Mormon lit in my opinion lacks this balance. They think that they can’t portray evil as interesting or even fun – that’s bad *gasp*, but that is what makes the story interesting. And what if you must do soemthing “bad” inorder to save the greater good? Most LDS lit is girl with sweet spirit meets boy of same fall in love and get together for all eternity. *bleck* They are flat predictable characters – stereotypes not archetypes. Put it this way, do you like the Disney version or the real version? Most LDS art is Disney. Just look at LDS films *rolls eyes*

I believe a person with a more righteous moral compass will write the better literature. However, the writer that puts a certain religion’s POV at the center of their writing can not write anything but propaganda.

I think Brian Sanderson is a good example of someone who, while Mormon, simply tells a good inspiring story in which good people make good choices, bad choices, and even are manipulated by evil while they strive for good. As is said, “to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield”.

my 2 cents

I think this directly relates to “Deseret Bookish” tales. The few that I’ve read rarely allow the characters to make real choices because of the expectation that “bad” choices will have bad outcomes, and these consequences must come quickly enough to connect with the choice. And, “bad” must be defined as accepted cultural “Values,” e.g. Truth, Justice and the Mormon Way.

Often, these texts are also not open to examining or even knowing the truly dark or difficult parts of life. This brings to mind comments from two top-notch authors. From Wallace Stegner regarding “The Angle of Repose,” “This is a story of a difficult life. Few of us want a difficult life, but easy lives make boring stories.” And Betty Smith of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” “The teacher only wanted me to write about birds and flowers and pretty things. She said nobody wanted to read about ugly things.”

Good stories are about choices. So if we’re willing to let our characters make choices in a real world we’ll get good stories. The most compelling choices are between one good and another, or between bad and less bad. Most Mormon literature wants easier, more sharply drawn choices.

Great stories reach for great heights. Great heights come about because of great sacrifice. Great sacrifice is never accomplished without values to sacrifice for.

But at the same time, the value itself isn’t the point of the story. The value is not a landing pad; it’s a launching pad. The character wrestles with the value, and that struggle changes the character, and often the character’s understanding of that value.

Incidentally, I think the author must undergo a similar struggle. If the author comes out of a work with the same view of a particular value that he/she went in with, the work will inevitably be flat. Good writing is both craft and soul work.

So if I pursued this line of thought with Lisa’s observations that too often it seems that religious people are ineffective storytellers, I’d say that these kinds of authors use their faith as a landing pad.

It is helpful for me to think of the process of reflection as part of what it takes to be truly moral. Truly fair? Truly empathetic? Truly seeking to see through God’s eyes?

All this reminds me of a wonderful article in the recent edition of Sunstone, written by our own AML president Boyd Peterson. Soulcraft 101. In it he reports on an informal investigation he made into why religious studies students leave the church. He suggests that our church culture doesn’t allow room for individuals to doubt. You know. Doubt is the opposite of faith. Therefore if you doubt, you have no faith, and so on. I highly recommend the article, especially to parents still working on raising kids and all youth leader. Oh, and to writers who wrestle with the moral questions in our culture.

I think you’re right, that a faith can prevent a complete sense of morality. From an LDS perspective, I think this has more to do with Mormon culture than with the Gospel. As I try to understand it better, I keep seeing it as a Gospel of Paradox, that in reality there are no simple answers, but in between the paradox, in between the reasoning comes truth, comes growth. We may all end up headed in the same direction with similar steps, but my testimony stands in trying to understand how I walk that path in my circumstances. Yet, I don’t think that Mormon culture wants that as much, we want to side step the aching, the agony of being in the middle of it. While it’s helpful to know the boundaries, I found that to a point, that doesn’t sustain me. I had to wrestle with it for myself.

I think morality is much the same way. As I understand it, Morality is the questioning of “what ought I to do?”, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be the answer. It’s the reflection that’s really important.

My favorite story-tellers could honor this – they made me reflect on what the characters should have done, and even though I could see their actions and the attendant consequences, they didn’t answer the question for me. It was still nuanced. It was still open.

That’s what I loved about this peace: you made an argument with McKee’s point in mind and made your conclusion. But as I mill it over, I’m seeing both sides and even though I’ve written this piece in agreement with you, I think I could take a few minutes and write an equally agreeable (to me) rebuttal. So I’m left to wrestle with it, it’s an open question. Thank you.