Writing Light

I’ve heard it said that it’s much easier to write stories about dark, painful things than good things. The pain is what drives the plot forward, what develops the characters. I’ve heard it said that “goodness writes white”, as in, there’s no contrast, you can’t see it on the paper…it makes for a boring story.

I think this is because of how difficult it is to see the goodness of God in this life when the dark is so pervasive. But there are glimpses…times when we see beyond the dark to something so good it moves us in our very soul, and we struggle for words to describe the experience. In this instance, Goodness writes white. I have discovered it’s easy to forget about some of these times.

But if we keep pondering the Good–if we set our minds and imaginations on what we can’t see anymore but know we saw, and hold onto the hope of it through the dark, and refuse to forget, I think we will eventually become able to write something that is more than white on white: Goodness writes Light.

I know this because I’ve encountered it in the writings of C S Lewis, JRR Tolkien, George MacDonald, and GK Chesterton. They saw something I cannot yet. And they wrote light.

I want to write Light someday.