JOHN DEMPSTER: We’re all characters in a story by a higher power
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Character creation, plotting, “world-building”… I might have loved the creative writing holiday being run for school students at the end of January by Inverness enthusiasts Geoff Todd and Lindsey Stirling.
I was an enthusiastic scribbler as a teenager – stories and poems flowed freely from the tip of my biro.
The event, at Alltnacriche near Aviemore is part of Scripture Union (SU) Scotland’s programme of holidays for young people. These events feature lots of adventurous activities, including archery and zipline, and an opportunity to explore Christian faith and to get to know others who love God.
The January holiday emphasises creative writing, and the joy of hearing and telling stories. Lindsey (day job, archaeologist) is author of the fantasy novels Eagle’s Guard and Eagle’s Path. As a child Lindsey loved going on SU events for the fun activities and community and often longed to combine this with her other, more solitary, passion for writing. So she’s helped set up the Alltnacriche event for similar people.
Geoff (a software entrepreneur) tells me, that the event will give folk a chance to spend time with others who love books and discover more about storytelling from a group of story-loving leaders experienced in writing, illustration and animation. These leaders are all awake to the big story, the story God is telling, in which we, as God’s characters inhabit a God-crafted stage.
But in fact, I’m not sure if I’d have benefited from attending. Many of the pieces I wrote as a teenager were very dark, reflecting my fear that I was forever excluded from God’s story.
I felt wistful when an ad for Geoff and Lindsey’s event mentioned cosy conversations sitting beside the crackling fire at Allnacriche. I suspect teenage me, afraid that I’d nothing to share, would have lurked in a corner somewhere, reading, alone, sad.
Lindsey’s novels give me the impression that she loves storytelling, loves her characters as they come alive in her mind and on the page. What I needed to hear as a young person was that I had a place in the drama and was cherished by the playwright.
At Allnacriche they’ll also be looking at the Bible, which young people might see as simply a list of rules or a source of moral values. They’ll explore the fine writing it contains: moving poems, unforgettable characters, the brilliantly-structured stories of Jesus.
Imagine you could
enter the story you’re creating, the world you’re forging, becoming a character on your own stage, explaining to those you meet that you created them, you know them intimately, you love them.
Imagine Jesus, sitting beside the crackling fire at Alltnacriche, smiling in welcome as you hesitantly approach, assuring you that you’re his poem, his masterpiece.
