Doorstopper

A good deal of my Twitter presence (besides my flippant theological jibes) is dedicated to the serialization and marketing of my upcoming novel, The Doom of Hélène.

Why am I writing a two thousand page historical romance in a the tiktok generation? Because that is the exact generation that needs it. Culture is defined by their creators, not their consumers, because consumers are inevitably represented by the creators that they prop up.

“But what about market interference?” you say. “What about big corpo propping up tiktok culture and influencers at the expense of grassroots creators?” Well, you see, I don’t really believe in all that: not only is the hand of the market invisible, it is also inevitable. No level of secular state control could prevent a religious people from making religious art, as proven time and time again in the Soviet Union. No, our failings as a culture are internal, our great successes properly identifying what views we, as a culture, collectively share. That said, shifts in market forces are self-perpetuating: any trend created and supported by consumers will spread its reach, affecting other people. No creator was not first a consumer, and it is those creators who are most replicated that demonstrate, reflect, and perpetuate the philosophies, interests, tastes, and values of a culture.

Therefore, there is a hole I notice, a gaping one in the market, which can only be filled by conscious action. And that hole is the gap of creators with differing values. Such is the reason I spent the first paragraph of this article talking primarily about economics in a commentary on the arts. If you want to sway the values of a culture, you have to create things that represent the values, and market them. There are people who talk more fluently on this subject, the most accomplished of which is probably Eric July, but Razorfist, Angel Studios and the Daily Wire are also creators which have done serious work on this issue, as well as many others. You see, Christians, conservatives, or other ostracized fields cannot hope to dominate the market or cultural conversations without first dominating them in production.

“But given the economic points you made earlier, that’s impossible; they have billion dollars of funding!”

Forgive me, but that is patently ridiculous. Consider, initially, how overtly wasteful many of these producers are. A budget means little to people who refuse to abide by it, and the recent success of films like Godzilla Minus One or Sound of Freedom prove that free marketing can outperform funded campaigns if the mileage is good enough.

And so, now that we understand what forces are in play here, forces that cannot be argued be with but can certainly be leveraged, let us also understand why I shall field no more protests in regards to market viability. There are smarter people than me who might field a good case, but I am sure that there are smarter people than me who will back up my point as well. Let us move on to the book in particular.

Actually, let us move half-way.

Sound of Freedom is actually an excellent example here. Let us examine what it actually was: a fairy tale, written by Catholics, about a Mormon. It’s a simple enough story. Gripping, exciting, sensationalized, rarely factual in a documentary sense, but in all aspects in regards to the nature of events, true, being a distillation of dozens of stories into a single narrative to convey the symbolism. And Catholic symbolism is profusely referenced in the film, from messianic symbolism in regards to his ostracization and sacrifice, to the icons of Saint Timothy he bears through the story, to Catholic values of repentance and confession depicted in the various people he works with. This story, while dark, is one a young man can (and should) watch, and aspire to imitate: using strength to protect weakness, and that though good comes at a cost, it is never too late to seek redemption. And of course, both in the story and in the production of the film itself, it is a story that different backgrounds, cultures, or even worldviews does not remove from us the responsibility of being a neighbor. The film was wildly successful, that’s not something I need to go into. The important aspects are the fact that it was mythic in scope, even being true, and myths are necessary to define a culture.

I am not nearly as competent as the people who made that film, but the idea extends. I see a culture that, despite wide diversity, lacks in complexity; despite relativism, lacks in nuance; despite ambition, lacks in patience; and despite academicism, lacks in research.

And so I write my book to address these points. I am biased, (and happily so) but I hope that this work depicts my position honestly, rather than apologetically (in either sense). Mine is also a work aimed, foremost, at families. For this reason I have strained to portray the maturity of themes and content in a manner that can be followed, at least with guidance, by children. I am hoping to give the prose a music, making it engaging to read aloud. There are many difficult questions, and I hope that families can discuss them with their children. And one lesson that is a personal favorite of mine is a rather thorough amount of research in even simple affairs.

It is also a very long book, requiring a sense of predisposed patience to pick up, and hopefully using its length in a way that provides consistent value, though it does not aspire to be “exciting”, by a modern semblance of the term. I shy from twists, abrupt cliffhangers, or other tricks of that craft (though I do use them,) in favor of having a context that requires an audience to challenge themselves to hold large amounts of information in mind to determine meaning and intention. I fully believe the children of today are capable of this. Anyone who disagrees has never seen them document builds in Minecraft or Warhammer, or keep track of influencers and the like. The issue is that they are not taught to apply this context to greater things. The schools have failed, and are actively opposed, to provide this skill, and thus the job falls once more where it originally lay, at the feet of parents.

I hope, then, that my book is a useful tool for said parents to work with their children in this regard. You will find violence, as it is a topic that, as CS Lewis stated, children must be exposed to by any loving parents, but I have endeavored to avoid gratuity in any sense regarding vices: particularly those regarding the sixth commandment. Though I recommend staying ahead of a child, if your child reads ahead, they will not find an HBO show waiting for them. And though it may take a year to finish, that is its own sort of value. You, as a parent, will have just spent a year with your children, sharing a world together, learning from the difficult questions of life, and growing in a way that encourages you to seek each other’s opinions on things. My parents once had a rule of “no Star Wars at the table.” In this, I hope to encourage exactly that: a fiction that cannot be escaped even where it is intrusive, but with a level of truth that Star Wars never aspired to. And, though my book is not an evangelical work, I of course hope that answering these questions honestly and with education might lead people to the Gospel.

In the tale you will find works of adventure, tragedy, bravery, love, arrogance, sacrifice, and deep, deep history, full of many, many, many people, with differing contexts and intentions, and the things they believed, shared, and understood. Most of these people will be wrong about most things. Most of them will be right about some things. You will find fairy tales, songs, poems, prayers, artistic sensibilities, and far, far too much color theory for a textual medium.

Finally, do I believe that such a thing can be sold? Of course! That is a fool’s notion. If I sell two copies to coworkers in my day job, it has sold. I am self-publishing, self-editing, self-writing, and, thus far, self-illustrating this work. Any profit at all is currently positive profit. I say that for the sake of understanding this economically, I am not particularly interested (and rather afraid) of a context of personal financial success. “Can it develop a large customer base?” To that one I have less clear of an answer. If a book is successful the year it is available, or if it is widespread fifty years after I die, it is a success. I can only work on the quality of the book in this regard; I can not determine where and when God chooses to allow it to flourish, after all. What I can do, however, is encourage people to check it out, and refer it to people they believe would find it interesting. It may not be to the taste of each person I know, but perhaps they know someone who will appreciate it. I am not sure anyone could know if it is according to their taste in brief perusal, but something someone abandons now they may take up later in different mind. And so, I expect, that it will grow. Slow or fast, I cannot say. I plan to write other things, some of which may be easier to consume. Then it may share in the goodwill of my name, (such as it has, for outside of this, as a sinner I have much to apologize for) and the readers may grow in accordance as people search for things that share an author with other works they enjoy. And so, if God allows me to finish it, not only do I expect it to succeed, I practically guarantee it. What I refuse to guarantee is the timeline, a wise man I know once said “If you get succeed in life or death, your success is the same.”

Thus, it leads me back to what we must understand most important in the understanding of culture. I have called it primarily the creators, but what we must truly embrace is a sense of myth. No culture can escape it. If you deprive yourself of it, another will be foisted upon you. Such is the way of human interpretation: we ever cling to those stories that we relate to, those that give us under-standing of our condition. All of these, of course, pale next to the holy Gospel: Great Myth, the Myth which is in all regards both True and Truth, and of course such works as this should not be held in competition with It. But there are none that do not reflect It.

And so I saw a gap in our culture. Why should the enemies of our beliefs have authority on the nature of poetry and prose, of history and legend, of myth and song? That is a foolish acquiescence, I believe. If we do not attempt to claim this field, it will be claimed by our enemies. And so, with the help of those who seek to peruse it, I hope now to reclaim one part of this field, the flowery and detailed walls of text of which I have great affection, so that they might once again reflect truth, rather than the lies of our enemies. I do not claim to be the best at it, or even particularly good. This is my first attempt at such a thing, and I will make many mistakes in the execution. If I am given a chance in the future I hope to revisit and revise it, once the whole of the vision is known. But, more importantly, it is an area I see no others reaching into. In my lifetime, I could not say whether this is the first attempt. I hope, more than anything else, that it is far from the greatest or last.