Simplicity vs. sophistication in mystical fiction, part 1

Making an impression vs. touching the heart, with some notes on stories attuned to modern times

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In my early post Mystical realism: Motivations, inspirations, and opportunities, I describe how the impetus for Deus in Fabula was a trusted friend’s comment on the apparent lack of, to rewrite the statement a bit, “simple, devotional stories, attuned to modern times, that inspire people to seek God.” Assuming that there is some kind of market for such stories, this shortfall becomes an opportunity. That opportunity, in turn, calls for which greater clarity around what those stories might actually look like in practice. Hence the Deus in Fabula tagline, “A quest for spiritual, devotional, and mystical realism.”

Other posts have already discussed the spiritual, devotional, and mystical aspects of this search (see the recent round-up for relevant links). What’s next, then, is an exploration of the key words and ideas in that original seminal phrase as they apply to the written word:

• Simplicity in stories (vs. complexity or literary “sophistication”)

• Attunement to modern times

• The nature of “inspiration”

• What it means to “seek God”

Truly, the phrase as I wrote it in the first sentence above contains only thirteen words— just three (plus one) for each idea—each triplet worthy of a fuller exploration. That’s what we’ll begin in this post, starting with the part about attunement to modern times, then delving into simplicity and its relationship to inspiration, which will continue in the next post. Posts on “seeking God” and the nature of inspiration will then follow.

Photo by Sarah Dorweiler on Unsplash

Attunement to modern times

A story that’s “attuned to modern times” primarily means a story with a contemporary setting. Mystical realism, as I’ve discussed before, implies that such stories are set in the here-and-now real world with people like those living today navigating their way through situations that readers are likely to encounter in some way themselves. This kind of realism helps readers visualize themselves within the story and thereby feel that the story is relevant to their own lives. Relevance, then, helps the story’s message be meaningful and inspiring to those readers, by which I mean that it can help them to see the world we live in with new eyes and to potentially make different choices than they have in the past.