Your Writing Reflects Your Worldview and Values

December 1, 2001 [12 years old]
I have written about my great love for stories and how deeply my great talent affects me, but by now my love has become a danger against the thing I should love but find it hard to love more—the Lord. I have replaced my Heavenly Father with an idol of paper and pencils and words. It reminds me of the sermon that a Macedonian minister to our church once delivered.

“What is it that you have in your hands? Is it something that hinders you or helps you in your walk with God? Judas had thirty pieces of silver for which he sold his Lord. ‘Cast it away!’ says the Lord. Moses had a simple wooden staff. ‘Give it to me!’ says the Lord. ‘And I will use it!’”

Is my talent keeping me back from loving God more? Oh, how I wish I knew what to do! Yet I do not believe God is saying, “Cast away your talent for writing, for it is getting too strong.” Rather, I believe He is saying, “Prune your talent to a healthy size and I will help it grow so that it may serve Me!”

I believe God gave me my talent for a purpose. I must use my talent to glorify the Lord and not to take me from Him! And I know that if I apply myself to pruning my talent, God will give me the strength to keep it under control. No longer will my stories rule my life! Christ is all!

Your worldview affects your writing.

It influences what content you choose, how you choose to represent it, and what themes develop in response to the story’s central conflict. Every story has a lesson. It may not even be an overt lesson, something that someone can recognize and say, “That was obviously teaching the value of honesty.” It is more likely to be a hidden lesson, something that even you, as the author, might not recognize. 

For example, when Frodo Baggins of the Lord of the Rings offers to take the Ring to Mordor and destroy it, everyone recognizes that his choosing to do so may, in fact, cost his life. We learn something about sacrifice from his choice. We are encouraged to view it as a noble and good thing. 

The 2009 Star Trek movie starring Chris Rice casts the young Captain Kirk as a rule-breaker. Since it all turns out right for him in the end, and he is honored for his bravery, we learn something about rule-breaking. We are encouraged to view it, also, as a good and acceptable thing.

No story is just entertainment.

Do you see how the choices that characters make—and the results of their actions—influence how we view the world and our place in it? Even in the most fluffy fiction world, some overall concept rises to the forefront. Some aspects of human nature are upheld and others are not.

An author’s choices about what to include—and what not to include—in a story is directly influenced by the author’s worldview. It is often an unconscious thing, as unconscious as the fact that I write like a woman because I am a woman. If you are an atheist or a humanist or a New Agey-type, you will write within the confines of your worldview and present themes that are important to your worldview and reflect values as you view them in your worldview.

What is the purpose of your life?

This is the number one question. This was the question with which I was wrestling when I wrote this last diary entry. What is the purpose of my life?

This leads to another question: What is the value of that purpose? What makes that purpose worth spending your whole life on?

This leads to a final question: What about when I’m dead? Will that purpose really matter once I’m dead?

Until you discover the purpose of your life, you will not know the purpose of your writing, and you will not know how your writing is affecting and changing your readers. You may write to find your purpose, or you may seek your purpose before you write, but either way, you need to know. As I’ve said before—and you’ll hear me say it many times—rich writing comes from a rich life.

So you owe it to yourself to know what makes your life rich, not just from a short-term perspective, but from an eternal perspective.

In the grand scheme of things, in a huge universe that has seen millions of people live and die, what makes your life significant?