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Writing

The Lady and the Map of Sorrow: How Stories can Offer Direction in Dark Times

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By Bridgette Tuckfield   

How Do You Know It Is Going to Be All Right?

There are a few neurological explanations for why time moves much slower when you’re younger, which I reflected on recently when showing the film Howl’s Moving Castle to my niece Sadie, who is four.

Sadie (aka the Lady) is a beautiful and sweet little girl with chubby cheeks, dimples, and the precise and uncanny ability to immediately and perfectly size up your insecurities and then unerringly cut you down to your core with a single sentence (a trait which I both marvel at and fear). She enjoys magic and peril and romance, and I thought Howl might appeal to her.

There is a scene near the beginning of the film when the wizard Howl saves the young protagonist Sophie from some soldiers in an alley. He walks her away, when they begin to be pursued by Howl’s enemies—amorphous undulating black humanoid blobs, sporting dapper hats.

It’s right before the first magical moment of the film—when Howl and Sophie take off flying, literally walking through the air to safety.

When this happened, Sadie crawled into the crevice of the couch, terrified. “FAST FORWARD,” she yelled, and I paused it.

“Sadie,” I said. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. I promise Sophie is going to be fine. Just wait a minute.”

She was incredibly dubious. “How do you know?” she asked.

“I’ve seen the movie before,” I said, which left her unimpressed. I tried a few other tactics, to no avail: I promise you. I wouldn’t show you something terrible. I know it’s scary, but it’s only a few seconds, and then it will be magical (perhaps all the more so, given the peril). Actual time before the magic rescue? About fifteen seconds. I fast-forwarded it that time around; I’m not a monster. After we finished the film, it became Sadie’s favorite movie for a few months, which she could happily watch over and over with no fast-forwarding, but at the time, absolutely nothing worked to console her.

My mother always told Sadie and her sister something when they were afraid during a kid’s movie—something like, “Nothing bad ever happens in a kid’s movie.” Whatever it was, it always seemed to work.

Which was too bad, as I couldn’t ask her.

Mom had died a few months earlier, at age 55.

Grief: Both Universal and Isolating

Grief is, I believe, maybe mostly beyond words. As Daniel Handler put it in his children’s series: “If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels; and if you haven’t, you cannot possibly imagine it.”

I will say that nowhere and with nothing else have I felt as keenly the conflation of time and space.

What grief can feel like, sometimes, is a wound that will not stop bleeding—and bleeding and bleeding. When you look back it seems you have left a blood trail back to the time and place you cannot get to—the last place in the past where your loved one once lived, and where it seems they still wait as you move further and further away in time, leaving them behind.

What it can do, sometimes, is shrink your entire world to only your loss and pain. Only your lack. With no hope of joy or meaning on the horizon—all that lies in the past, the only land you can never reach again.

It is then, of course, that you are most vulnerable to despair. And once despair sets in around you, it seems like you will never live anywhere else again.

I believe too that it can feel like this for everyone.

Our Sorrow Shall Be Turned Into Joy

Elder S. Mark Palmer addressed those feelings and fears for those of us mired in grief in his recent talk, “Our Sorrow Shall Be Turned Into Joy.” He centers his talk around what are the fundamental principles of our religion: that Jesus Christ died, was buried and rose again on the third day—that Jesus Christ lives and what that means for us:

  1. We will live again after we die. 
  2. This is possible through Christ. 
  3. We will see our loved ones again.

As he puts it:

This knowledge [of Christ’s resurrection] gives meaning and purpose to our lives. If we go forward in faith, we will be forever changed, as were the Apostles of old. We, like them, will be able to endure any hardship with faith in Jesus Christ. This faith also gives us hope for a time when our “sorrow shall be turned into joy.”

Palmer also supports his message with the story of his parents, and how they navigated the loss of his sister Ann.

By illustrating and testifying of these gospel principles, Palmer does a few things:

He gives us an endpoint: the point at which our sorrow will be turned to joy.

He gives us a way to get there: having faith, and following Christ:

He gives us the truth. A way of understanding the world, as it is.

And, in this case, a way out of despair and grief and sorrow.

And what that truth is—what maybe all truths are—

Is a map.

A map to help us find the way through the dark.

Stories Are Maps

What I speak of here—the interrelatedness and importance of maps and narratives (and respectively, space and time)—is not a new concept.

“To ask for a map,” writer Peter Turchi says, “is to say: tell me a story.”

He goes on to say about the similarity: “Maps themselves are stories. They’re simplifications, distillations, and interpretations of a hugely complex world.  Maps provide meaning and context; they reveal patterns and relationships…sometimes maps can reveal hidden stories.”

If a lifetime is a space, then times of grief and loss are a wasteland.

This is perhaps why Elder Palmer ends his talk by stressing the steps you can take through sorrow (although perhaps never out of it), and the place you will find yourself if you do:

I invite all who feel sorrow, all who wrestle with doubt, all who wonder what happens after we die, to place your faith in Christ. I promise that if you desire to believe, then act in faith and follow the whisperings of the Spirit, you will find joy in this life and in the world to come.

As someone amid despair myself, this map spoke to my heart.

Wrestling With Despair as a Saint

All that said, it is not always easy to see the whole picture or the way forward.

Sometimes—perhaps most times—we can only take it on faith.

After all, some things can seem too good to be true, and thus to be regarded with suspicion.

Stories tell us all this, too (Sadie knows this, even at four years old).

Elder Palmer illustrates these difficulties with the story of the apostle Thomas. When Thomas is told of Christ’s resurrection, he doesn’t believe it:

Later Jesus admonished Thomas, “Be not faithless, but believing.” Then the Lord taught the vital role of faith: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

I have always felt for Thomas—it’s very human, to not want to believe something so longed for. It’s also human, with our limited perspective, to fail to see the whole picture because we only perceive the bad.

Often in scripture, Christ encourages taking a broader perspective. Peter in particular seems to struggle with this (which I love him for).

In Matthew 16:21-25, Christ is walking with and teaching his disciples. He tells them he needs to go to Jerusalem and says he will suffer and die there, to rise again.

Peter objects; he says surely this doesn’t need to happen.

Christ admonishes him and says, functionally, you’re looking at this from a narrow framework.

You’re not looking at this from the view of God and seeing my true mission: the redemption of mankind, and that my death will not separate us for eternity but only for a brief moment. You’re looking at this from your limited mortal eyes, where my death would be just a catastrophe and separate us forever.

In short:

You lack perspective.

You are not seeing the end.

The whole picture.

Darkness Can Delineate Light

Elder Palmer also speaks of the wrenching ways this perspective can be gained and what else can come of it.

He tells the story of the tragic loss of his sister Ann when she was only a toddler, and how it affected his parents:

“Many years later Dad told me that if not for Ann’s tragic death, he would never have been humble enough to accept the restored gospel. Yet the Spirit of the Lord instilled hope that what the missionaries taught was true. My parents’ faith continued to grow until they each burned with the fire of testimony that quietly and humbly guided their every decision in life.”

This illustrates how important contrast can be: dark and light, sorrow and joy.

I know that I have fundamentally changed for the better as a person after the loss of my mother. My faith and connection to Heavenly Parents and Christ have improved.

This does not mean, I must stress, that a specific loss or pain is good or warranted or just or necessary, but rather that it can point us in the right direction.

It can make truths resonate with us more, just as the black ink of a map delineates meaning and space. Just as you can’t know light without dark.

Small Truths

Howl’s Moving Castle is not gospel, of course; it’s just a little gem of a film. And although I didn’t have my mother’s words or presence anymore in this time and place, I could at least comfort Sadie by sitting with her and promising her it would end well.

When it came to Howl at least, I had the whole picture. I knew what was going to happen, and how, and why.

Sadie had to find out for herself. She (like the protagonist Sophie) had to take the next steps, go through the (literally) fifteen seconds of dark (or in this case, again, very mild animated peril), to get to the magic part.

But in that moment, and in that film, are small truths. Facts that resonate, and that you can hold on to in times of fog and despair.

That you can never be certain of exactly how the end will look until you get there.

That you have reserves of strength and power and beings who care for you, that you aren’t even aware of right now.

And that ultimately, everything is going to be all right.

Maybe—almost certainly—it will be better than anything you can imagine right now.

Our Role: To Show a Way Through the Dark, as Best We Can, With the Truths We Know

Truths (and the stories they’re embedded in) can be maps through darkness and despair. This is the case whether they are an ultimate truth such as Elder Palmer spoke of, or a small one like in Howl’s Moving Castle.

I appreciate talks like Elder Palmer’s because his message was the promise of the purpose and the ending, given to us.

He gave us a map to follow. Like all narratives do.

For me, taking this message to heart meant flipping around the proverbial map of sorrow I was working with.

I was not moving away from my mother, as I once believed — I am moving towards her. The lines between myself and her in the time and space that separates us are not trails of blood and tears as they felt and sometimes still feel, but bonds.

The world around us is getting darker and brighter all the time.

And storytelling is—and has perhaps always been—a “deeply spiritual act,” as the poet Clarissa Pinkola Estés says.

It’s our job to add to the light.

I believe we do this not by shying away from the dark — by timidly skirting a way around it, as we seldom get to do in life.

I believe we do this by, instead, showing a way through it.

Bridgette Tuckfield is a writer and semiotician.

Cussing & Creating: 3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t (& Should!) Use Profanities in Your Writing

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By Lizzy Pingry   

During World War II, American soldier Audie Murphy earned a total of twenty-eight medals, including two from France and one from Belgium, making him the most decorated soldier in American history. His story was so extraordinary that in 1955, it was sensationalized in a film that Murphy himself starred in. To Hell and Back is his biography, and at one point, it shows the death of Murphy’s best friend, Lattie Tipton (named “Brandon” in the film). The scene was understandably difficult for Murphy, as Brandon is shot, looks at him from a distance, and falls down dead. However, this scene as depicted in the movie is not what really happened. Murphy stated, “When we shot the scene, we changed the part where Brandon died in my arms. That was the way it had really happened, but it looked too corny, they said. I guess it did.” 

This highly decorated soldier had to relive one of his worst days, and a director or writer looked him in the eye and told him that the truth “looked too corny,” and the concept of that situation is just as shocking as the death itself. When writers censor or change the truth of a situation because it makes them uncomfortable or because it may be unpopular, they risk invalidating the truth, especially in nonfiction. Latter-day Saint authors have to grapple with the concept of censorship when trying to decide whether or not to use profanities in their writing. 

Language: What Is It Good For? Absolutely Everything

The debate of appropriate use of language is an argument spanning centuries. It is one of the reasons the English language is so adaptable. Some words in English didn’t start as profanities but eventually evolved into something inappropriate for polite society. The Journal.ie’s article “The Historical Origins of 6 Swear Words We Use Every Day” explains that the Proto-Indo European’s base word skie, or the Old English scitte, started as a verb and noun (respectively) for “separating” or “purging” from the body. This base eventually evolved to suit the needs of the speakers until it stopped meaning “going to the bathroom” and started being a vulgarity for excrement. Meanwhile, some words started as vulgarities and eventually shifted into every-day terms. For example, a silly sounding word, zounds, is an archaic exclamation (popular in Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel) meaning “God’s wounds,” and it was a terrible curse when it was first introduced. 

Words are not capable of being bad by themselves. Even our synonyms for the phrase “swear words” supports that idea: vulgar means lacking in sophistication, and profane means disrespectful or irreverent. The word is only as powerful as our reaction to it as individuals and as a society. God’s name is a prayer—until it is used as an exclamation. The way we use the word defines its appropriateness, and we have to vet each term and syllable. Is it worse to say that it’s a “damn beautiful day” or to tell an overeager child to “please shut up”? Writers must evaluate the way they express themselves: how does our use of language and its profanities build or destroy our stories?

The word is only as powerful as our reaction to it.

Writers who are disinclined to use profane words in their writing might be familiar with a First Presidency message, in which Spencer W. Kimball addressed the world—specifically writers!—on profanities. He stated, “I lately picked up a book, widely circulated, highly recommended, a best-seller, and my blood ran cold at the profane and vulgar conversations therein, and I cringed as the characters used in an ugly way the sacred names of Deity. Why? Why do authors sell themselves so cheaply and desecrate their God-given talents? Why do they profane and curse?” Those who prefer to avoid using strong language in their writing may reflect on Book Cave’s article, “Profanity in Books: Show Don’t Tell Emotion,” which points out that “there are more effective ways to make the world ‘bloom’…the use of vulgarity quickly becomes a cheap, convenient device to give the impression that the book is up-to-date and realistic.” These individuals argue that profanity in any form is a sin and an example of weak writing styles; they believe that profanity is an excuse to express strong emotions without having to be vulnerable.

Meanwhile, we have stories about “the cursing apostle” J. Golden Kimball, who, when driving a stubborn stage of oxen, started cursing to get them moving. He remembered, saying: “Boy, how I did cuss! Did I wax eloquent! I’m afraid I did. But, did those oxen sit up and take notice? They sure did; every one of them got down to business. You see, they were Church oxen, and when you talked that language to them they understood it.” This humble and humorous story of working with Church oxen is a reminder that we are, none of us, perfect, and since that’s the case, we can’t expect the characters in our writing to be perfect either. The Writing Cooperative’s article “Should You Use Curse Words in Your Writing?” (heads up! This one uses strong curse words, so don’t read it if you want to avoid that kind of language) insists “swearing isn’t the only way to express emotion, but it is a tool in your arsenal.” Writers who use profanities in their work may relate to the article “Writing Dark Things as a Positive Person” by Zachariah Wahrer where he states, “If a story is all positive, it isn’t interesting. We have to have conflict, deception, destruction, lies, etc., to make it interesting, because that is how we experience everyday life (albeit usually on a smaller scale).” These individuals argue that strong language is representative of human nature and realism; they believe that profanity is an opportunity to represent a variety of character voices and experiences. 

This argument is relevant to writers all over the world. Writers can join the discussion by educating themselves on the pros and cons of using profanities in our writing. 

3 Reasons Why You Can Feel Justified Using Profanities in Your Writing

Lattie Tipton’s death was so traumatic that even nearly fifteen years later, Audie Murphy struggled to maintain composure while reenacting the scene. While the film’s representation of the scene is still potent, knowing the truth of the death is even more so. Failing to accurately represent the situation changed the meaning behind the scene, and one could argue that the same could apply to using profanities. For example, let’s take the phrase, coined initially by U.S. Naval officer David Glasgow Farragut: “Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!” This phrase is a popular colloquialism meaning to move forward despite the risks you may face.

If we were to take that phrase and change it to avoid the profanity, we lose the intention behind the phrase. Neither “Don’t worry about the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” nor “Forget the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” carries the same reckless abandon as the vulgarity; the original phrase stirs a level of shock and awe, and it is far more realistic to imagine a sailor cursing. The profanity is an exclamation we expect from such a character, and some authors (and readers) feel strong language is justified because it lends itself to realism. 

Don’t worry about the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

It could be argued that fictional characters cannot be directly quoted, so providing alternatives to profanities is not going to change the meaning. To expand on that counter-argument, let’s look at Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things We Carried, which is introduced as a nonfictional memoir of American soldiers in Vietnam. Strong language is used throughout the book; these were real men surviving war, and if changing an experience invalidates it, we should expect nonfiction writers to honor the language as much as they can. However, at the end of the novel, readers come to understand that it was never a memoir; none of the men were real, and it takes first-time readers by surprise because the details are so accurate, so realistic, that it’s more unbelievable to think these characters weren’t human. The language they use is shocking, but expected. If O’Brien created fake characters and let them swear like soldiers, was he being profane, or was he representing the soldiers who did exist, even namelessly? Writers argue that these vulgarities are tools for intentionality. We would not correct real human beings for their profane statements; why should writers have to tiptoe around fictional characters inspired by those same people? 

Influential comedian Richard Pryor noted, “What I’m saying might be profane, but it’s also profound,” suggesting that strong language can convey powerful messages. What’s more is the fact that writers are crafting something; their decisions in their work are not always meant to represent their personal values. Conflict and antagonists must exist to create a story, and these conflicts can sometimes be gruesome, raw, and violent because the protagonist has to overcome these evils to develop. To this day, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is impacting lives because of its haunting imagery. McCarthy wrote about characters that would kill their own children to survive; does that mean he agrees with the tactic and would implement it himself? No. The same could be said for writers who use profanity. These writers can uphold Oscar Wilde’s insight: “I didn’t say I liked it. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.” 

3 Reasons Why You Should Feel Justified Not Using Profanities in Your Writing

On the other hand, writers are meant to develop the skills of producing powerful emotions without leaning on the reader’s shock. C.S. Lewis wrote to a young author about adjectives saying, “…instead of telling us a thing was ‘terrible,’ describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was ‘delightful’; make us say ‘Delightful!’ when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words…are only like saying to your readers ‘Please, will you do my job for me?’”

Don’t say it was ‘delightful’; make us say ‘Delightful!’ when we’ve read the description.

C.S. Lewis

The same reasoning can apply to using vulgarities. Writers claim that using profanity is a signal of lazy writing, and Mark Twain humorously suggested, “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” 

Writers who won’t use profanities have to adapt their work around the void, and doing so can make it just as impactful, particularly since vulgarity for shock value is a detriment to the reader and potentially to the work, especially the more it is used. For example, when you hear about the 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” you may not think about the story of corrupt stockbrokers in America. Instead, you probably remember it as being the most expletive film in history. The consequence of “realistic” profanity? This film won’t be remembered for the characters or their development, nor the conflict or how it was or wasn’t overcome, but for its use of over 700 swear words. Realistically, this is profanity. Outside a Latter-day Saint community, people use strong language as frequently as any other part of speech. If writers want to claim profanity as realism, they may find their work being analyzed for reasons they didn’t intend. 

Using profanities is not as tempting when you realize that there are ways to work around doing so. Great men and women throughout history have avoided using profanities, even when they could have been justified to do so. Teddy Roosevelt, America’s 26th president, didn’t swear.

Using profanities is not required to develop a unique character voice.

Instead, according to Mental Floss’s article “16 Savage Teddy Roosevelt Insults,” he employed colorful phrases to describe his frustrations. Rachel Hawkins’ young adult novel Rebel Belle produces a narrator who censors her friend’s strongest language throughout the story because “this is my story, so I’m cleaning it up a little.” Language contributes to realism, and using profanities is not required to develop a unique character voice. 

Who is Right and What Really Matters

Both sides of the argument are so compelling and it makes the decision that much harder. We are advised to use “praiseworthy” language, but as artists, we aim to reveal the truth of our reality. Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved is one of the most influential stories of our time, and it uses explicit violence and language to tell the truth. Writers can’t be expected to use profanities to deliver that truth, but I would say they can’t be expected not to either. This debate is one for the ages. 

In the end, I can only say to write what is true to you. Validation of your art is not necessary for it to exist; what you write will continue with or without others’ approval. Whatever language you decide to implement, I simply recommend that you do so deliberately and with the understanding that your words—profane or not—carry a meaning that will affect your readers. What you choose to put in or take out can change your story in big ways and little ways at the same time: To Hell and Back told the true story of a soldier who witnessed the death of his best friend, and whether Lattie Tipton died on a hillside or in Audie Murphy’s arms, he still died. 

Lizzy Pingry is a full-time editor and enthusiastic writer. She graduated with a degree in English and emphasis in creative writing from BYU-Idaho and has worked as an editor on multiple projects since 2016. She lives in Idaho with her husband and their cat, Jack.

Questions Every Writer Should Ask Themselves

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By Steve Dunn Hanson   

In high school my most dreaded assignment was to write a composition. Give me a book, like Orwell’s 1984 back then, and you could just about say goodbye to me until I had finished it. But writing . . . ? Hand me a math problem or a science project or, preferably, a basketball or a MAD magazine. Just don’t ask me to write, or, even worse, give a talk.

Maybe my handwriting had something to do with this aversion. The lowest grade I ever received in school was in penmanship in the fourth grade. Mine was the poorest in the class. The teacher told us that she would give a book, The Magic Bus, to the student who improved the most in penmanship. It was no contest. I was so bad nobody could possibly improve as much as I could. I got the book, but bettering my handwriting never got close to the top of my I-want-to-do-this list again. Thank goodness for typewriters and computers!

So, when did my attitude about writing and speaking change, and why? Well, weird things sometimes happen when you grow up. For me, I began to discover that I had something meaningful to say. And if I was going to effectively share with others what I was observing and experiencing and thinking, I had to do something about my subpar communication skills.

I began to discover that I had something meaningful to say.

While each of us has our own unique path to where we are today in the use of our creative talents, all of us are faced with the same ongoing and defining question: Why am I doing this? Is it for money, or for recognition, or to be famous? Is it to make others happy, or to help others overcome challenges, or to share knowledge, or to provide entertainment? Will it give me an outlet for something in me that needs to get out, or fulfill my desire to achieve, or give me a satisfaction-high by watching something new and even beautiful flow from me? Or is it my duty to create?

Any or all the above might be our answer. But whatever our reasons for creating, we need to count on snags along the way. My foray into getting my first book published illustrates this rather dramatically. And, I might add, that this initial rollercoaster experience of mine has been replicated, in one form or another, a myriad of times throughout my creative journey. Here’s how it went.

Some 40 years ago I had two articles published in the Ensign magazine within a year or two of each other. That confidence builder got me thinking about writing a book. And I knew just the book I wanted to write. As a young man, I had an extraordinary Church mission to Australia. It had everything. Gobs of spiritual highlights. Dangers. Depressions. Really funny incidents. And even why-am-I-out-here gut-punchers. I could literally go 3,000 miles from one end of my mission to the other and be on islands or in the tropics or deserts or snowy mountains. I labored in small outback towns that were 100 years behind anything I had ever experienced as well as in a dazzling metropolis that boasted world-class beauty. All of this plus out-of-this-world fauna like kangaroos, emus, koalas, echidnas, and platypuses. I was in an exotic zoo with no cages.

In sum, my mission was an adventure I never dreamed possible, and I was certain the world would be waiting with bated breath to read about it! But after my initial enthusiasm, I was struck with a balloon-popping realization. Who would ever want to buy a book about the mission of a nobody like Steve Dunn Hanson? And with that came a critical question. “Why do I want to write this book? Really!”

Why do I want to write this book? Really!

Significant soul searching resulted and some course-guiding answers came. I decided my primary objective in writing was to help young missionaries find out who they were so their missions could be the life changing experience for them that mine was for me. Now all I had to do was write the book so it would appeal to a publisher and entice young men and women to read it. That shouldn’t be too hard. After all, the Ensign published two of my articles. Dream on!

I titled the book The Mission. It was a fictionalized account of some of my mission experiences with a focus on the changes taking place in the life of my protagonist, Elder Pete Hewitt. I wrote it as a series of letters that brought the reader into Pete’s mission and mind in a unique and intimate way. I submitted my manuscript to a major Latter-day Saint publisher and within two or three weeks I received a phone call from the managing editor saying they wanted to publish it. Well, I thought, what was so hard about this?

Then reality hit.

Someone on the publisher’s board of directors didn’t like the book—too realistic they said. Remember this was over 30 years ago, and Latter-day Saint fiction tended to be more vanilla then. I soon received a “with regrets” letter from the managing editor. They would not be publishing it. I picked myself up off the floor (I stayed there for quite a while!) and submitted my work to other Latter-day Saint publishers. My rejection letters piled up until I received an acceptance from a very small publisher. That was an almost euphoric experience, but I was learning to restrain my hope. A publishing date was set, and then . . . reality hit. Again.

The company didn’t have the funds to publish it for a while, they said apologetically. I could wait for when they did (no date was given), or, if I wanted to do this now, they would help me self-publish it and would distribute it for me at a special price. I would, of course, foot the bill. I had run out of options, and since I had the funds, that’s what I did.

Amazon didn’t exist back then, and there wasn’t a plethora of publishing, marketing, editing, formatting, or distributing services to get a self-published book up and going. My would-be publisher, however, was good to their word and successfully guided me through the process. A learning experience, and an expensive one. I printed 7,000 hardback copies, and Deseret Book and other Latter-day Saint bookstores carried them. It was all working. At one point, Deseret Book even told me The Mission was their top-selling book for the week.

And then . . . (Stop me if you’ve heard this before).

While all copies of my book were ultimately sold, my publisher/distributor declared bankruptcy somewhere along the way, and I was sans thousands of dollars in royalty compensation. But fortunately, that was not the end of the story.

Over the years, I have had countless people tell me how that book changed their mission. Changed their lives. And even today, decades later, I have had grandfathers approach me to tell me how my book affected them deeply when they were struggling with their missions. And I’ve thought, it didn’t just affect these now-grandfathers, but through them their children and grandchildren as well. My book was a success in the most meaningful way it could be. It accomplished what I wrote it to do.

My answer to the “Why” question back then was the right answer and put me on a convoluted but exceptionally rewarding path. The ride was amazing . . . especially looking back. But, then again, maybe I have just described life.

How we respond to the “Why” question, of course, is affected by how we answer another question: Where does my talent come from? Am I the source of my creative genius and solely responsible for how successfully it is manifested and received? Or is my talent a gift from God that He has given me stewardship over, and my magnifying it requires an abundance of His grace?

How we respond to the “Why” question is affected by how we answer another question: Where does my talent come from?

While I, for one, find it disturbingly easy to drink in accolades and internalize praise, that is literally a dead-end street. I wrote a little poem about that.

When I think
that it is me,
I find my glint
is hard to see.

As I lose myself in Him,
His Beam bursts forth
where e’er I Am.

When we perceive that we are the sole or primary source of our talents, we will likely focus on ourselves. A dim light indeed. If we recognize the gift-nature of our abilities, we will strive to know what the Lord wants us to do with the talents He has given us. On an admittedly bumpy and inconsistent road, we will also grow and learn to become an extension of Jesus Christ; an instrument in bringing about His purposes. We are then entitled to have the Spirit work through us, and what proceeds can be far beyond what we are innately capable of producing.

How we answer the “Why” and “Where” questions will affect the content, quality, and impact of our creativity. But those responses beg another question that is even more important. Are they congruous with who we really want to be eternally? If not, perhaps we should consider reprioritizing some of our objectives.

Steve Dunn Hanson has a BS in economics and an MA in political behavior. He has served in many community and Church capacities, including as a jail chaplain, stake president, and member of a temple presidency. He lives with Joyce, his wife of 57 years, in northeast Washington and is the author of several books, including The Course of Fate, a fiction trilogy currently available on Amazon.

Showing Versus Telling to Write Compelling Dialogue

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By Emma Heggem   

To write a good conversation, you first need to be picky about what conversations make it into your book. A conversation that doesn’t affect the story, no matter how dynamic, realistic, and well-written, will feel like an unnecessary aside. Dialogue takes up a lot more space than narrating a conversation would. It needs to earn that space by showing readers something important. Characters need to learn valuable information through the conversation, whether that’s the password to their bank account or the state of another human being’s emotions. The things that are talked about must change the story or the character by being known.

There are some things that come across particularly well by being shown to readers in a conversation. One example is relationships. Readers don’t like to be told about a relationship between two characters. They want to feel the connection for themselves, which means that it is very important to show relationships and show them changing over the course of the book. Downtime or relationship-changing moments for characters, including dialogue, can help readers feel the bond between the characters and be invested in the relationship. This is true whether the relationship is improving or declining. Inter-character conflict is just as important to show as characters falling in love.

Decisions can also work well as dialogue conversations. Inner monologues can get tiring to read and can drift into angst or get repetitive. Real people mull over the same thing again and again when making a decision, but characters need to avoid boring their readers. One way to show them pondering a decision without sitting inside their head and going in circles is to have them talk their decision through with another person. This pushes them forward and forces them to move through each part of the decision and then move on. When the character weighing the decision gets bogged down, their friends or listeners can express the same frustration the readers will be feeling and cut them off.

Another excellent use of dialogue is to provide the reader with an active and dynamic account of events that your point-of-view character wasn’t present for. This can help tone down unnecessary telling in your novel. The characters who were present can retell the story, be asked questions, and even be unreliable when it suits your needs. That’s much more interesting than a factual summary of important events.

Speaking of things your point-of-view character doesn’t know, dialogue is a great way to show readers the emotional state of your other characters without necessarily cluing your POV character in. Is one of your characters keeping a huge secret? Is a side character madly in love with your oblivious main character? By showing the conversations directly to the reader, you allow the reader to pick up on things that the point-of-view character doesn’t notice. This can help fill in the blanks and explain complex side-character motivations without having to switch POV.

As with most forms of showing, dialogue takes up more time and space than narration does. Choosing which conversations to show your readers is a very important step towards making sure that the conversation will be compelling. Don’t waste time with dialogue that isn’t going to strengthen your story. Focus on the moments that readers truly need to hear (read) about and you will end up having a much easier time keeping them interested and invested.

Happy writing!

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Emma Heggem is the managing editor with Future House Publishing. She specializes in content editing sci-fi and fantasy novels. She has worked with authors from around the world to prepare their manuscripts for publication. When she’s not editing, she attends writers conferences to take pitches, give critiques, and talk to aspiring writers about the mysterious world of publishing. Emma graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English language and a minor in editing.

Remembering Heaven: A Documentary and My Appreciation to LDSPMA For Making It Happen

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By Sarah Hinze

For many years I have collected stories about heaven. My collection includes not only the heaven we go home to when we graduate from earth life, but the heaven we come from before we are born. The quest to understand these concepts has been a personal one. My search to know my spiritual origin and destiny has always been with me, even as a child.

From an early age, I was especially eager to learn about God. I ached deep in my heart for an understanding of where I came from. I sensed that I was a child of God and lived with Him before I was born. I missed him and, well, I was homesick for heaven, I guess is one way to put it.

Our family regularly attended our local Protestant church and every Sunday, together as a congregation, we would stand and recite a creed that went something like this, “God is so small he can dwell in your heart and He is so large He can fill the universe.”

In my heart, I never believed God was like a cloud or a seed. I knew he was a man with a son named Jesus. I knew he didn’t live in the entire universe but in a special place called heaven. I knew heaven was my home and God was my Father.

My strong desire to know Him continued throughout my young years and on into college. A pivotal moment for me came when I first heard in my University English Literature class the following poem by William Wordsworth.

Ode on Intimations of Immortality

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come,
From God, who is our home.

The poem was electrifying. The words sang out like beautiful music to my soul. A strong spirit of holiness rested upon me in my class. I thought, “So that is where I come from. I come from God, who is my home.” But where and how can I learn more?

My search for God expanded into a search to learn all I could about the human soul, however, many of the philosophies I studied, existentialism for example, left me confused and even depressed.

One evening, I was with my new friend Mavis, sitting on her front lawn in Brigham City, Utah.  As we looked into the darkness of the evening sky watching for shooting stars, she turned to me and said, “You know we lived in heaven with God before we were born.”

I sat in silence, amazed at how easily she said something I had only believed in the deepest and most sacred place of my heart. This was the first time I had heard another person say that we lived with God before we were born.  All of my life I had known it was true, but here with this new friend, who was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she shared it like it was common knowledge. This impacted me greatly. I had found people who believed as I did.

Within weeks I requested the missionary lessons and in September, 1968, I chose baptism into the church.

Meanwhile I enrolled at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.  My future husband Brent also enrolled there after his mission. We are both converts to the church and were drawn together on a beautiful April afternoon as we shared our testimonies with one another. A few days later Brent invited me on a drive up Logan Canyon, which manifests some of the most majestic views imaginable.

After about half an hour we had wound our way up the narrow twisting road until we reached a mountain pass.

We parked the car near a shady meadow alive with wild flowers surrounded by groves of white birch. Brent took my hand as we walked.

The scenery, the sounds, the smells—it all seemed so familiar. The feeling was sacred and we were quiet, almost reverent. We didn’t speak for a time. Finally I broke the silence. In an unusual display of boldness I said, “I think I have walked with you before. . . . in heaven before we came to earth.”

“I feel it too,” Brent whispered. From that moment, we sensed one another as we had in the world before we were born and our spirits seemed to renew a relationship from long ago. We could feel there had been love between us before and a divine spark seemed to rekindle those memories.

Eventually it was time to drive back down the canyon and return to the real world. Our surroundings looked the same, but we were not. Our marriage came a year later in the Salt Lake Temple.

Soon our children came along. Several of our children’s birth’s were preceded by what I later learned is called an announcing dream.  An announcing dream can be defined as dreams, visions and other spiritual connections concerning a child waiting to be born or conceived.  In some cases one is told what the child’s chosen name is to be.

It is a humbling experience for a spirit waiting to be born to announce their desire for birth   into your family.  None of us are perfect parents by any means, but it seems our children love us and want to be with us, seeing past our imperfections, perhaps seeing our potential more than  we can.

I wondered if other parents had these experiences and soon discovered that I was by no means the only one. But what began as curiosity became a quest when I received profound impressions that part of my life’s mission was to research, teach, and write about this special experience occurring to people worldwide. Collecting stories was one thing I could do, but writing about it was something else. I was frightened. It seemed like more than I could possibly do. After much prayer and contemplation, I realized that I needed to be faithful to this assignment.

As I began doing so, I was soon joined in my research by my husband, Brent, who has a Ph.D. in psychology. We proceeded to conduct interviews, collect case studies, give talks, and publish about the marvels and mysteries of announcing dreams.

Brent and I coined the term “pre-birth experience” or “PBE” to refer to any experience that relates to souls prior to birth or conception. We learned through an analysis of the data that unborn children can warn, protect, and enlighten us from another plane of existence. Most often they appear to announce it is their time to be born.

Social scientists coined the phrase “announcing dream” to identify dreams about unborn children and other types of PBE, not only in the western world but in cross-cultural studies around the world. It is our belief that PBEs, like NDEs, are universal and occur among all peoples, now and in the past

After I had published several books, Brent and I had the chance to visit with Elder Hartman Rector Jr. who was staying at a friend’s home after speaking at our stake conference. She had given him one of our books to read, and he was very encouraging. “There will be books, films, music, art, and various forms of media that will share this important information,” Elder Rector said.

The word film caught my attention. I knew nothing of filmmaking. It seemed like an impossible dream, but I took Elder Rector’s counsel to heart that someday, with the Lord’s help, we would have a film. I knew that with God’s help, all things are possible.

In 2018, while Brent and I were serving a mission at the London England Temple, I received an email announcing the LDS Publishing and Media Association’s Annual Conference in Provo, Utah which would convene soon after we returned home. While reading the email, I was at our table in our little flat on the grounds of the London Temple. I felt strongly impressed by the Spirit that I needed to be there. I dismissed it, thinking we would barely be home from our mission on the dates of the conference and I would have my seriously annoying jet lag going on!  The promptings continued, so arriving home from London about a month later, my suitcases still packed from our mission, I packed a small suitcase and headed to the conference. I have learned if I do not follow the promptings of the Spirit, I will probably miss out on opportunities the Lord has arranged for me.

I arrived early the morning of the conference. I recognized a woman who looked familiar as I headed for the door.  It was a Facebook friend I had never met in person, Dr. Trina Boice, who recognized me as the author of a book she had read after she had her own announcing dream with her unborn son.  It was a good feeling to at least have one friend there!  I felt comfortable and welcomed as I walked in, greeting many with smiles and good mornings. 

It was easy to get into conversation with people, so I networked and talked to people about many of my interests in media, writing, and a film on my prebirth studies.  After attending a panel presentation of several film editors and filmmakers, I waited outside the door to talk to one in particular, Wynn Hoggard, who gave me the name of his friend Tom Laughlin. Within days, Tom and I talked on the phone and my dream of a film began to take shape.

Tom and I arranged to soon start the filming of our untitled film. We filmed for a total of five days.  Tom had enough footage to spend an entire year editing, and he did it with dedication, heart, and soul. By January, 2021 the film Remembering Heaven was ready!

Tom went into the film never hearing about the pre-birth experience, not knowing what he would find. As we interviewed people with stories, he was moved by the tender sacred feeling that accompanied the interviews. Later in going through the footage, he stated he was “overwhelmed with the beauty and power of the content.”

We are so grateful to scholars Terryl Givens, Ph.D. and Daniel Peterson, Ph.D. for their major contributions. Givens and Peterson’s scholarly contributions bring us stunning detailed teachings from major cultures and religious foundations which should make the case for premortality at least a consideration for any true seeker of their spiritual origin.

Here are a few story previews from the film:

Christine was a young mother expecting another child. She was aware even before she left to visit her doctor that afternoon that her unborn child had not moved for a time. She was praying at home while waiting for her husband to come home from work. Then a remarkable thing happened… the spirit of her unborn child appeared and spoke to her.

Corenna was dating a young man, but she was confused where to go with the relationship. She had doubts about marrying him. After praying most sincerely, she fell asleep. In a dream she saw this same young man, but then he faded away. A young boy stood before her and called her Mother. She was very drawn to this child, and felt convinced he held a message for her. After the dream, she broke up with the other young man. Years later, she met another young man from the Congo in Africa. Almost immediately they felt very connected to one another. They were married and a year later a wonderful son was born to them.

Ned is from the East Coast and owned a nightclub in the Hamptons. He himself claims that he was hedonistic, materialistic, and had no interest in God.  One evening after a fight with one of his business associates, Ned died and experienced a near death experience. What he saw on the other side included children who could have been his had he not insisted on his girlfriends terminating them—a startling and shocking revelation.  A Lady of Light showed him a child that could be his son on earth if he would improve his life.

The legwork of Remembering Heaven was put together by a team of people including Brady Dunn (cinematographer), Tom Laughlin (filmmaker), my husband and I (Executive Producers) and all who have so generously contributed.

Special thanks to Tom Laughlin who has given of his time and talents in an untiring and dedicated way. Tom has put together some of the most exquisite photographs, videos, and music that bring life and passion to this unique information.

Plato and Socrates spoke of a pre-life. In biblical times John declared that in the beginning the Son (Jesus) was with God who sent His Son into the world with a mission. (See John 3:16-17) Scriptures, prophets and pre-birth studies suggest this is a pattern for all of us.

I express my heartfelt gratitude to the Spirit of the Lord for guiding me to attend the LDSPMA Conference and to meet the people who helped to make Remembering Heaven. 

Remembering Heaven won Best Feature Documentary and Audience Choice Award at the LDS Film Festival in February, 2021.  We are nominated for Best Documentary at the Utah Film Festival and Most Inspirational Documentary at the International Christian Film Festival in Orlando, Florida May, 2021.

**We are looking for stories for our next film, international pre-birth experience stories as well as stories close to home. See my website www.sarahhinze.com for more information on pre-birth experiences or you can read my book The Announcing Dream: Dreams and Visions of Children Waiting to be Born 2016 (On Amazon)

Please contact Sarah for questions or stories you would like to share at sarah@sarahhinze.com

Sarah Hinze has collaborated with leading experts on near-death experiences and pre-natal psychology while conducting extensive research and hundreds of interviews. She has presented workshops, seminars, and lectures at conferences and universities, as well as on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations. Sarah has been featured in articles and radio and TV shows in the US, Canada and Japan. In addition to English, her books are published in Spanish, Portuguese and German. Her writings have been the source of healing and hope for individuals worldwide. Sarah and Brent Hinze are the parents of nine children and thirty-two grandchildren, so far!

**Check out the story and journey of our film by following Sarah Hinze and Tom Laughlin on Facebook as well as my website and blog at: sarahhinze.com/home/books/remembering-heaven

How to Start a Blog

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By Oakli Van Meter

Knowing how to start a blog is one of the hardest things, at least for me. My junior year at BYU, one of my professors said that we all should start a blog. She said it would be a great portfolio tool later on. I went home that day and started a blog. I wrote on and off for a while, then life happened. At the end of my senior year, I revived the blog for a class assignment. It felt great to have a required weekly post. Then once again, life got in the way and Wise Ole Oak is sitting quietly in the corner waiting for me to get back to it.

Why, you ask, does anyone care about my sad excuse for a blog? Why does it matter? Because I’m a classic case of “what not to do.” That being said, I feel prepared to share my advice on how to start a blog—advice sown from the fields of my failure.

First, choose a hosting platform.

Do you research, but don’t overstress it. There are plenty of free platforms that are virtually the same. Choose one that’s easy to use. My personal favorite is WordPress, but there are plenty of other good options that you can learn about here or here. Keep your site simple but professional. You don’t want text boxes of filler text from the template still lurking, but you don’t have to fill everything up with stuff.

Second, decide what your blog is going to be about.

You want to focus on what would benefit your potential clients. Editors could focus on writing or self-editing thoughts. Social media gurus could post about how to use social media. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s something you’re passionate about. Something you can write about pretty much every week. 

A woman planning a blog post.
Third—and this is crucial—make a plan.

When to post, how often to post. (Hint: Monday mornings are a great internet traffic time.) Without a plan, you’re going to struggle to keep up. Trust me, I know. Create a spreadsheet with dates and topics. Set reminders. If you can, write several blog posts over the course of a few days. Then you don’t stress-write two hours before you want to get it posted. 

Speaking of posting, make sure you’re sharing your blog posts to your social media channels. (And if you don’t have any of those, create some!) If you have an email newsletter, include the link there. Anywhere that your desired audience could see it, post it.

Finally, write. And enjoy it.

Blogging shouldn’t be stressful. It should be an additional, fun way to engage with your audience or clients. If it’s becoming stressful, step away for a bit. The inspiration often comes away from the keyboard.

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Oakli Van Meter is a wife, mother, and a freelance editor, writer, and blogger.

18 Books and Podcasts Recommended by LDSPMA Members

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LDSPMA is all about publications and media. But which publications? Which media? Before we jump into our March theme—“A Month of Editing”—let’s see what LDSPMA members and friends are immersing themselves in. 

Book Recommendations

Podcast Recommendations

Trusting Your Teenage Writer: Three Tips to Avoid Overwriting

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By LoriAnne Spear

Have you ever tried to bluff your way through a conversation with your teenager, pretending you’re an expert on a subject so you can give them advice? Have you ever made up statistics to make sure they remember your warnings about whatever it is you’re worried they might do?

If you say no, hooray for you, awesomely cool and integrity-filled parents! I may have given a few impromptu lectures with far-out examples about having unprotected sex, falling grades, drinking, or just the sassing-your-parents-means-you-won’t-be-able-to-keep-a-job variety. Maybe they saw through me, but I wanted them to believe that I am an expert in all the downsides of those exciting dangers, and I hoped the more I talked and used impressive words, the more they’d believe me.

In much the same way, many of us novice writers overwrite in our insecure attempt to sound like a real writer. We use flowery language or big words so the reader will believe we’re legit. Instead, we produce overwrought writing and get in our own way. 

Here are three tips to avoid overwriting traps:

1. Cluttery Language. Choosing a twenty-dollar word when a simple one-dollar word is more authentic to your character. When you can’t choose between three foreboding images to describe a spooky place, so you throw all of them in—in the same sentence. Sometimes new writers add intrusive adverbs to describe the action on the page, instead of simple, powerful verbs in short sentences. That is how you build tension. The rest is clutter, and it gets in your reader’s way.

2. Redundancy. Do you want to be sure your unfinished-teenage-reader’s-brain truly understands how complicated the conflict is, how high the stakes really are, or how forbidden the love is? Repeating the same information using different words, in consecutive sentences, or even on the same page, is just hitting the reader over the head again and again with your pointy-point. It doesn’t add emphasis. It is not effective. It’s just annoying. What’s worse is that it takes focus off of what is most important—the story.

3. How to stop. Carol Lynch Williams teaches her students to look at every single sentence. If it’s not building toward the climax of the story, cut it. Look at each word in a sentence. Get rid of all helping verbs, all -ly adverbs, all passive constructions. Make every—single—word—count. Then give it to your beta readers, ask them to highlight all redundant information, overwritten descriptions, and irrelevant tangents. Then cut. Tighten. Refine. Repeat.

My Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers instructors have told me, “Trust your reader. Let them fill in the gaps. It’s more satisfying for them.” One simple, but unique, description ignites the readers’ imaginations. They subconsciously fill in the details of a setting or a character’s appearance by drawing from their own life’s experiences. It personalizes the story to them.

Finally, when you tell your story, start the movie in the reader’s mind as straightforward as you can. Revise and decorate it later with lovely language if needed. Clear the clutter and let your reader hear the character’s voice, and see the story play out in front of them. Isn’t that what we really want? For them to remember the characters and story long after they turn that last page.