How to Write a Better Story By Donald Miller | Author, Blue Like Jazz

How to Write a Better Story
By Donald Miller | Author, Blue Like Jazz


This article is an excerpt from Don's latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. It's really quite good. Don will be speaking at Catalyst West Coast. You should consider coming to hear his talk. It will probably change your life.


A lot of people think a writer has to live in order to write, has to meet people and have a rich series of experiences or his work will become dull. But that is drivel. It's an excuse a writer uses to take the day off, or the week or the month off for that matter. The thinking is, if we go play Frisbee in the park we're going to have a thousand words busting out of us when we get back to the house. We're going to write all kinds of beautiful prose about playing Frisbee. It's never worked for me. Annie Dillard, who won the Pulitzer while still in her mother's womb, wrote one of her books in a concrete cell. She says most of what a writer needs to really live they can find in a book.

People who live good stories are too busy to write about them. Nobody ever strapped a typewriter to the back of an elephant and wrote a novel while hunting wild game. Nobody except for Hemmingway. But let's not talk about Hemmingway.

I only say this because part of the reason my life had become uninspiring is I'd sat down to earn a living. Literally, I sat in a chair and typed words. And that's fine, because I like the worked, and it pays the rent. But Jordan was right: my life was a blank page, and all I was putting on the page were words. I didn't want to live in words anymore; I wanted to live in sweat and pain. I wanted some make-out sessions and perhaps a little trouble with the law. I wanted to find my dad, if for no other reason than to mark it off my to-do list. It kept bugging me.

But the want was not enough. My desire to live a better story didn't motivate me to do anything. I kept sitting down and writing more and more boring words into my life. And when I wasn't sitting down writing boring words, I was sitting down watching television. Steven King calls the television "the glass teat," and I was suckling on it for all its sugar. I was licking the glass and pawing at it like a kitten.

...

Here's the truth about telling stories with your life. It's going to sound like a great idea, and you are going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you're not going to want to do it. It's like that with writing books, and it's like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.

A general rule in creating stories is that characters don't want to change. They must be forced to change. Nobody wakes up and starts chasing a bad guy or dismantling a bomb unless something forces them to do so. The bad guys just robbed your house and are running off with your last roll of toilet paper, or the bomb is strapped to your favorite cat. It's that sort of thing that gets a character moving.

The rule exists in story because it's a true thing about people. Humans are designed to seek comfort and order, and so if they have comfort and order, they tend to plant themselves, even if their comfort isn't all that comfortable. And even if they secretly want for something better.

...

So about a year ago a friend from Alabama e-mailed to say he was flying to Peru to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. He asked if I wanted to come and invited me to invite any of my friends too. I didn't research the hike or anything, and I was certainly in no shape to climb mountains, I hadn't seen a gym for years. But the next week at the Lucky Lab I wanted to sound impressive, so I said I was thinking of going to Peru to hike the Inca Trail and wondered if anybody else wanted to come. This girl, the one who hadn't given me any signals, said she'd always wanted to do that hike, and a friend of hers said the same thing. And right then and there they said they wanted to come. "It's a date," I said, and got an odd look from across the table.

By the time I got home from the Lab, the girl had e-mailed confirming she was serious. So I e-mailed my friend in Alabama and said there would be three of us from Portland joining him and his friends in Peru. I think I was so excited about the girl that I forgot that I was in no shape to climb mountains. And the next day I looked up the Inca Trail on the internet. The first article I found said the hike was extremely difficult, and a person should be in good physical shape before arriving in Peru. I read a description of the hike, and it turns out the Inca Trail climbs to 14,000 feet, then back down, then back up to 12,000 feet, then all the way back down to the Sacred Valley above which Machu Picchu sits in the clouds. I thought perhaps the warning about physical fitness were exaggerated, so I googled "Inca Trail" and "excruciating" and read about fifty personal accounts of self-inflicted Peruvian torture. I actually read warning from people saying stay away, that even if you are a runner, the trail is extremely difficult. What in the world have I gotten myself into? I wondered. But it was too late. Without knowing it, I'd created an "inciting incident." I'd told my friend I'd go, and I'd invited a girl I wanted to date. I was in a story.

James Scott Bell says an inciting incident is a doorway through which the protagonist cannot return. I didn't know I was doing it at the time, but I had certainly walked through a doorway. I was an overweight, out-of-shape guy who wanted to get into shape and date a specific girl. I'd walked through a doorway that would force me both to get into shape and to interact with her. I suppose I didn't have to get into shape, but if I didn't, the story would be a tragedy. And nobody wants to live a tragedy. I'd found my motivation. I joined a gym the next day.

Donald Miller is the author of several books including the recent A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Blue Like Jazz and a few others. Also, he has helped found an organization called The Mentoring Project—inspiring & equipping faith communities to mentor fatherless boys. Please check it out.

Printed from the Catalyst website (www.catalystspace.com).

The online version of this article can be found at
http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/write_a_better_story_miller/

Why We Sing...

Why We Sing

Psalm 92


Have you ever found out about something…
• Then because of some pre-conceived thought, you had in your mind how that particular thing would look like or feel like…
• Then when you actually experienced that certain thing it was nothing like what you had thought it was…
• You totally felt out of place – in the dark
• You felt like an outcast
• You didn’t really realize what was going on and why it was happening…

As a leader of a ministry I am always asking myself, what does what we do look like to someone…
• Who has never been here before?
• Better yet, who is not a Christian?
• Better yet…who has never grown up in Church?

And I try to see what we do (Christianity or following Christ) through their eyes…

And so I want to talk about a few disciplines of a believer…
• What we do THAT…
• Why we do whatever THAT is…

FIRST…why we sing…

I want to start with this because this is the first thing that hits people in the face…
• We come in here…
• We talk and visit…
• Grab something to eat…
• Get started by singing…

WHY?
• The start is the basis for what you do.
• How you start is very important…
• If you don’t start well in a race, you probably won’t finish well.
• If you don’t start well in a conversation with a female, more than likely you won’t finish at all!

Like the Bible…
• Starts with Genesis…
• It’s the foundation of who God is and who we are.
• It starts at the most logical place…the beginning!

So why do we start here?
• Why do we start what we do with singing?
• Is that the right way?
• Or because that is the way it has always been done…why we do it?
• Does it make sense to us?
• Does it make sense to every Tom, Dick and Harry that walks through the door?

Psalm 92 (NIV)
1 It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your Name, O Most High,
2 To proclaim your love in the morning, and your faithfulness at night,
3 To the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
4 For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.

Throughout the Bible in the Psalms there is this affirmation that it is “good to sing to God.”


I’m going to count to three and I want you all to shout out your favorite kind/style of music…1-2-3! ______ (Everyone shouts something different)
• Exactly – today we are going to talk about how we all AGREE!
• And how music is objective
• There is a right way and a wrong way
• There is a RIGHT style of music and music that is not worshipful…

Not going to happen…

And that really is not our goal…In church, what people “like” is not really our goal
• We are really interested in other things.

I’ve been here for 5 years and we essentially do the same thing…
• We come in here
• We eat some great groceries
• We sing
• Somebody speaks
• It’s over

We do this over and over and we’ve never really talked about what it is that we are doing…
• Why we Sing
• Not just WHAT

Before we begin with the WHY, we may want to start with the WHO…

In most groups of people there are essentially 2 different kinds of people
1. Those who love to sing
2. Those who do not love to sing

There is probably a third – people who cannot sing – you are in both camps and you are off the hook today…

To those who love to sing

Don’t be ashamed; just go for it.
• Every single week, we need your passion, your desire
• We need your voice

Every single week there are people here who really have to drag themselves here
• Asking them to muster up enough faith to sing praises when what they have going on in their lives is unbearable
• That may be asking too much
• For those people, you are their voice
• You are singing on their behalf
o You are singing when they cannot sing

As a person comes in here and they hear you sing
• They know you
• They know you are in the same place they are
• They know you are probably dealing with a lot of the same crud
• And they see you sing
• They can say to themselves, “if they are here and they are singing…maybe I can sing that too!”

Do you ever feel this way?
• I have
• We need your voice

And I want to apologize…
• For all those times you desperately wanted to go for it…and you just couldn’t
o You knew the stares you would get
o You knew the judgments that others might have on you
o You just could feel the glares coming at you before it ever happened
• I’m so sorry…
• Please don’t ever feel that way HERE!

For those of you who don’t LIKE to sing…

Let me say this…it’s ok. It’s ok.
• Why? Think about all the other places you gather with people you don’t know and sing songs together.
o Maybe at a birthday party
o Maybe during the 7th inning stretch
o It just doesn’t happen!

Imagine going to your favorite coffee shop and standing up and making an announcement…
• “Why don’t we just all sing a few songs together!”
• You would be put in a straightjacket and hauled off.
• All the British people who say to each other…”he’s a real Looney!”
• It would be weird!

I understand if you don’t want to sing…
• To be very honest, for many of us here there are times when we all don’t want to.
• But don’t be here and think those are the only two options…
• The only two options are NOT…
o To be fully engaged, going for it – you don’t care if people are looking at you or not…OR
o To be sitting down with your arms crossed thinking about all the homework you have to do this week or the girl over on the other side of the room…”what is she wearing?”
o Those are not the only two options…

Another option…

Have you ever been in a small group of people that we carrying on a conversation and they were talking about a certain thing…
• You never say a word
• You don’t open your mouth
• But you are fully engaged in what they are talking about
• You feel a part of the conversation even without speaking…

Singing can be just like that…
• You can be fully engaged without ever opening your mouth

Because…Singing is NOT the point

Being a part of a shared experience is the point…

Sometimes I just get so caught up in the words, and the beautiful picture it paints of Christ and I just say “Thank you!”

Sometimes I have to pray my version of the prayer of Theresa of Abola prayed, “Lord, I don’t want to love You. But I want to want to love You!”

Sometimes you may just have to approach singing like, “I don’t want to sing. But I want to want to sing!”


We sing a wide variety of songs…
• We sing songs that were written last month
• We sing songs that were written from the first Century
• We sing Psalms from the Bible that are 3,000 years old

So historically, we have intentionally set out to sing songs from across the spectrum.

We sing songs from a vast array of writers…from all over the world.

We sing songs that are wide in depth and shallow in depth.

We sing songs that are TO God and we sing songs that are ABOUT God.

We somehow tap into many different experiences of Christian worship from across the ages.

So we beg, borrow and steal from many time periods and many brothers and sisters from all across the ages.

These songs are very different…

1. Those with Enthronement Language

These songs sing about robes, gifts, Kings
• This is not a world that we are familiar with

“Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne…bring forth the royal Diadem”

Majesty, Splendor, Honor

These songs come from a time period where all these things meant something at that particular time…

When Kings and Queens, and servants and land division…
• That is how they thought of the world

So when they thought of their God…
• The most majestic and prestigious thing they could think of would be a King on a Throne…
• And when they wrote these songs they used language that people during this time period could relate to…

2. Those Songs with an Unknown Order of the Universe

A time period when people had no technology
• They had no telescope
• They had no space travel
• They had no satellite imagery
• They had no long telephoto lenses
• They just had ideas about what was out there…

They would just look out at the sun, moon and stars…
• That was the extent at which they could grasp the Heavens
• Looking with their own two eyes was the only way to get an idea of where God was and how Big God was…

And if I am Caveman Joe living under a rock…
• I need this plant to survive because I am a horrible rock thrower
• I can’t kill anything for my food
• So I eat this certain plant that grows by the river
• And it’s not long before I realize that this plant needs the light from the sun and the rain from the sky to grow…
• Over time I realize that good comes from up! It comes from the sky. It comes from above.

It also didn’t take people a lot of thinking to figure out that when a person dies, we bury them down…
• We bury them in the earth

So the thinking developed very early in cultures and you can see this from the writing on the walls of caves and in the Old Testament…
• Good (life), in some way, comes from up…
• Bad (death), in some way, comes from down…

And over time a three-fold view of the universe developed…
1. In the sky – the Heavens
2. The earth
3. Below – Hebrews called “Sheol”, the later Greeks called it “Hades”

Now you and I know that if we were to take a spaceship up above the earth into the Atmosphere…
• We would not run into a place where everyone is playing Harps
• We would not see any streets of gold
• We wouldn’t have to stop at St. Peter’s gate in order to get a pass to go to the moon

And if we were to take a trip DOWN…
• You and I both know that we would not run into a guy in red spandex with horns and a pitchfork quoting Marilyn Manson lyrics

We do not live in a world with generally a 3-tiered view of the universe.

Think about “light of the world, you stepped down into darkness…”

• That is 3-tiered language.

• But, even knowing what we do today, we STILL sing the same songs today.

3. THEN…we sing songs with different scales and melodies than what we are used to…

Most of the new songs today (except what Crowder writes) are based on 3 chords with maybe a minor chord thrown in.

But many of the old hymns written long ago had varied time signatures, chord progressions, etc.

Compare – “Here I am to Worship” or “Come, Now is the Time to Worship” to the “Doxology” or “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”

Very different!

So…

1. We sing songs with enthronement language
2. Songs with a different view of how the universe is set up
3. Different melodies and patterns than what we are used to…

Why?

If you take all the magazines and look at the covers, what will all the covers on the magazines be?
• Different
• This week it may be Tiger Woods or SuperBowl or Biggest Loser
• Next week – Lane Kiffin is a loser, Bassmasters Classic, How to cook with Rachel Ray
• The next week – John and Kate get back together

We live in a world in which we are bombarded with the NOW…
• With the temporary
• With what is happening at THIS very moment…

And one statistic says that we hear or see over 3,500 advertisements a DAY…

It is very easy to get sucked into thinking…”all we have is THIS moment…”


AND

For 1,000’s of years people have realized that there is MORE…
• More than we can see
• More to this life than just you and me
• More than just RIGHT NOW

And each week we get together we come together and celebrate this MORE…
• Pointing to the center of everything
• Realizing that the earth and everything in it does NOT revolve around me
• And it does not revolve around you

There are profound psychological advantages to constantly reminding ourselves that…
• My will
• My needs
• My desires
• My ego
…is NOT the center of the Universe.

When we are burdened down with stresses and worries…the power of gathering in a room and being reminded that for 1,000’s and 1,000’s and 1,000’s of years, human beings have trusted that there is a God…
• Who can carry them
• Who can protect them
• Who will take their burdens and their worries and their stresses
• And take all of that off of their shoulders
• So we don’t have to carry that around

So when we come in here and we engage in singing…
• And people may say, “I didn’t like that song…”
• Or “I love that song…”

…we are interested in something so much more significant, more transcendent and more historical…

We get together and the very first thing we do is put ourselves in our place…

How many of you need that every single week?

This at one time was a very cultural trap in American churches…
• You like Southern Gospel? We will have an ol’ time Gospel singing service…
• You like Contemporary music? We will have a contemporary service…
• You like it all? We will throw it into a mosh pit and mix it up and offer it to you!
• You like it Heavy? We will turn it up LOUD!

But we try not to get involved in that cultural trap…
• We go for the reminder…
• There is MORE…
• And the world does not revolve around each of us
• It revolves around a Holy God who inhabits our worship…

So when we sing…
• “I want to know you…I want to hear your voice…see Your face…”
• “Better is one day in YOUR courts than a thousand elsewhere!”
• “Rock of Ages…let me hide myself in THEE!”

We are creating SPACE in our lives for something MORE…
• …more than here and now
• Bigger than what we are

Putting things in order…
• Giving God His rightful place – 1st thing
• Putting ourselves in our place – 1st thing

So everything else after that will be in the right place…

God on His throne…We are singing His praise…And HE is completely welcome here…
• Fully present in our praise
• Speaking to us
• Alive in us

THAT’S Why We Sing!!!! Psalm 92