By
David Rawlings
When
I sat down to write the manuscript that became my debut novel, I knew I wanted
to write a story that packed a punch. A novel that would be more than a tale of
escapism – it would carry a message.
The Baggage Handler is a modern-day parable. At its heart is the theme of emotional baggage, and a
story of characters who don’t know they’re carrying baggage, but they certainly
feel its weight. Writing a parable can be daunting. I not only drew on my
twenty-five years of corporate writing experience, but also my forty-odd years
of talking with people and sitting in pews. And there were three things I learned
while writing it.
1.
Be true to what you believe.
When you start out to
write a story with a message, you need to be clear what that message is and why
you believe it to be worth bringing. It can sometimes be tempting to go
one of two ways. The first is to loosen the edges of what you believe to try to
encompass as many people as possible. The second leads to the second thing I
learned.
2.
Be genuine.
Readers can spot preachy,
and they don’t often like it. I certainly don’t as a reader – getting to a point
in a novel where I can tell it’s a sermon in disguise. (And it doesn’t always
have to be a sermon from a pulpit. Some of the worst preachy books I’ve read
actually teed off at how bad the author thought religion was). I found being
genuine to be a particularly important point to come back to time and time
again. Whenever I felt like I was ascending my soapbox, I would stop, take a
deep breath, and then do the third thing I learned.
3.
Pray.
As I was writing truth in
fiction, I needed to ensure that truth was rooted deep in eternal truth. I
found this kept me on the right path, with the right message, plot points,
character traits and everything.
I’m
glad I put this extra thought, process and prayer into the story. These are
some of the messages I’ve gotten back from readers:
“So,
I truly do thank you for writing this novel. And I am looking forward to
handing over my baggage, and to discovering the real me. I'm not really
sure where to start, but I'll pray and am sure God will make it clear.”
“The
book doesn’t read like a book written by someone “wielding skills” like a
sword. It reads like someone offering a helping hand—taking away the burden.”
“All
I can do at this point is to say thanks. Thanks for a painful, beautiful,
simple, deep, light book that just topped my 2019 favorite books list.”
That,
to me, is the benefit of writing a modern-day parable. The message of the book
has opened doors for people, started conversations and fired reflection.
And
this unveils a challenge when writing stories that pack a punch. When you start
to get messages and emails like that – people being deeply honest about where
they are in life – you start to look at Amazon rankings differently. You must.
Sales figures take on a secondary nature. In a way, they need to.
That
flies in the face of one driver for writers – sell copies so you can keep
writing – but if the point of writing a story that packs a punch is to make
people think, and they do, then that’s a success.
_____________________________________________________________
David Rawlings is a based in South Australia, a sports-mad father-of-three who loves
humor and a clever turn-of-phrase. Over a 25-year career he has put words on
the page to put food on the table, developing from sports journalism and copy writing to corporate communication. Now in fiction, he entices readers to
look deeper into life with stories that combine the everyday with a sense of
the speculative, addressing the fundamental questions we all face.His debut
novel – The Baggage Handler – asks us all a fundamental question: “What are you
doing with the baggage you’re carrying?” His second novel – The Camera Never
Lies – is coming out in late 2019. Website: www.davidrawlings.com.au (Subscribers to my blog also get two free short stories
as a thank you for signing up!)Social links: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidRawlingsAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidJRawlings
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