The Purpose of My Fiction

For reasons I explain on my science blog, I have decided to publish my fiction on Kindle. The advantages are numerous, and they follow an ecological and evolutionary pattern: for me, my cultural evolutionary fitness would be greater on Kindle than it would be if I continued to pursue traditional routes of publication.

What I want to write about here is the purposes of my fiction. I am not writing fiction that is merely entertainment or escapism. I want my fiction to be significant in the lives of readers. On the other hand, I don’t want it to be heavily scholarly or pedantic. My fiction is, and will continue forever to be, fun and funny. Laugh and learn. This is my philosophy as a retired educator, a scientist, and now as a writer of fiction.

I want my fiction to lift people up, to help them deal with their lives by watching my characters deal with, or fail to deal with, their lives. I will also confront numerous political, social, and environmental issues, without (I hope) being preachy. Readers should feel better, and more empowered, after reading my fiction than they were before. They should also learn a lot.

To take just one example, which I have released on Kindle: the novel Meet Me in Strasbourg. One of the two protagonists is a young woman who is painfully shy and gradually breaks out of her shell. Maybe some of my readers will identify with her. She is also trapped in poverty and medical debt. This is an important issue in America, one that seldom happens in European countries. And she, and her young male partner, discover how music can express the meaning of life. There is so much fiction that degrades and discourages people; I want all of my fiction to lift them up.

I also champion the people who are less than beautiful. The young woman in this novel can hardly be described as sexy. (Most of my other novels have beautiful women in them, however.) In most of my novels, the protagonists are not socially or politically powerful, even if they are beautiful. If you feel like everyone else is more powerful or more beautiful, read one of my novels and feel encouraged and uplifted. That is what I hope to accomplish.

This novel, and all my others, also defends the concept of True Love. Love is not just an excuse for lust. It is a reality that is so strong that it can totally transform the lives of lovers. The young man pursues the young woman halfway around the world. There is so much fiction that is cynical, and it almost gets the reader to distrust everyone, to not love anyone. In my novels, readers will see that love is worth taking a chance on.

And one other thing. Modern fiction almost never takes religion seriously, whether for good or bad. Most modern fiction considers religion to be irrelevant and stupid. But in my novels—almost all of them—religious issues are vitally important. The meaning of life—yeah, I’m serious about that stuff. Usually, the powerful religious leaders have it wrong; and they are not just silly but evil. In my novels, the reader is not left in comfortable atheism, but is forced to confront religion—even if they remain atheists.

As my novels become available, I will announce them, and target readers to whom questions about love, the meaning of life, and of religion are important.

Jesus for Agnostics

Religious people, especially fundamentalist Christians, believe that, in order to know God, you have to know all about him. You have to have your doctrines all figured out. To them, it is utterly impossible to know God if you do not even know whether there is a God. Furthermore, they insist that, in order to love other people, you have to have your doctrines all figured out. One can, therefore, summarize conservative Christian belief as “He who knows about God is born of God and loves.”

But the Gospel of John says exactly the opposite. It says, “He who loves is born of God and knows God.” Fundamentalist Christians have it exactly backwards, even according to their own Bible.

I love, therefore I know God (not necessarily about God). When I say I love, I mean that I care about other people, as individuals and as a world. I love God’s creation, even though I believe it was not supernaturally created; I love it because it keeps us all alive, and I love it for its own sake. Of course, I do other things besides loving. Sometimes I hate. Sometimes I lust. Sometimes I feel infatuated, although as I get older this is rare and mild. I am sometimes greedy. But these things do not negate the fact that I love. How about the rest of you? You probably do also.

One way of showing love is to encourage others. I spend a lot of time encouraging my students. I help them achieve their goals, and I also help to open their eyes to the wonders of the world and of creativity. I encourage my colleagues (usually). And I appreciate the encouragement of others.

Back in 1992, I was getting fired from a faculty position, by a process that I believed was unfair and inaccurate. It was a major disruption in my life at the time, although I am glad that I am no longer at that college. (It was a Christian college that considered Republican faith to be Christian faith.) I sought out a professor at a nearby major university. I am not sure how I chose him, but he was active in the American Association of University Professors, the professorial union. (Christian colleges generally do not have, or even allow, professors to band together for mutual benefit.) He was a busy man, in a field quite unrelated to mine. But he took the time to write a thoughtful, information-filled letter to the president of the college I was leaving, explaining that he had no personal connection to me but that he believed the process of my termination was unfair. (The college administration ignored him.)

I had forgotten all about this letter until, in the process of clearing out old boxes, I found it. This encouragement was powerfully important to me at that time. Although I had forgotten about it, it must have been one of the influences that turned me from a young professor who worried mostly about his own advancement into a mature professor who, as this man did, encourages and defends others.

By encouraging others, you can turn them into encouragers. He who loves knows God, if there is one.