A few days ago, I threw a book in the trash.
I love to read fiction—I always have. I’m not much of a TV watcher, but I spend most evenings winding down with a novel after my kids go to bed. As a non-fiction writer, I find that reading fiction helps me improve my own craft. I find that my descriptions and word choices are strengthened when I’m exposing my brain to lots of creative stories. Think about all the strands of thought a writer has to hold with the perfect amount of tension to keep your imagination suspended in just the right place for the plot. It’s a masterful thing, and I think we enjoy God’s common grace when we read a good story that’s creative and well-written.
Finding novels, however, that tell a powerful story with good, strong writing can be difficult because of the level of explicit content that often litters the pages of contemporary books these days. Some will argue that you can simply skim through or skip certain paragraphs because the story has a good payoff in the end. I’ve done this many times in the past, hoping the content improves with increased page-turning. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I’ll read a book recommended by a friend or another writer who will give a caveat about this scene or that offensive dialogue. If the story is “worth it,” perhaps we can skim the objectionable content the way some people fast-forward through a scene on a show. I’ve long wondered if fast-forwarding (both with reading or with television) is the best approach. Sometimes, the content is simply inexcusable, rendering a story irredeemable. Perhaps there’s supposed to be a good plot buried in there somewhere, but in the end it’s not worth the smut you have to wade through to get through it. You know it when you see it.
I have been a reader since I learned phonics. I read and reread all the books on my shelf throughout my childhood and young adulthood, cutting my literary teeth on both the prairies of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood and the ringing phone of The Babysitter’s Club. I devoured Pride and Prejudice as a teenager for my high school’s required summer reading program, and wrote my high school senior thesis paper on The Great Gatsby (which I don’t’ mind telling you I hated). I majored in English in college, which means I read and read and read and then wrote summaries, critiques, and opinions on everything I read. My English degree had an emphasis in creative writing, so I wrote nearly as much as I read, and I stumbled my way through short stories and fiction writing classes. I did better with true stories and events, polishing my pieces for advanced composition and poetry with words and tactics I’d learned from my poor efforts at spinning a new story. I admire people who write in the fiction world. A story is a powerful and delicate thing.
In one of my fiction-writing classes, each student had to produce short stories for peer reviews. The professor read the submitted stories aloud, and critiques were handed out quite liberally from the students and the professor. It was painful to have your work shredded in public, but it taught me quite a bit about cutting the superfluous (an ongoing struggle as evidenced by the length of this post) and keeping only what the reader needs. Sometimes the superfluous content was merely geographical. Too many words taking up too much real estate. Cut, cut, cut. Other times, there were submissions with superfluous details that I found not only distasteful but actually, sinful. Cut, cut, cut. I was uncomfortable with gratuitous sexual scenes or language. I noticed as I grew older and read more broadly that some novelists seemed bent on bringing the reader into a bedroom much the way a screenwriter does at times. As a lover of good stories and rich character development, I understand why a writer would draw a character down a particular path of behavior. The character’s decisions align with who the author has written them to be. Knowing what makes a character tick or watching them self-destruct can highlight the redemptive elements of their story later on after they crash, burn, learn, and grow. It is not a sinful character I object to but rather the author’s means of illustrating that character.
There’s a difference between a writer telling you something that a character does and a writer inviting you to revel in the deplorable behavior of their characters with salacious descriptions meant to come alive in your mind. Though every writer is instructed to show not tell, I believe that rule should be rethought for objectionable content. If the protagonist makes sinful choices, don’t show me in a way that invites me to join in with their sinful choices. The real trick is to tell me without putting a stumbling block in my path. I think of the biblical story of David’s abusive treatment of Bathsheba. Scripture tells us what we need to know in the narrative in 2 Samuel 11. We can see the scope of David’s actions and the repercussions that inevitably follow, but we’re not given salacious details that turn our minds down a sinful path.
Now, I am not saying that unbelieving novelists should write like Christians. As a believer in Jesus, I can’t and don’t have that expectation from the world. (The writer in me, however, knows that a good novelist doesn’t have to include that type of content for the story to be good.) But, as a reader, I don’t have to swallow the garbage that’s often included in a novel simply to get to a good story. As a Christian reader, I should flee from it. I know the difference between reading and reveling.
I recently started a much-lauded novel that invited me into the sinful revelry of immoral behavior before I reached chapter four. The writer didn’t have to include it to tell a good story. But they did, and this seemed to be the trajectory the book would travel until the last page. So, I tossed the book in the trash after just three chapters. As a writer, it pains me to throw away a book. I know the amount of work it takes to write an entire book. I get the argument about art and gritty, hard stories. But art isn’t art if it invites me to sin. It’s just a means to sin. I don’t have to pretend to be strong to enjoy something that’s supposed to be artful or moving or gritty. I can throw the book in the trash for the love of Jesus. I can cancel the streaming service for the love of Jesus. I can delete the app for the love of Jesus.
Before I am a consumer of content, I am a follower of Jesus. We shouldn’t seek out (or passively accept) entertainment that exalts sins for which Jesus died. This isn’t just about books. It’s relevant to podcasts, shows, movies, music. We find temptation standing on every corner of entertainment, wearing a different dress and calling out a different invitation. Our desires can lead us straight to the corner where our weaknesses peddle their wares (see James 1:13-15). Yet, we are free in Christ to close the book, turn off the show, close the screen. That check in your spirit when you’re listening, watching, reading? Don’t ignore it. It is your way out that God has promised: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
Following Jesus isn’t relegated to the churchy parts of our lives. If He is your Savior, He must also be your Lord, which means He has absolute authority over all of your life, including what you fill your mind with for entertainment purposes. While we have Christian freedom to make different choices from one another at times, we are all called to holy living that emulates Christ who loved us and gave Himself up for us to pay for our sins (even the ones born of entertainment choices!) on the cross. When you feel that nudge while partaking in some kind of entertainment, take it as the way out to avoid filling your mind with what is not pleasing to the Lord. God promises to give a way out of temptation; don’t block the exit with sinful desires.
If you find this subject to be off-putting, ask yourself why. Is Jesus asking you to give up something that you don’t want to give up? If so, know that there is grace for those who call upon the name of the Lord. Ask Him to change your appetites for what is good and true and lovely and excellent (see Phil. 4:8), and then set your affections on Jesus more and more. Fill your mind with His Word, saturate your thoughts with Scripture, think on His character. Over time, He will whittle down your fleshly desires. He’ll cull from your heart a love for Him more than worldly pleasures. I promise He will.
My tastes today are not what they were ten years ago. I’m not sure I would have thrown the book away back then. I might have pressed through hoping for an improvement while secretly enjoying the darker moments of the flesh. There are books I regret having read. Thankfully, the Lord has saved me and he is saving me still. He doesn’t leave us as we are but grows us in discernment and taste. The more we feast on Jesus and the beauty of his character, the more our desires for worldly things will be diluted. Little by little, from one degree of glory to the next. He will finish what He has begun in us. The more we hunger and thirst for him, the less we hunger and thirst for the reveling the world invites us to do.
Stories—gritty, hard, moving, redemptive stories—can be told well. There are writers* out there who are telling them without inviting the reader into sinful revelry. In the reading of broken people seeking hope and help and beauty and love, we can know that Christ is the answer to every longing heart. A good story well-told can illuminate that truth with beauty.
Before I am a consumer of content, I am a follower of Jesus. Share on X*Post script:
There are gifted writers out there who tell gritty, real stories without inviting you in to revel in sinful thoughts. A few I have come to love: Leif Enger, William Kent Krueger, Ann Patchett (for the most part), Kate Morton, Christina Baker Kline, Wendell Berry, Rhys Bowen. You can find some of their titles here.
Photo by Alfons Morales on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.