Timothy's Thoughts

C onfess your faults, one to another, James 5:16 tells us. I’m not sure when the Catholics first built their confessional boxes and made confession a requirement for salvation, but in modern times the confessional box often aids sagging plots in television shows by providing a place where the evildoer can talk about his crime without fear of the police learning of his crime. Of course, his confession is often overheard by someone standing nearby or by some recording device placed in the box. It’s all in good fun to make things more interesting. But before you go sticking confessional boxes in your stories, let’s look at the idea of confession a little closer. The Catholics have popularized the idea that confession is going and telling one’s sins to a priest. Protestants have turned around and said that it is God we should confess to and not to a priest. When we look at James 5:16, the phrase “one another” seems to indicate that confession is not limited to the sinner and the priest, b...

B ooks aren’t like television shows. The thing about television shows is that some people will watch them just because there isn’t anything else on. You’re tired and you want to watch some mindless entertainment. You want to watch it now, so you turn to the most interesting thing you can find that is on now. With books, people pick and choose. Occasionally, they’ll pick something up just because it is there, but someone had to make the decision that the wanted it in the first place. It’s interesting because television shows can get by with some of the worst plots. They’ll throw an episode in there that is nothing but clips from previous episodes. Usually, the main character is away somewhere and the supporting cast is remembering what a great person he is. Can you imagine if we tried doing that with books? Instead of writing a new book, we would just pull chapters from other books to tie together with some weak plot. No one would buy the book, but television producers don’t seem to t...

S uposedly, you're twice as likely to get a traditional publishing contract by self-publishing a manuscript than by getting an agent. While that may seem like it ought not be the case, I think it makes sense. People who self-publish are a different breed of people than the traditional author. The author who is willing to self-publish does so with the idea that he will have to do most of the work. So while some traditional authors are sitting around debating how much work the publishing company should be doing that they aren't, the self-published author is out selling books. The result is that the manuscript that some people thought wouldn't sell proves that it will. There isn't a publisher around who wouldn't prefer an author who can sell books over one who just wants to write books.

I read the other day that there is an elongated youth. It used to be that soon after high school, people began to be responsible productive members of society. They got jobs. They got homes. They married. They had children. But today, many people are waiting to do those things. And worse, I think, is that so many people don’t see themselves as being responsible. A woman in her forties got onto me the other day for calling her “Ma’am.” And many women don’t like to be addressed as “Mrs.”, saying that that is their mother-in-law’s name. I think it’s all sad. Even though I expect my parents have many good years left, I can see that they have reached age where they have begun to move away from the active involvement they once had. If the younger generations are not willing to take on the responsibility of adulthood, we will have a society of children and no progress will be made.

R ecently, Seth Godin wrote about why he is Moving On and no longer communicating through traditionally published books. In response to that post, Michael Hyatt wrote Why Most Authors Should Not Emulate Seth Godin . He made four arguments against it. While I don’t totally agree with Seth Godin, I don’t agree with Mike’s arguments either. I will address each in turn. Most authors can’t get directly to their readers. If you read the Godin article, this is part of the reason Godin is saying goodbye to traditional publishing. His statement is that the author doesn’t sell to the reader but to the publisher. Mike rightly says that Seth Godin has a much larger platform than most of us, but I disagree with his statement that most authors can’t get direct access to the readers. In fact, when we look at the way the publishing industry works, if an author can’t get direct access to the readers he can’t get a publishing contract either. Publishers have the expectation that authors will bring read...

W hat’s the difference between plot and what the story’s about? In some ways, it seems like we’re talking about two terms to describe the same thing, but in others it doesn’t. One of the frequently used plots in television shows is that of Twelve Angry Men . You will recall that this screen play is about twelve men in a jury room who are anxious to go home. All but one vote that the defendant is guilty and even the person who votes not guilty just doesn’t feel right about having a quick vote without examining the evidence. They begin to look at the evidence and one by one they change their votes until they leave the jury room satisfied that the defendant is truly innocent. I’m sure that most film students are required to study this script at some point in their college careers. That may explain why it appears in so many television series. But there is a difference in each case. Monk’s version of this skit is very different from The Dead Zone’s version of this skit and they are both ...

I really don’t expect that I’ll ever be an A-list author. And I’m fine with that. I’ve made some observations about a similar environment, that of preachers. There are a number of A-list pastors out there. You can hear most of them on the radio or read their books. Some of them are great speakers and provide great entertainment. They can attract thousands of people each week. But here’s the interesting thing, if someone were to ask me to name the best pastor living today there isn’t a single A-list preacher that would come to mind. Of course, my own pastor would come to mind, but if I broadened my field of view to include other churches, the pastors that would come to mind mostly pastor small churches. A few of the men that come to mind pastor larger churches, but none are A-list preachers. There is a simple truth that we so often forget. God uses people who are weak to accomplish his work in order to show himself strong. I truly believe that he has put some of his best men in some o...