The stage has been set

We live in a story and it is not realistic.

Our world is closer to science fiction than to realism. We are spinning around a giant ball of fusion, on a rock made up of lava that has a thin layer of water around it. We have creatures that can breath underwater with gills in their bottoms, can shoot water from their behinds to propel themselves and then, at night, they stick their heads out of the water, adapt to our atmosphere, climb out of the water, split in two and then out comes a flying creature.

Our world is closer to a comedy than that a documentary. Hackers break into a cheating website and threaten to release details of those who have paid for this service, and then people feel betrayed. An all girls school allows boys who self-identify as girls to attend, and then they have to cancel their annual vagina monologues because it oppresses the girls who do not have vaginas.

Our world has superhero's and arch-villains. Google's unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil", which should already be a red flag. They seek to end death. The company that has read all your searches, emails and spam has never read a book and doesn't know what happens when someone tries to gain immortality. Google has cast themselves as the villain and they don't even know it.

So in your story, what character are you? Some may think their life is a morality tale, or a cautionary lesson for others to lean off. You probably think you are a good character, but come on. You may well be that self absorbed social media addict, or that person who spoke out of turn or who was misinformed. That character that held a grudge and never forgave. You know your thoughts and temptations that you hide from everyone else. If the best writer or director was creating media about your character, would you even like that character? Would you be interested enough to keep watching?

If you are bored, even with access to Netflix, then does that mean your character is boring? For a change of scenery, don't go across the world to a foreign country, instead go across the street and knock on that door. That would be a true adventure.

How does your character cope with trials and evil? Every good book and movie have complications to help their characters grow. Removing trials and hard things in the story ruins it. It would be boring. I bet your favorite character faced a complication and withstood or overcame evil. Be that character. If you are stuck, not knowing what model to follow or how to act, God Himself, in a truly mythical sense, was born here, in this reality, in this story, with two legs and two working thumbs to show us how.

This post has been inspired (and lines and ideas have been directly stolen) by N.D. Wilson. Look him up on youTube:

• The Lie of Realism
• The Problem of Evil
• Breathing Chracters
• Myth Wars: C.S. Lewis vs. Scientism