Tag: Easter

Scripture Saturday — Easter

crossw-66700_1280“It is finished,” said Jesus as he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

“It is finished,” said the Roman soldiers as they removed the body from the cross.

“It is finished,” said Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus as they laid the body in the tomb.

“It is finished,” said Pontius Pilate as he returned to the business of governing these stubborn Jews.

“It is finished,” said the chief priests and elders as they congratulated themselves on the success of their scheme.

“It is finished,” said the disciples as they huddled together in Jerusalem, hiding from the authorities.

“It is finished,” said the women as they prepared spices to take to the tomb.

“Is it finished?” asked Mary as she turned her tear-stained face to the starry, Saturday night sky.

And on Sunday morning, the stone was rolled away, and Jesus walked out of the tomb, stretched his arms, gazed at the world he loved so much, and shouted with a laugh, “April Fool’s!”

I must thank Max Mitchell for the idea for this post.

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Writing Tip — Plot

easterw-1443348_1280Easter contains so many themes to inspire stories. Last year I wrote about how the drama of Holy Week could be adapted for a storyline. This year I wanted to focus on the theme of resurrection which leads to change.

Pretending to kill off a character only to have him return may be the most dramatic plot twist a writer can use. One of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories is “The Empty House”. In it, Holmes reveals to Watson that he didn’t die battling Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf the Grey’s resurrection as Gandalf the White is a major plot point.

Survival stories are a good way to use the resurrection theme without it seeming contrived. The extreme demands of a hostile environment on a character provide reasons for the character to reevaluate her life and, if she lives, to return to her old life changed for the better or worse.

I love survival stories, both fiction and nonfiction. In January, I featured the story of  Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica, one of history’s epic survival stories. I recently watched a little-known survival movie from 1953 that is a great example of how the struggle to survive changes the main character.

In Inferno, a wealthy husband and wife and the husband’s business partner are traveling on horseback in the Mojave desert, looking for a mineral deposits. When the husband falls and breaks his legs, the wife and partner say they will send help. But instead, they mislead the authorities with a false trail, leaving the husband to die. The husband becomes determined to make it back to civilization and exact his revenge.

Because the husband is alone, we learn his thoughts through voice–over narration and can follow the change in his character. The actor portraying husband, Robert Ryan, is so skilled that his expressions and body language perfectly accompany his narration. (It’s also a great visual example of the writing concept “Deep POV” but that’s for another post.)

How can Easter inspire your writing?

 

 

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Scripture Saturday

flower-429645_1280What Easter Means to Me

I am trapped.

The boulder is heading straight for me and I know I can’t escape.  What good would it do anyway?

I’ve ended up in this exact situation before, too many times before, so why try to get away?

It’s my own stupid fault.  I finally get that.

There’s nothing I can do.

I huddle down against the impact, wondering how much this will hurt, wishing being truly sorry mattered.

I’m knocked to the ground.  But not by the boulder.

A man, a stranger, shoves me out of the way, and I just have time to look up and watch the boulder smash into him, shatter into a pile of rubble, and bury him.

I am too stunned to do anything but gape.  When I finally recover enough to move, the pile moves, too.  I stop, my eyes glued on the pile.

Flinging off the rocks, the man stands up.

I splutter, “B-b-but how?  But who?  But why?”

Brushing off the dust and dirt, the man gives me a huge grin and answers all my questions with one sentence.

“Dad sent me.”

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Writing Tip

lily-960387_1280Easter as Inspiration

As a writer of Christian fiction, I can find endless themes in the Easter story: renewal, sacrifice, forgiveness, love, rebirth, and resurrection are just a few.  So many different people are involved in the story, each with his or her own backstory, I have myriad sources from which to create characters.

Since I can’t address all these in a single blog post, I’ll just focus on one: the Easter story as a story arc, mimicking the themes of Maundy Thursday to Easter.

Maundy Thursday – Story starts with some kind of celebration with all the main characters.  One character is sad for some reason.bible-2167783_1280

Good Friday – A tragedy occurs.

Holy Saturday – Charcters react to tragedy.

Easter – The tragedy is turned on its head somehow, becoming the opposite of what the characters thought it was.  Because of this, most of the characters are profoundly changed for the better.

I wouldn’t have to plot my story over four days.  I could have it unfold over years if I wanted to, but I would use the the four days as described as my anchors for the action.

I wouldn’t even have to mention within the story I was following the pattern of Easter.  J.R.R. Tolkien used many Christian themes in The Lord of the Rings, but because his characters live in Europe before the introduction of Christianity, they can’t say Aragorn’s return to the throne is like the Jews waiting for the Messiah.  But readers can make the connection.

I would love to try my hand at writing a story as I have outlined.  Maybe I will get more inspiration.  Does Easter inspire any ideas for you?  Let me know!

 

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Writing Tip

crocus-1753790_1280Writing in Time-March

Since I wrote about how you could use February to inspire a setting for your writing, I thought I would write about each month as it comes up.  But I have a problem.

I hate March.  As Patrick F. McManus writes, “God created March in case eternity should prove to brief.”

It’s a month with a split personality.  Caught between winter and spring, it’s both and neither.  There are no decent holidays or events for me in March.  I’m not Irish, or live in Ireland, so St. Patrick’s Day doesn’t mean anything more to me that cute crafts from my kids.  I’m not interested in basketball, so March Madness is boring.  Lent is always partially in March.  It can be a time of growth or depression, the religious observance underlining March’s contrary dual nature. Whoever came up with the lion-lamb imagery for March hit it dead on.

Easter in March would help, but it’s in April this year.  And a March Easter runs the risk of being snowy where I live.  Snow on Easter puts me more in the mood for caroling and wrapping gifts than hunting Easter eggs and celebrating renewal and redemption.  March does have the spring equinox.  If the darkness of winter depresses you, then the equinox signals the return of longer daylight.

So, what can a writer do with March?

I admit I hate March so much I have never set a story in it.  But writing this blog has given me a few ideas.  I could create a character torn between opposites — within his or her own personality, between two jobs or two friends, anything where the character must make a choice between two opposing things.  If I wrote fantasy, I could use the spring equinox as some kind of magical day when two opposing forces clash with equal strength.  Or I could write a storyline about a character’s miserable misadventures during a miserable month.

Do you like March?  Le me know why and how you would use it in your writing.

 

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