Stop the Stories (Paul Levy)

Exactly, Yancey!

Stop the Stories (Paul Levy): Today I make a plea to all potential Christian book writers and
publishers........ stop putting very annoying 'real life stories' at the
start of your chapters, as if that really grounds them in reality. You
know what I am talking about. At the start of the chapter is an example
of what the chapter will teach. They are normally very politically
correct, so Kate will be married to Asif and they have two children.
Asif works in a monotonous 9-5 job. Kate works part time in a garage
whilst taking care of the children and household chores. These little
vignettes started to really annoy me in Tim Keller's Reason for God but
since that every Tom, Dick and Harry who writes a Christian book has got
hold of the technique. Just bin it! Most of the stories are pretty
awful and even the true ones we don't believe anymore.



To make my point let me give you a story. There were a group of guys
that didn't really know each other but through the internet and a
bizarre set of coincidences found themselves writing for an online
magazine. The supposed leader of the group was a guy called Del but
nobody sees much of him. He longs for the good old times of the magazine
when Phil and Rick (2 other relics of halycon days) used to get wound up
by Carl, the celebrity of the gang. Carl is a middle aged, short, balding,
marathon runner doing a couple of jobs teaching at a seminary and
running a church. He's the big hitter of the group and the muscle behind
a lot of the right wing reformed movement you see in the US. The third
character, Levy, lots of people don't think exists other than as
a figment of Carl's imagination. The only evidence to the contrary is an
inability to spell or use grammar correctly. He's the real hero of the
band and is trying to raise money for a building project that seems to
have been going on forever but hasn't even started yet. The latest
addition to the gang is Jeremy Walker. He ministers in the 17th Century
and writes hymns from that period. He has never written anything under
10,000 words.

It's annoying isn't it!!!

Cut the stories at the start
of chapters, admittedly for most of you ''Counsellors'' out there that
turns your books into short articles but so be it.