As the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grows in population, the culture of the church has grown with it until a locus of Mormon writers has coalesced. It was only a matter of time before the unique genre of Mormon fiction developed to satisfy the demand for reading entertainment that is both well-crafted and consistent with the distinctive features and beliefs of the Latter-day Saints.
My goal this semester was to discover what makes a written work good Mormon fiction. In order to determine this, I first had to settle on what constituted “Mormon fiction.” I found that the presence of several factors usually determined whether a work of fiction could be considered “Mormon” or not.
Firstly, “Mormon fiction” is usually written by a Mormon writer specifically for a Mormon readership. Mormon culture has its own jargon and phraseology for its institutions and beliefs, even the ones that are shared by other Christian denominations. If there was no explanation of unique Mormon terminology or beliefs and no attempt to convince the reader of the validity of the underlying assumptions inherent in those beliefs, then the work could be considered as written specifically for a Mormon audience. Explanation of doctrine and principles can be included in dialogue if it is directly related to the concerns of the characters.
Secondly, Mormon fiction has at least one major Mormon character or an equivalent. Mormon audiences hunger for a character they can identify with morally and ideologically, and Mormon characters are the most likely to satisfy that craving. The Mormon character then becomes a way for the Mormon audience to explore a plethora of situations vicariously and learn about choices in a sort of sandbox.
Thirdly, Mormon fiction incorporates gospel principles and practices into the plot as characters are shown to follow them or rebel against them. Characters pray, receive personal revelation, talk about the gospel, talk about the scriptures, give priesthood blessings, woo with the goal of eternal marriage in the temple, go to church, and live as Mormons do in real life. Secularism is usually not present except for in the story antagonists.
Lastly, in the end, the law of the harvest is followed; characters reap a reward according to their works—good for good and evil for evil—in the form of realistic consequences. (The consequences need not be immediate, but they must be there.) These factors are essential for fiction to be “good Mormon” fiction.
In my reading, I found that just because an author was Mormon didn’t necessarily mean that they were writing for a Mormon audience. Examples of this are Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Seventh Son. Ender’s Game doesn’t incorporate any Mormon characters and only mentions Mormonism in passing. Further, it doesn’t incorporate religious experience into the narrative. Seventh Son is harder to classify for several reasons. It is hard to tell whether it was written specifically for a Mormon audience because Mormon readers would recognize many elements from LDS church history woven into the story and would say that it is loosely based on the life of Joseph Smith Jr., while non-Mormon readers would not notice those elements. The story doesn’t have any Mormon characters in it, although it contains religious figures and religious experiences. It also incorporates some secularism, skepticism, and folk magic. In my opinion, these factors disqualify Seventh Son from being considered Mormon fiction. We can say that the above books qualify for the label “fiction by Mormons.”
However, it is not enough for fiction to have “good Mormon” qualities. It must also have “good fiction” qualities. This paper will compare and contrast a number of books by Mormon authors to determine what makes a piece of Mormon fiction into successful fiction.
Added Upon
Added Upon, by Nephi Anderson, takes as its overriding theme the entire gospel plan of salvation and seems to have all four elements of Mormon fiction. It has main characters who become Mormon, it incorporates gospel principles and practices, it follows the law of the harvest, and though it does a significant amount of explaining beliefs through the dialogue, it does this as part of scenes of missionary work.
However, a few things that prevented the book from becoming successful fiction for me were the artificiality of the missionary work, the distant treatment of the characters, the muting of conflict in some important places, the absence of conflict in others, and the lack of setting.
One of the things that makes the gospel preaching in Added Upon feel artificial is that Anderson has not established the deep need of the listening characters for the doctrine shared by the preaching characters. In real life, preaching occurs often without quite knowing ahead of time what the listeners need and can only be known by the Spirit. But in fiction, an author has the luxury of being able to create the need in his characters. Though doctrine about pre-mortality fits well into the book’s theme about the plan of salvation, Anderson fails to create the need for the gospel in his characters, so when they hear the gospel from other characters, their instant curiosity and acceptance of it seems contrived. This makes the missionary-type dialogue seem as if it is trying to convert the reader, rather than specifically addressing questions that the characters might legitimately have in their particular situation. Compared to the scripture discussions in Orson Scott Card’s Rachel and Leah and in Robison Wells’ Wake Me When It’s Over, the discussions in Added Upon don’t fit with the characters.
To Anderson’s credit, he successfully meshed the stories of the main characters, taking them from pre-mortality to post-mortality, but his character development leaves much to be desired, and this is probably due to the epic scope of his book. Since the pre-mortal section of the book is the first part, the distant and nearly anonymous treatment of the characters makes it very difficult for me as a reader to care about them. During the mortality section of the book, the most interesting descriptions are reserved for scenes that become life turning points, which give it the feeling of a family history narrative. Unfortunately, a number of traits of the characters seem undeveloped, and when they come into play, they are a total surprise to me. Rupert Ames is presented as a sturdy and upright character, and when he suffers complete financial downfall, it seems unbelievable. If this were successful modern fiction, Anderson would have sprinkled in little foreshadowing signs of this coming collapse. (In Rachel and Leah, by contrast, Rachel’s reluctance about her upcoming marriage is appropriately built up so that her sudden fearful tantrums on her marriage night are totally believable.)
Even more odd, however, is the fourth part of the story in which the characters of the previous three parts only seem to play a very nominal part and are not directly identified. Anderson expects me as a reader to figure out who is who. This literary “Where’s Waldo” becomes tiresome and gives it the feeling of Hindu reincarnation rather than Mormon knowledge and intelligence rising with the reader into the next life with the same associations that existed in this life.
Another aspect that prevents Added Upon from becoming successful fiction is the dampening and muting of conflict. For instance, in the pre-mortal section, the war in heaven is depicted in such a tame way that it seems like a discussion instead of a war. All is quiet and reasoned conversation--no shouting, no arguing, no barbed testimonies flying back and forth, no fear-mongering, no pleading, no propaganda-izing, no mudslinging. There is none of the viciousness amongst the rebellious spirits that would be part of a war for souls. I thought it could be depicted more successfully if it were modeled after modern political campaigns. The conflict in Rachel and Leah between the sisters, though set in mortality, is much more realistic, exasperating as it is.
Similarly, there is a lack of meaningful conflict in the characters’ mortal lives after they accept the gospel. I don’t find this to be realistic Mormon life. If anything, struggles and opposition increases after a person joins the church as they must try to stay true to what they know. Rachel and Leah seems to successfully portray this as Leah becomes a calmer and less easily offended person yet still struggles with her handicap and with her feelings for Jacob on the eve of his marriage to Rachel.
Another factor that prevents Added Upon from becoming successful fiction is its lack of setting in the pre-mortal and post-mortal sections. This gives it an ethereal and unreal feeling. I wanted to be able to have a mental picture of the character in a particular place, so I was rather disappointed by this. I think that this story could have been made more successful by including strong settings for all the sections.
The lack of character development, meaningful and deep conflict, and the sporadic treatment of setting prevents Added Upon from being a successful work of fiction, and its sermonizing without corresponding character need prevents it from being effective Mormon fiction.
Dating: No Guts No Glory
Dating: No Guts, No Glory, by Joni Hilton, has a strong Mormon character that lives gospel principles and follows the law of the harvest as the protagonist finds a good Mormon man to marry after keeping her standards through harrowing dating experiences. Most of the Mormon aspects in this book come from the character’s faithful involvement in church activity, internal dialogue shared with the reader, and conversations between characters applying the gospel to dating. The question of whether it is written for Mormon readership is a little more complex, however. There is a lot of explaining and justifying of various careful dating practices, but there are no attempts to explain or justify most gospel principles, so it seems to be written for Mormon readers.
One of the cleverest things about this book is that for the most part, it teaches dating principles through its scenes in fun ways. An outstanding example of this is the church-sponsored dating panel scene in which girls ask a few guys a number of questions about dating. The dialogue expresses many bits of helpful advice about dating in a down-to-earth way, and it is interspersed with plentiful humor and careful attention to descriptive non-dialogue elements that make it easy to visualize the scene. The dating action of the story is also advanced in this scene, so it does work for the plot of the story. This is very successful.
Unfortunately, toward the end of the book, Hilton seems to have run out of ways to disguise dating advice and there are sections where the story action seems to take a backseat to the sermon. However, since these places are far fewer than other places where it is done successfully, and since the author built up strong street credibility with the humorous voice of the writing, I as a reader am able to overlook it.
Other elements that only serve to enhance this book are the strong humorous voice and first person point of view, which engages me from the first page. This allows the narrator to speak to the reader and share opinions and commentary (and advice) about the things that happen. The humorous tone makes it seem very down-to-earth and prevents the advice from seeming out-of-place. I also liked that as the story progresses, the main character progresses in knowledge and wisdom as well, learning from previous mistakes and being careful to not repeat them. This makes the main character seem very realistic to me.
In both Dating: No Guts, No Glory and Rachel and Leah, there is a lot of reflection. Dating consists of the narrator talking to the reader, while Rachel and Leah has a lot of internal dialogue with the characters talking to themselves. In the end, Rachel and Leah seems more successful because the internal dialogue only lasts as long as the character can stand it, whereas in Dating, the narrator easily can overdo dishing out the advice to the reader, causing the story to take a backseat.
Both Rachel and Leah and Dating have characters with the goal of trying to get married in the new and everlasting covenant. It is interesting to compare the different approaches. In Rachel and Leah, the characters don’t really date and have their eventual spouse in front of them most of the time and it is only a question of how they will get together. The outcome is already known. In Dating, the main character has no idea who she is going to marry and dates a whole bunch of guys until she settles on a guy that she previously wouldn’t have anything to do with. Unfortunately, the getting-to-know-you part of the story is not as satisfying because of its relative shortness in comparison to the rest of the book. In Rachel and Leah it is a lot more satisfying because the characters are getting to know each other and learning to trust each other through most of the book.
Rachel & Leah
In Rachel and Leah, it is a little bit difficult to tell whether Orson Scott Card meant this book just for a Mormon audience or for a wider one. Writing about the matriarchs of the house of Israel as part of a narrative that is generally available and accepted by the world means that it could probably be appreciated by Mormons, other Christian denominations, and Jews. Mormon readers, however, are likely to be a little more comfortable with the impending prospect of Jacob’s polygamous marriage to Rachel and Leah (and eventually Bilhah and Zilpah).
Next we must consider whether Rachel and Leah fills the requirement that at least one of the characters be a Mormon or the equivalent. Since the significant characters are part of the everlasting covenant, which is a necessary part of Mormon beliefs, they can be considered a Mormon equivalent, even if the label “Mormon” wouldn’t exist for thousands of years.
Rachel and Leah incorporates a number of gospel principles into the story, such as things to look for in a spouse in order to have a good marriage, ways to read and interpret scripture, and how actions can lead to morality or immorality. The reader can see how these principles are followed (and sometimes not followed) and observe the consequences, which are realistic. The realistic consequences satisfy the Mormon fiction requirement of following the law of the harvest, so we can finally say that it fulfills the four requirements of Mormon fiction.
The main thing that made this story highly successful to me was the very close third person point of view that allowed the narrator to get right into the heads of the main characters. There is a lot of internal dialogue and thinking that I found very interesting. The reflective philosophical aspect creates a strong psychological effect that I personally would put in the same class as Shakespeare and Jane Austen. One could easily imagine translating the internal dialogue into a stage soliloquy. This is very understandable, considering Card first got his start writing plays.
Some other elements made this book successful as well. One of the difficulties with this story is that the reader already knows how the end turns out, so the reader’s interest has to be held by everything that happens in the middle. The book succeeds at this. Card crafts a unique character for each of the future wives of Jacob and gives each of them a strong voice and strong needs and desires. He does this by splitting the story between each of their viewpoints. He also sets up a number of different conflicts based upon those characters, and the effect of this was that I as a reader was eager to see how everything would work itself out. The best thing was that I was not disappointed; the resolution was wonderfully satisfying even though it was bitter-sweet.
Not only this, but I loved how Card incorporated ideas about good marriage, scripture reading, and moral living into the story and made them part of the characters’ conversations. The characters ask difficult questions of each other—like why people are born with handicaps and how to tell if a scripture applies to you or not—and really explore the options in a way that is both spiritually challenging and faith-promoting. The effect was inspiring and enlightening without being preachy because the characters were struggling with those issues and felt the need to think, learn, and discuss them with others.
One thing that I had trouble with in the story was how Card made Zilpah’s character so incredibly determined to flaunt her body at every opportunity with an attitude of scorn and derision for the men she distracts. It was made so blatant and malicious that it actually became as distracting from the story as her actions were to other characters. It is possible that Card was trying to make a point to women about dress standards. (Likely he has had to avoid looking at too many plunging necklines, and he was so tired of that that he decided to try and get the message out using his fiction.) It is interesting to contrast this with The Secret Journal of Brett Colton in which the main character (non-Mormon) seems innocently gleeful about wearing “hot” dresses and getting attention from guys because of it, but is not scornful of the guys she attracts. In this respect, it seems that The Secret Journal of Brett Colton is more of a reflection of actual female attitudes and thus is more successful in this particular respect.
The Secret Journal of Brett Colton
In The Secret Journal of Brett Colton, Kay Mangum incorporates the four factors of Mormon fiction, one of which manifests itself in a surprising way. One of the factors requires that a main character be Mormon or an equivalent. Secret Journal fulfills this with a non-Mormon main character that eventually converts because of the efforts of a Mormon supporting character. (Also, the Mormon supporting character features in a significant portion of the story so that the non-Mormon parts are balanced.) This looking into Mormonism from the outside in is a fascinating twist for a story written by a Mormon. Mangum succeeded in making the main character seem believably non-Mormon in that when she has religious ideas and teachings directed at her, she is moderately respectful, but not immediately convinced. The main character can be sarcastic and occasionally irreverent, but never so much that a conversion seems impossible. Rather, we can see that conversion is gradually coming.
Secret Journal also fulfills in an interesting way the requirement that Mormon jargon and principles be taken for granted and only explained in response to a character’s need. The Mormon supporting character is always looking at things through a religious perspective and sharing what he sees just because that’s the way he is. He spouts Book of Mormon stories and doctrine from time to time in the story, and the reader gets the impression that he does it because he has to and he’s happy about it. It’s his need that is satisfied by it. Somehow this doesn’t come off sounding preachy because these sections are kept brief and the dialogue ends in realistic ways with an interruption of some sort (as often happens in real life, just when you think you are getting somewhere).
Secret Journal incorporates priesthood blessings, Relief Society compassionate service meals, seeking forgiveness, and ideas about faith into the story in a way that they become necessary to the plot. We also see how actions from many years ago can still bear fruit. The whole idea of Brett Colton keeping a secret journal for the little sister he loves for her to read on her sixteenth birthday is a very creative way to show the reader an example of the law of harvest.
The thing that makes this book so appealing to me is the underlying theme that runs throughout the book of how loving voices from the dust can change lives. The main character changes as she finds out from her dead older brother’s journal how much he loved her and she changes even more when she reads The Book of Mormon, which he marked up for her to read. Mangum constructs the plot in such a way as to give this theme the greatest possible impact and it is very moving.
Another notable thing was the visceral almost instinctive way that the main character reacts to the religious things she is told. The reader can tell that the main character is thinking about what she has heard, although it would have been nice to see more rumination. In comparison to this, Leah in Rachel and Leah is more reflective, and the reader sees all of the thoughts that go through her mind so that when there is a sudden change as Leah tries to be better, it seems a little more believable. (In order for a character’s change to seem believable, the most successful fiction seems to have a lot of thinking and questioning and struggling and even misery that is visible to the reader to the point that it becomes obvious that it is better for the character to change than stay the same.)
The Secret Journal of Brett Colton is similar to Dating: No Guts, No Glory in that the main characters end up with guys that they previously disliked. I felt that Secret Journal was the more believable and satisfying of the two because the interactions between the girl and the guy were depicted throughout the book, whereas in Dating, the interactions between the girl and guy were traced out only in a general way in the very last chapter. The relational depth in Secret Journal compared to the shallow treatment in Dating shows Secret Journal to be more successful.
Wake Me When It’s Over
Wake Me When It’s Over, by Robison Wells, is another story that satisfies the four factors of Mormon fiction. The two main characters are Mormon, understanding of Mormon phraseology and institutions is taken for granted, the characters incorporate gospel principles and practices (such as giving priesthood blessings, singing hymns, going to church, and discussing scriptures) in their lives as they deal with their challenges, and in the end we see that good comes of their determination to do what is right, so the law of the harvest is followed.
The main thing that got me excited about this book as I was reading was that Wells had two of his main characters discuss a passage of Isaiah and one of the characters explained what it meant to the other. Why was I so excited by this? Several reasons. The explanation was nearly word for word of part of a lecture I listened to in a BYU religion class on Isaiah given by Victor Ludlow. I felt an immediate connection with the author; we had had the same experience. Secondly, it pleased me to run across it unexpectedly in a work of fiction. Thirdly, it pleased me because the dialogue fit perfectly into the theme of the book and the action in the plot and satisfied the spiritual need of the character who listened to it. Something that also makes this stand out as special is that at least two other books—Seventh Son and On Second Thought—actually mentioned the Book of Isaiah and referred to it as confusing. Only Wake Me When It’s Over plunged into Isaiah, quoted it, and actually explained the quotation, and all in a way that wasn’t just a nod to the Mormon cultural confusion over Isaiah, but tried to alleviate it and apply it to the story!
There were some other aspects that pleased me and that seemed successful. Firstly, the characterization of the main character as self-deprecating and somewhat inadequate adds a lot of suspense to the story since it made me wonder how he is going to escape the difficult situations he is put into. Secondly, the antagonists of the story are very believable. All the things they do are consistent with trying to manipulate and intimidate the protagonists. Third, the beginning makes use of a braiding technique, jumping between tense scenes of kidnapping and scenes of back-story, and this moves the story quickly and also builds my knowledge of the characters. The contrast between the scenes is also skillful as it alternates between a dark, snowy night with physical discomfort and bright warm classrooms and secret crushes. I also liked how certain props and characteristics—pepper spray and double-jointedness—were set up early on and then cleverly incorporated into the story.
Unfortunately, there were also some aspects that I felt were not successful. I felt the description of scene was pretty sporadic. I didn’t get a very clear picture of where the characters were in their surroundings. Yet the author was always careful to describe the temperature. Warm or cold, I always knew it. The lack of scene caused the logistics of the action to seem confusing to me, so I couldn’t quite visualize what was happening in a way that made it seem believable. Further, toward the end of the story, I began to lose my grasp on why they were always running to and fro and what they were looking for. It changed from a “running-from-everybody” into a “searching-for-something” type of story.
I also did not find myself engaged by two of the main characters. I didn’t particularly care for the character of Rebekah. At times she aroused my pity, but I didn’t find her very compelling, probably because she always seemed so serious. The few times that she was laughing I didn’t find very funny. Also, the character of Isabella seemed to be both pretentious and self-defeating, even though Wells made her (accidently) the most powerful character in the book. Powerful and annoying. (In Rachel and Leah, Leah was an annoying character too, but over the course of the book she changed and became more lovable. Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for Isabella in Wake Me When It’s Over.)
Both Wake Me When It’s Over and The Secret Journal of Brett Colton had braided narratives. Wake Me mainly had it at the beginning to work back-story into the narrative while developing the plot, while Secret Journal had it in the middle over an extensive part of the book. The braiding of Wake Me seemed less successful because it seemed like it was contrived for the reader’s benefit for plot exposition, whereas the braided narrative in Secret Journal mimicked what the main character experienced as she read her older brother’s journal.
Even though there were some shining moments in this story, on the whole I didn’t find it quite as successful as a piece of fiction because of the plot, character, and setting problems.
Conclusion
To sum up, I found that Mormon fiction must incorporate four elements: it is written specifically for a Mormon audience who will understand the terminology, underlying principles, and institutions and not need an explanation, it contains at least one major Mormon character or an equivalent, it incorporates gospel principles as a necessary part of the plot, and it follows the law of the harvest with realistic consequences for the characters’ actions. Successful Mormon fiction tends to work those elements into the plot so deeply that the removal of one element unbalances the story.
Further, the literary elements must remain in balance. For instance, characters can puzzle over their problems and talk about them in depth with other characters, but reflection cannot be allowed to upstage the story, nor can the story be allowed to preclude reflection. As another example, character development must be consistent and engaging, and major character change must be sufficiently foreshadowed and built up. Impending marriages should be sufficiently built up with strong relationship exposition, and impending conversion should be built up, first with strong needs for truth and then with teaching that addresses those needs. Finally, conflict can be meaningful, even when involving good characters, and conflict solution cannot be allowed to solve all a character’s problems forever. Based on the many good things I found in the books I read, I have great hopes for the future of Mormon fiction; it promises to become a lively movement and is just beginning to come into its own.
