Purpose-Driven Fiction 8 Questions for Your Writing Journey by Cathy Gohlke

You want to write fiction; you want your story to matter, to have meaning. You want readers to walk away changed for the better, drawn closer to the Lord, but where to begin? How do we find The Story we’re meant to tell in the midst of the world’s many deep needs?

I’m convinced that we are wonderfully made, designed by our loving Father for a unique purpose—and that includes our writing. To help discover your unique story, consider asking these questions:

1. What makes me pound the table and weep that also breaks the heart of God? What does He continue to bring to your attention through quiet time with Him or through the news? This will help you focus on a topic.

2. Is my heartbreak more for the world or the church? This will help focus your writing for your readership.

3. What moves and inspires me to greater heights? This will help your character find their “aha moment”—establishing the needed trajectory of your protagonist’s character arc.

4. How has God uniquely prepared me to pursue this passion? What has prepared you emotionally/spiritually, physically/psychologically to write this story? Can you trace God’s preparations in your life’s journey?

5. How has God uniquely prepared me to write this specific story? What have you learned, experienced, or done that relates to the characters’ journeys? What are your strengths and your spiritual journey—especially as they might be found in your protagonist or mentor character? What are your insecurities, demons, things you’ve overcome or continue to struggle with that might be found either in your protagonist or your villain?

Do you have friends, family, or personal connections to help with your research?

6. How do I know what genre to write? What kind of stories best speak life lessons to you? What do you love to read? What did you love to read as a child, as a young person, as a young adult, as an adult? We usually write best what we love to read.

7. Which comes first—the need God placed on my heart or the story? Which came first to your mind?

If you thought first of the need, ask in what time period, culture, among what type of characters this need would best be played out. Often our natural inclinations and familiarity with people in our lives can answer this.

If you thought first of the story, develop the characters you “see” in your head and ask how they would confront or deal with this need in the context of the plot you have in mind.

8. What helps my characters grow? Trouble. Give them trouble. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble”—and He wasn’t kidding. Ask what challenges will help your characters grow, change their course of action, repent and surrender in order to allow redemption to take place. That’s the goal of all our stories—the ones we write and the one we live. 

8 Questions to Ask to Discover Your Story via @GohlkeCathy #SeriouslyWrite

~~~~~~

Four-time Christy and two-time Carol and INSPY Award–winning author Cathy Gohlke writes
novels steeped with inspirational lessons from history. Her stories reveal how people break the chains that bind them and triumph over adversity through faith. When not traveling to historic sites for research, she and her husband, Dan, divide their time between northern Virginia and the Jersey Shore, enjoying time with their grown children and grandchildren.

Visit her website at cathygohlke.com and find her on Facebook at CathyGohlkeBooks.

LINKS:

Media Center Link for Night Bird Calling –where you can access Media Alert, Author Q&A, etc.

Life and Writing Lessons from the Titanic by Cathy Gohlike

The Titanic and the stories associated with the ship have fascinated people since its sinking. But have you ever applied what happened on that disastrous night to your own life? Enjoy this thought-provoking article by author Cathy Gohlike. Be challenged and encouraged.

~ Dawn

Life and Writing Lessons from the Titanic

by Cathy Gohlike

In two days the world will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic. In the months leading to this we’ve been mesmerized by the re-release of James Cameron’s film “Titanic,” now in 3-D version. We’ve watched documentaries and dramas (old and new), witnessed the opening of countless musicals and the release of a number of books (fiction and nonfiction) highlighting every possible connection to the ship and her famous, and sometimes infamous, passengers and crew. And, still, we crave more. What is it about Titanic that haunts us so, and what can we, particularly as writers, take away from the tragedy?

Surely we’re fascinated with the Edwardian era—so unlike our own. We wonder why Titanic sank and if that foundering could have been avoided, if the passengers and crew aboard her could have been saved. We still debate why so many from first and so few from third class were given seats in lifeboats, and what those frightening last minutes were like for each of them.

But I wonder, might it be that we ask what we would have done that fateful night? Would we have sacrificially stepped aside and offered another our seat in the lifeboat? Would we have gladly, thankfully taken a seat offered us, or would we have ostentatiously stepped aside only to sneak into an overcrowded lifeboat at the last possible moment, forever lamenting our cowardice?

I think that question haunts us most. Few of us will ever be called upon to make such a decision, such a choice, in such a moment.

And yet, each day, we are offered the choice of how we will use our time, energy, finances and gifts. As Christians we know we’ve been called to be salt and light in the world. As writers we know we’ve been gifted with the power of story, the ability to paint in words a portrait of fierce struggle with conflict to the point of climax, and finally offer a resolution that makes better sense of the world through the telling of our tale.

We can use our gifts to tell any kind of story, relate any kind of tale for any purpose. But, if we use our gifts of writing to point to and glorify the Creator who gave them and to be salt and light to a dying world, it changes everything we think, everything we purpose, and everything we write.

Writing is our opportunity to provide a lifeline to others, a lifeboat in the midst of a dark sea. Not that we save others through our words—but we are privileged to be a vehicle to help transport, and a shining light to make the journey clearer for readers on their way to the One Who saves. For those who already walk beside Him, we can provide the encouragement and comfort of like-minded companions—the reminder that neither they, nor we, walk alone.

As writers, what greater calling could we have? For writers, what greater lesson could there be?

Cathy Gohlke is the two-time Christy Award-winning author of William Henry is a Fine Name and I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires. Her second novel also won the Carol Award and was chosen by Library Journal as one of the Best Books of 2008. Promise Me This is available now and Band of Sisters will release September 2012 from Tyndale House Publishers. Cathy, her husband, and dog, Reilly, live on the banks of the Laurel Run in Elkton, Maryland.

To find out more about Cathy and her books, please visit: www.cathygohlke.com