On Writing: Be Luminous

So this post is more about the spirit of plot than the actual mechanics of it, but what are ya gonna do? Well, hopefully keep reading, right?

Anyway. So I recently read and fell in love with Sandra Cisneros' The House On Mango Street. You can scroll down after this post and read why...

But first!

One of the notes of praise the story received referred to the work as "luminous"... and that's started me to thinking. Because for a story to be long-lasting, it has to mean something beyond the simple tale it tells. It speaks to us in a way that is more than the story itself. The sum being greater than the parts, so to speak. (Classic example-- Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which she once described as being a simple love story. Yet it is SO much more than that!!)

Why is this?

In part, I think it has to do with the author having a passion for the message he or she is conveying. A passion beyond the characters and the morals they adhere to. That passion is the breath of life, the force that brings the revelation to our hearts, even of a truth with which we may already be familiar. We discover it again and anew with the author and the characters of the story. That is its illumination, I believe.

So as writers, we must dig deep, find that message that lies deepest in our hearts. And write it. Weave it through the fabric of the tales we are telling.

We, as authors, must be the first to believe that the tales we tell are worth telling, and in fact must be told.