Writing prompts
Write your most extraordinary holiday or travel memory.
Write a fictional journal entry for a kid traveling abroad for the first time.
Write a story in which a parade goes horribly wrong.
Write a scene in which your character is caught in the crush of a huge crowd.

Have you ever dug out things you wrote in high school? What did you unearth? Are there any memories you wish you'd captured in a journal?

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