by Peter Leavell, @PeterLeavell
The most critical choice of the novelist is worldview.
Why? Because our novels are teachers. Your world will forever be locked in print.
Now, ‘isms’ step in with signs that say PICK ME. I’m the worldview you want to use!
Hooboy. This is tough. How do you go about choosing a good worldview?
Sir Galahad dismounts his horse. His dazzling smile highlights his youthful stride, glowing skin, and gentle locks. He strolls down the medieval lane, a visual delight for all. As he pauses to offer a coin and a loaf of bread to an injured ex-soldier, hearts melt.
In his worldview, the chivalric code stands for honor, loyalty, and respect.
Since some of my audience may be middle-grade readers, we’ll tweak our example.
Sir Galahad enters a café where the common folk congregate to drink nonalcoholic beverages. He stares down at a person with a different skin color than his own, and the person jumps out of his chair and settles in the corner. Sir Galahad settles in the warm seat and pounds the table. “Sarsaparilla, maid!”
What is his worldview teaching us? True, he has some chivalric code. But he also invited sexism and racism in as well. Our senses should be uncomfortable. While he’s handsome, being called a maid by the strapping knight might not appeal to everyone. And once he marries, chances are, his wife will attempt to curb the habit out of good taste.
Worldviews come and go. For example, conservatism is forever rooted in good and bad traditions, while progressivism must always change or become the latest conservatism. Socialism, communism, capitalism, hedonism, rationalism, idealism, atheism, surrealism, humanism, materialism, egalitarianism…if any one of these worldviews had THE perfect answer and ALL humans were the same, there would only be one ‘ism.’ There would only be one book in the self-help section.
So, as Christian writers, what should our worldview be? Trinitarianism, dispensationalism, autotheism, adoptionism, geocentrism, ignorantism, self-determinatism, Gnosticism, synergism, and more abound. Remember, the Pilgrims left England because medieval Europe wasn’t religious enough.
How shall we live?
How are you going about finding a worldview? What struggles do you have in making your way in the world?
Boom. You’ve found your worldview.
The Bible is filled with characters struggling to understand God and conform to His better ways. We struggle as well, pouring over His text to live for Him. The search makes one a seeker, desperate to purify self from sin and hungry to take on the virtues through the Spirit. Your characters are no different. When you write an ‘ism’ or worldview into a book, it’s the search that matters, the struggle. Write your journey and place the wrestling, pain, and ecstasy of comprehension onto the characters. As CS Lewis said in An Experiment in Criticism, “But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.” Your readers will be better off understanding how to search than spoon-feeding generalized worldviews.
Philip Anderson keeps his past close to the vest. Haunted by the murder of his parents as they traveled West in their covered wagon, his many unanswered questions about that night still torment him.
His only desire is to live quietly on his homestead and raise horses. He meets Anna, a beautiful young woman with secrets of her own. Falling in love was not part of his plan. Can Philip tell her how he feels before it’s too late?
With Anna a pawn in the corrupt schemes brewing in the nearby Dakota town, Philip is forced to become a reluctant gunslinger. Will Philip’s uncannily trained horses and unsurpassed sharpshooting skills help him free Anna and find out what really happened to his family in the wilderness?
Peter Leavell, a 2007/2020 graduate of Boise State University with a degree in history and a MA in English Literature, was the 2011 winner of Christian Writers Guild’s Operation First Novel contest, and 2013 Christian Retailing’s Best award for First-Time Author, along with multiple other awards. An author, blogger, teacher, ghostwriter, jogger, biker, husband and father, Peter and his family live in Boise, Idaho. Learn more about Peter’s books, research, and family adventures at www.peterleavell.com