The Christian Manifesto

Recently, I (Jake Chism) reviewed Athol Dickson’s newest novel, Winter Haven. Bethany House Publishers was pleased with the overall review and invited me to interview Dickson for his own site www.bookshelfreview.com and for The Christian Manifesto. I was more than happy to accept the invitation (and welcomed C.E. Moore to collaborate with me on a few of the questions).

Athol Dickson’s writing has been favorably compared to the work of Octavia Butler (Publisher’s Weekly), Daphne du Maurier (Cindy Crosby, FaithfulReader.com) and Flannery O’Connor (The New York Times). 

Athol’s novel, River Rising, was a Christy Award winner, selected as one of the Booklist Top Ten Christian Novels of 2006 and a finalist for Christianity Today’s Best Novel of 2006. Following River Rising, Athol’s The Cure was picked by Christian Fiction Review as one of the Ten Best Novels of 2008. Winter Haven, Athol Dickson’s latest novel and his second set in Maine, is now available at bookstores and on-line. It has been honored by Romantic Times as a “Top Pick”.

Enjoy!

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TCM: First, we’d like to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions for us.

 

Athol Dickson: Thanks. It’s a pleasure.

 

TCM: Tell us a little bit about yourself. When did you know you wanted to be a writer? What has the road to publication been like for you?

 

AD: I originally wanted to be a sculptor and painter. I studied art privately growing up, and for two years in college. Then I switched to architecture in order to have a better chance of making some money. After I became an architect, I started a firm and eventually became fairly successful, but along with success came a lot of compromises. Instead of designing buildings, I was hiring other people to design them while I handled the business end of things. Being a businessman was never my goal, so I was pretty miserable. One day when I complained about this for about the hundredth time, my wife suggested that I try doing something creative in my time off. Sculpting and painting were too similar to architecture, so I didn’t want to do that. I have always loved to read, so I decided to give writing a shot. One thing led to another, and here I am today, a full time novelist and ex-architect.

 

TCM: Your newest novel, Winter Haven is such a unique and fascinating story. Where did the idea come from?

 

AD: Lots of walks in the park, talking to myself. Sometimes ideas come to me from outside sources like a news story or a comment I might overhear, or something I see happen, but usually I start with a thematic premise and think a lot about it and invent the story pretty much from nothing. Most writers talk about starting with a character or a situation, but I begin with theme. For example, I might want to explore the idea that this world is not our home. I would start by trying to think of ways that concept might be symbolized. Maybe a woman wakes up in a motel with amnesia, tries to discover who she is and where she belongs but never does, meets a guy, marries, has kids and builds a life, but all along she has the nagging desire to know the truth about herself. She has a life, a family, a home, but is all of that really where she belongs? So I’ll think about the symbolic value of that, and start adding plot wrinkles here and there, turn it this way and that, and eventually come up with a story that will hopefully be interesting from start to finish while also exploring what it really means to be a “poor wayfaring stranger”.

 

TCM: Both The Cure and Winter Haven are set in Maine. What’s your connection to the northeast?

 

AD: I don’t have any family of friends in Maine. I just went looking for a setting that could play a role in the story. I like the setting to feel like a character in my novels. For that, you need a place with personality, and anyone who’s been to Maine will tell you it has lots of personality. There’s no place else remotely like it, so as a writer you get a lot of opportunities to say, “Look at this. This is strange, isn’t it?” I set some earlier novels in Louisiana, for the same reason. Maine and Louisiana are both self contained little worlds apart, off the beaten track for most of us, with unique takes on the English language, fascinating histories, rugged terrain and awful weather. All of that adds up to a great place to set a story.

 

TCM: It’s difficult to classify Winter Haven into one genre. On one hand there is mystery and suspense, yet on the other we find both fantasy and supernatural elements. How challenging was it to create such an intriguing story with all of these qualities?

 

AD: I find the plotting—figuring out how to weave the story’s various elements together—is the hardest part of writing a novel. Once that’s done and I have the basic way of things in my head, the words themselves come pretty naturally. I do try to weave different layers into my work in a deliberate way, right from the start. I mean, I do it for deliberate reasons. In Winter Haven I wanted to explore the notion of looking for God while simultaneously fearing God, so that led me to go for a sense of the fantastic and the supernatural, as you mentioned. I asked myself, if one went looking for God and actually found him, what would that feel like? It seemed to me a gothic kind of literary mood would fit the sense of awe one would expect in that scenario. So those qualities you mentioned are in the novel for more than one reason. They make it fun to read, hopefully, but they also have a purpose thematically. Obviously, if I didn’t bother paying attention to those qualities and just wrote about who did what to whom it would be easier, but that would be like cooking without spices or playing a song one note at a time. I’m trying to get some harmonics going in the novel, and leave the reader with a lingering sense of something they can’t quite define.

 

TCM: Is there a real life location that inspired your creation of the Winter Haven community?

 

AD: Winter Haven, the location, is a blend of several places in Maine, both past and present. For example, when I was researching the novel I learned coastal Maine used to have forests filled with giant evergreens. Almost all of those trees have been cut down, but back during the tall ships era, the English navy laid claim to those forests for use as masts on their largest ships of war. Apparently, the trees were absolutely huge, and perfectly straight, among the finest in the world for that purpose. The English sent men into the forests to carve a symbol into the bark, an arrow, which meant, “This is the King’s tree. Touch it at your peril.” The penalty for cutting down one of those giant trees was death. That bit of historical trivia led me to create a forest of giant evergreens on Winter Haven, a vestige of the forest that really did stand in Maine at one time. It also gave me the idea that cutting them down was a fatal mistake. Other ideas for the island and the village came from various places that exist in Maine. One influence was the tiny island of Criehaven, which is the outermost inhabited island in Maine as far as I know. I also called upon memories of Nantucket, even though it’s in Massachusetts. Maine once was a part of Massachusetts, so the same influences apply to both in early history.

 

TCM: You have an uncanny way of effectively exploring spiritual truth through stories that aren’t preachy or forceful. Instead, your writing encourages the reader to think and ponder the spiritual realm around us. How challenging is it to package spiritual truth in such unique and entertaining ways without force-feeding your audience?

 

AD: I mentioned before that I usually start with a theme and then go looking for a story that explores that theme. That’s the reverse of how most authors go about it. Most start with a story idea, sort of a “what if?” scenario, or else with a character who intrigues them, and then they let the characters or the plot lead them to a theme. I’ve heard novelists say they don’t really know what a story is going to be about when they start writing. They just figure out the theme as they write. In some ways I think that might be easier, because you can let your characters do pretty much whatever they want to do, so long as it’s interesting, and you don’t have to worry about what it all means. Unfortunately, while that’s easier, you also risk ending up with a story that doesn’t mean much of anything. Then if you want it to mean something, you’re tempted to go back and layer on that meaning superficially, like icing on a cake, rather than mixing it in from the start. I figure if I’m going to invest the time it takes to write a novel—it takes me about a year to do it right—I ought to go for something beyond simple entertainment. I want to write stories that help the reader grow a little, or become a better person. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with reading purely for pleasure. Hopefully there’s a lot of pleasure to be had in the novels I write. I’m just saying why not try to leave the reader with a little gift, as well, a little something they can take with them when they go? So in order to do that I need to be thinking about it from the very beginning, otherwise there is a risk of becoming preachy, or too forceful with it, as you said.

 

TCM: Let’s look at the flip-side of that for a moment. You faith is clearly evident in you writing. How has your writing informed your faith? 

 

AD: One part of the answer has to do with being obedient. At the risk of sounding corny or over-spiritualizing it, I have felt from the start that I’m supposed to write these novels. I mean, it’s very, very difficult to break into publishing, to get a novel published. Some people get advanced degrees related to writing and then try and try to get a publisher to accept a novel. For years they try and never succeed. It’s not necessarily about perseverance or talent. Lots of very talented writers work very hard but never see their novels in print. On the other hand, I got published almost without trying. I was an architect who wrote a book in his spare time. I never did the formal things you do to get published. Writing was just an interesting creative exercise for me and I was planning to leave it at that. But through a series of so-called “coincidences”, that first novel came to the attention of a very reputable house, and now here I am, writing novels full time. The odds against it are staggering. So I feel very strongly that writing is an obligation, something I was called by God to do, and when I write, I am being obedient to that call.

 

Another aspect to it is the sense of spiritual growth I feel through writing. The themes I explore in novels need a lot of thought. It’s no good writing about something until you understand it. That’s why we see so few really excellent young novelists, by the way. Most people need to live about half a lifetime before they know enough to write about life on a level beyond simple storytelling. But getting back to theme and spirituality, thinking about these things in advance is only a beginning. The narrative process itself allows a writer to enter into ideas on levels not possible through more literal means. I’m talking about something that happens to the writer, not necessarily to the reader. Literature is art, after all, and art is all about exploring things one cannot enter any other way, things that stand beyond mere logic. So even if I believe I already understand a spiritual theme before I write, I certainly come to know much more about it personally as I write, because the writing itself is a form of personal exploration, a way to dig into it on levels one cannot reach through study alone.

 

TCM: Walk us through a typical writing day for Athol Dickson. Are you a methodical writer or do you prefer to let the story come to you?

 

AD: Being an author who starts with theme means I go searching for the story, rather than letting it come to me. I’m very systematic about the plotting and characterization process up until the time comes to begin exploring it on the artistic level. I tend to build the plot up the way an architect designs a building. There’s a thing called “architectural programming,” which is nothing at all like programming a computer. It’s about approaching a design with a statement of the fundamental problem, then breaking that problem down into its constituent parts, then solving those constituent problems one by one, then reassembling the solutions to find you have replied to the over-arching problem with an answer that works on every level. I learned that process in college, used it for many years in my architectural practice, and I’m still using it now as a novelist.

 

As far as a typical day goes, it’s probably a lot like yours, or anyone else’s who has a full-time job. I wake up, brush my teeth and so forth, and then sit down to work. At lunch time I stop and eat. I often take a nap after lunch. I love naps! I tend to sleep only five or six hours at night, then make up for it in the afternoon. Then it’s back to work for a few more hours. I try to put in eight to ten hours of work a day, although not all of that is actual writing. There’s also research to do, and a lot of writing related business, like this interview.

 

TCM: What types of stories have you not written that you are interested in exploring?

 

AD: I don’t know yet. For me, each story needs to be approached uniquely, as it comes, so I don’t have a list of future types of stories to tell. I think about thematic ideas in a general sense for future novels, and now and then I get the seed of a plot or character idea and think about exploring it one day, but I don’t really know what type of story a novel will be until it’s time to write it. This is why I have a little trouble telling people what kind of novels I write. In general, the publishers call my work “suspense,” which is fine with me because I always try to include a lot of tension in the story as a way to draw the reader in and hold her interest until the very end, but I don’t really think of myself as a suspense writer. I just write the stories and let other people figure out what type they are.

 

TCM: What are you working on now and we can we expect it?

 

AD:  The story I’m working on now has something of an epic feel. It covers many years and over a thousand miles, again for reasons that have to do with the theme. The three lead characters are a self-appointed missionary from Latin America who enters the USA illegally because she believes we Americans are a lost people in need of the gospel, a minister who steals to support the poor when rich people refuse to tithe, and a man who tries to build an exclusive community for Christians only. You can see I’m playing around with the idea of situational ethics. These people act against a setting that includes a plague, angelic intercession, and an undiscovered Spanish mission near Los Angeles, California. It’s a wild story, and sometimes it feels like herding cats, but I’ll pull it all together somehow. The working title is Lost Mission, but the publisher may want to change that title before it hits the shelves. They usually do. I think it will be out in late 2009.

 

TCM: I (Jake Chism) actually first discovered your writing when I randomly picked up a copy of Whom Shall I Fear at the library several years ago. I quickly devoured it and the sequel. Any plans to revisit this series in the future?

 

AD: It’s possible. I still feel like I know Garr Reed and Mary Jo, the lead characters from that novel and Every Hidden Thing, so I might drop in on them again one of these days.

 

TCM: I love hearing an author’s “take” on the publishing world. Some sugar coat their answers while some are surprisingly candid. Give us the hard truth here….what’s it really like being a published novelist?

 

AD: You know, this is a little like asking a guy to talk about his boss at a company picnic. You’re not going to get too many authors willing to voice complaints about their publishers in public, because publishers hold the purse strings. But honestly, I think it’s like any other business. You run into some stinkers and some great people, some who really care about the work and others who just don’t seem to understand what matters. The process itself takes some getting used to. Most people have no idea how long it takes to get a finished novel into print. Anywhere from six to eighteen months can pass from the moment the author sends off the final draft until the day it hits the shelves. Depending on how quickly you write, it’s possible to finish several other novels while you wait for one to come out. That can be kind of weird for an author, because you send one off and start another, then after a long time has passed the other one is suddenly out there on the shelves and you’re doing interviews about it and trying to remember what the novel was about. But I wouldn’t call this a “hard truth,” and it’s certainly not a complaint. It’s just the way things are.

 

TCM: Who are you reading right now? What writers have inspired you the most over the years?

 

AD: I just finished re-reading all of William Buckley’s novels, kind of as a memorial to him since he just passed away. Last night I started an old John Gardner novel. I forget the title. It’s about Sherlock Holmes’ arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty. I like to read pulp fiction like that. I also like to read the classics, but I don’t read very much modern literature. I worry about becoming derivative with my work. Nobody can write a truly original story, of course, but I figure the less I know about what other people are writing right now, the more likely I’ll be as original as possible. I do owe a lot to Flannery O’Connor. She gave me the freedom to write about people who are very large in the psychological sense, people out on the edge of human behavior. Also, I’ve learned a lot from Walker Percy. His novels have some very strange plots but they somehow manage to seem like normal stories in the world as it is, rather than drifting off into fantasy or surrealism. Walker Percy is to plots what Flannery O’Connor is to characters. I admire the way they both manage to inject the bizarre into an otherwise normal world. I try to do the same. Another author I admire, Toni Morrison, has that same kind of magically realistic quality in much of her fiction. Her Song of Solomon was a very strong influence on my work.

 

TCM: What advice do you wish someone had given you when you first began your writing career?

 

AD: I learned most of the hard lessons in my first career in architecture, so fortunately I’ve been able to bypass the worst mistakes in writing. Probably the most important thing as a novelist—and this applies to lots of other things, not just writing—is to stay true to your vision of what you want to do, while being flexible on everything else. Don’t become distracted by money or marketing or what anyone else thinks you ought to write about. Write from the heart. But there has to be a balance to that, as with all of life. You also have to let good editors help you hone your craft. You have to remember that your vision and your craft are two different things. Your vision is yours alone; it comes from your unique way of being, and no one can improve it. But craftsmanship is external to you, so you should always be open to suggestions for improvement in that area. For example, when an editor suggests that you should trim a chapter by a few hundred words, ask yourself if it’s possible to do that without ruining the basic thing you’re trying to do in that chapter. Can you tell it more precisely? If you can, then you should cut those words. Pretty words are nice, but too much sugar spoils the dish. Know the difference between your craft and your vision, and be willing to change the one, but not the other.

 

TCM: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer some of our questions. Any final thoughts?

 

AD: If anyone wants to learn more about me or my work, they can check out my website at www.atholdickson.com , or my blog at http://whatatholwrote.blogspot.com/ . This was fun. Thanks!