Monthly Archives: May 2023

WINGSPREAD Ezine for June, 2023


Spreading your wings in a perplexing world
June 2023                                              James P. Hurd

Please freely forward and share this E-zine with others. Thank you.

Contents

  • Blessed Unbeliever published!
  • Writer’s Corner
  • New story
  • This month’s puzzler
  • Wingspread Ezine subscription information
  • Wisdom

New Novel: BLESSED UNBELIEVER 

 

I am happy for the people and libraries that have secured their copy of Blessed Unbeliever.

Sean McIntosh lives in a California world of Fundamentalist certainty—until his whole world unravels. He loses his girlfriend and loses his dream of becoming a missionary pilot. And he’s shaken by contradictions and mistakes he finds in the Bible. His missionary zeal languishes, then morphs into religious doubt as he sinks into unbelief and commits a blasphemous act after declaring himself an atheist—all the while at Torrey Bible Institute! But Grace pursues.

Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o  or wherever good books are sold.

Writer’s Corner

Tips for writers: “WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW.” Much better when writing fiction to “mine” you own life: places you’ve been (e.g., Amsterdam), experiences you’ve had (e.g., caught in a hurricane), people you knew (e.g., a bully or a teacher or a boss). Fictionalize this raw material for your own writing. Drill down to the details—this will draw your reader into your fictional world.

Word of the Month:  BRICOLAGE. A woven fabric or a mosaic of many different items fashioned into a new whole. One thinks of a tapestry or a mobile. Each detail is a piece of your puzzle that will create a beautiful, surprising, coherent whole.

Book of the month: C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. The best apology for Christianity that I’ve seen. C.S. Lewis, most known for his Narnia Tales (beginning with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), was also a brilliant apologist.

Question from last month: Who is the most interesting fictional character you’ve ever read about? I like Cadfael, a twelfth-century Benedictine monk from Ellis Peters’ “Cadfael Chronicles” series. Smart crime sleuth, socially fluent, compassionate, spiritually deep, he is a Crusader who later took the Benedictine cowl and became a monk in Shrewsbury, England.

A new GPS for writers

New story: Crafting Gripping Dialogue

Elmore Leonard famously said that you should find all the parts of your writing that people tend to skim over—then delete them! But your readers will never skim over dialogue.

Why dialogue? Use dialogue to make the scene more immediate, vivid, in-the-moment. Use dialogue to reveal character, rather than having the narrator do it. Use dialogue to describe a scene—through the eyes of a character. Use dialogue to reveal conflict. Use it to reveal attributes of your characters—regional or ethnic identity, personality, temperament. Use it to reveal the thoughts of your character.

How to write compelling dialogue? Good dialogue never is a word-by-word transcription of the spoken word. But it needs to read as if it is. It should never seem contrived, made up. It should always be believable. How to do that? . . .  To read more, click here:  https://jimhurd.com/2023/05/31/crafting-gripping-dialogue/

(Leave a comment on the website and share with others. Thanks.)

This month’s puzzler

(Adapted from Car Talk Puzzler archives)

No Googling or websurfing to answer this one! This is a short historic puzzler. 

What is the capital of Liberia and why was the capital given that name?

 Good luck!

(Answer in next month’s Wingspread ezine.)

Last month’s puzzler: 

What is this sequence, and how would you complete it?

  • Juliet.
  • Kilo.
  • Lima.
  • Mike.
  • November.

Answer: These are letters in theInternational phonetic alphabet. It continues: Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra . . . Pilots use these to make a call number explicit, for example: “YVT-STP” becomes “Yankee Victor Tango — Sierra Tango Papa.”

Subscribe free to this Ezine  

Click here https://jimhurd.com/home/  to subscribe to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread Ezine, send an email to hurd@usfamily.net and put in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.

Wisdom 

My wife asked me to help prepare our 4-year-old for his first day at school….
….So I stole his lunch.

Whenever it rains, my wife just stands at the window looking sad….
….Do you think I should let her in?

If anyone knows how to fix broken hinges….
….My door is always open.

There’s nothing like a brisk fall morning….
….To keep me in bed till noon.

There’s no excuse for laziness….
….But if you find one, let me know.

What did the drunk driver die of?….
….Texting.

Where do you take someone who’s been injured in a peek-a-boo accident?….
….To the I.C.U.

Doctor: I’m sorry, I had to remove your colon….
Me Why

Did you know that before the crowbar was invented….
….Crows had to drink alone, at home.

Instant gratification….
….Takes too long.

I admit that I live in the past….
….But only because the housing is so much cheaper.

If you are not yelling at your kids….
….You are not spending enough time with them.

Only in America …….do drugstores

make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their

prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the

front.

___________________________________

Only in America …….do people order

double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

___________________________________

Only in America ……do banks leave

vault doors open and then chain the pens to the

counters.

___________________________________

Only in America ……do we leave cars worth

thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

___________________________________

Only in America ………..do we buy hot dogs

in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

___________________________________

Only in America …….do they have

drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

___________________________________

EVER WONDER ….

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?

___________________________________

Why can’t women put

on mascara with their mouth closed?

___________________________________

Why don’t you ever see the headline: ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’?

Crafting Gripping Dialogue

Elmore Leonard famously said that you should find all the parts of your writing that people tend to skim over—then delete them! But your readers will never skim over dialogue.

Why dialogue? Use dialogue to make the scene more immediate, vivid, in-the-moment. Use dialogue to reveal character, rather than having the narrator do it. Use dialogue to describe a scene—through the eyes of a character. Use dialogue to reveal conflict. Use it to reveal attributes of your characters—regional or ethnic identity, personality, temperament. Use it to reveal the thoughts of your character.

How to write compelling dialogue? Good dialogue never is a word-by-word transcription of the spoken word. But it needs to read as if it is. It should never seem contrived, made up. It should always be believable. How to do that?

Use oblique dialogue. Dialogue should not be predictable: “How are you?” “I’m fine.” Rather,

“Why did you come late to the party?”

“I was hoping to see you here! When did you arrive”

“I wasn’t even going to come, but I’m glad I did.”

Note that the speakers do not immediately or directly answer questions.

Use tone in your dialogue. Formal or informal? Contractions and shorter words indicate a more informal speech. It’s less organized; it jumps around more.

Use conflict dialogue. Readers will not be patient with dialogue that merely reflects good manners. Even close friends or spouses have occasional conflicts. Add conflict and disagreement to your dialogue.

Use ethnic dialogue. Rather than tedious, forced artificial spellings of special words, sparingly choose a few words or phrases. Enough to give just a hint of regionalism. “Californier” to indicate a Boston accent. Use “y’all” to indicate a southern dialect. Or “acts” to reveal an African-American pronunciation of “ask.” Use special regional constructs: “They been,” “they be,” “they was,” “he were.”

Use internal dialogue. How represent the thoughts of a character? If you describe the thought, no special treatment is needed. But if you are “quoting” the thoughts you have several alternatives:

  • Use quote marks around the thoughts: “I’m in trouble,” he thought.
  • Put the thoughts in italics. I’m in trouble, he thought.
  • Do neither: I’m in trouble, he thought. -or- He wondered, Did Sally know what her mother had done?

I do not recommend the first. My editors prefer the second. I prefer the third, but it is a little harder to do.

Punctuation in dialogue? Just a few rules:

  • Should always open and close quote marks.
  • Punctuation goes inside of, not outside of, the quote marks.
  • A new speaker should always have a new paragraph.

You can take a ho hum piece and add vivid dialogue—your readers will love it.

WINGSPREAD Ezine for May, 2023


Spreading your wings in a perplexing world
May 2023                                                    James P. Hurd

Please forward and share this E-zine with others. Thank you.

Contents

  • Blessed Unbeliever published!
  • Writer’s Corner
  • New story
  • This month’s puzzler
  • Wingspread Ezine subscription information
  • Wisdom

BLESSED UNBELIEVER 

It’s exciting to see the interest in Blessed Unbeliever, a novel about religious zeal that morphs into religious doubt, and the persistence of pursuing grace.

Sean McIntosh lives in a California world of Fundamentalist certainty—until his world unravels. He’s trying to make sense of losing his girlfriend and losing his dream of becoming a missionary pilot. And he’s shaken by contradictions in the Bible. His despair leads him to commit a blasphemous act and declare himself an atheist—all the while at Torrey Bible Institute!

Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers https://tinyurl.com/27pvdkyp , Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.

Writer’s Corner

Punctuation matters!

Word of the Month:  EN MEDIA RES. Latin, meaning “in the middle of things.” It is effective to start a story, not at the beginning, but en media res, just before or just after the climactic event. Then you can fill in the details as the story unfolds.

Tip of the month:  “If it sounds like ‘writing,’ I rewrite it.” Elmore Leonard. Our readers should be captured by the story, not impressed by “the writing.” Writing is only the container, the medium that carries the story to the reader.

Your turn: Who is the most interesting character you’ve ever read about, biographical or fictional? (I like Sherlock Holmes. He is hilarious, but he doesn’t know that.)

This month’s puzzler

Adapted from Car Talk Puzzler archives

I’m going to give a series of names, a series of words, okay?

I’m going to give you a piece of the series, a sub-set of words, and your task will be to give me the rest of the series and tell me what the series is. 

And here they are: 

  • Juliet.
  • Kilo.
  • Lima.
  • Mike.
  • November.

And that’s it. That’s all I can give you. Pretty rough one huh? Good luck.

(Answer in next month’s Wingspread ezine.)

Last month’s puzzler: 

Recall that Ralph, an auto mechanic, can’t seem to get through airport security. He empties all his pockets, even takes off his belt, but still sets off the alarm. The TSA guy asks, “What’s your work?” Ralph replies, “Auto mechanic.” “Ah; that explains it!” says the TSA guy. What did the TSA guy realize?

Answer: To protect his feet, Ralph wore steel-toed boots—which set off the alarm. Removing them, he zipped through security.

New story: “Fearful of Finding the Fatal Flaw”

. . . In short, I became a Bible nerd. My faith depended on big words: dispensationalism, eternal security, election, the millennium, pre-Tribulational rapture and especially inerrancy. We sang, “The Bible stands, like a rock undaunted, far above the wrecks of time. . . .” The Bible was without error (in the original). . . . But I despaired of finding the answers I was seeking. I even considered becoming an atheist. . . .

To read more, click here: https://jimhurd.com/2023/05/03/fearful-of-finding-the-fatal-flaw/

(Leave a comment on the website and share with others. Thanks.)

Subscribe free to this Ezine  

Click here https://jimhurd.com/home/  to subscribe to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread Ezine, send an email to hurd@usfamily.net and put in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.

Wisdom

Last football wisdom (I promise!)

What does the average Alabama player get on his SATs? 
Drool.

How many Michigan State freshmen football players does it take to change a light bulb? 
None. That’s a sophomore course. 

How did the Auburn football player die from drinking milk? 
The cow fell on him. 

Two Texas A&M football players were walking in the woods. One of them said, ” Look, a dead bird.” 
The other looked up in the sky and said, “Where?” 

What do you say to a Florida State football player dressed in a three-piece suit? 
“Will the defendant please rise.”

How can you tell if a Clemson football player has a girlfriend? 
There’s tobacco juice on both sides of his pickup truck. 

What do you get when you put 32 Kentucky cheerleaders in one room? 
A full set of teeth. 

University of Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh is only going to dress half of his players for the game this week. The other half will have to dress themselves. 

How is the Kansas football team like an opossum? 
They play dead at home and get killed on the road 

How do you get a former University of Miami football player off your porch? 
Pay him for the pizza.

These exquisite insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to four-letter words.

1. “He had delusions of adequacy ”
Walter Kerr

2. “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
Winston Churchill

3. “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” Clarence Darrow

4. “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

5. “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
(Ernest Hemingway about William Faulkner)

6. “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
Moses Hadas

7. “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
Mark Twain

8. “He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
Oscar Wilde

9. “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one.”
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

10. “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.”
Winston Churchill, in response

11. “I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here”
Stephen Bishop

12. “He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
John Bright

13. “I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
Irvin S. Cobb

14. “He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”
Samuel Johnson

15. “He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.
Paul Keating

16. “He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
Forrest Tucker

17. “Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
Mark Twain

18. “His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
Mae West

19. “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde

20. “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts… for support rather than illumination.”
Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

21. “He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
Billy Wilder

22. “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But I’m afraid this wasn’t it.”
Groucho Marx

23. Exchange between Lady Astor & Winston Churchill:
Lady Astor: If you were my husband I’d give you poison.
Churchill: Madam: If you were my wife, I’d drink it.

24. “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”  Abraham Lincoln

25. “There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
Jack E. Leonard

26. “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
Thomas Brackett Reed

27. “He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.” James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

Fearful of Finding the Fatal Flaw

My pious mother and father helped start Silver Acres Church (Santa Ana, California) and immersed us in weekly Sunday school, countless Fundamentalist sermons, and an arsenal of memorized Bible verses. In short, I became a Bible nerd. My faith depended on big words: dispensationalism, eternal security, election, the millennium, pre-Tribulational rapture and especially inerrancy. We sang, “The Bible stands, like a rock undaunted, far above the wrecks of time. . . .” The Bible was without error (in the original).

Pastor Cantrell preached, “If you question inerrancy you question God. The doctrine of inerrancy rests, not on examining the text, but on the belief that God would never allow mistakes.” It made good sense—if God wrote the Bible, how could it contain errors?

The summer of my sixth grade I attended Pine Valley Christian camp. Being a Bible nerd I often launched frivolous questions at our speakers. What was the first mention of baseball in the Bible? (the Big-inning). First mention of smoking? (when Rachel lit off her camel). Shortest person in the Bible? (Eliphaz the Shuhite). You get the idea.

I asked one speaker: “Where’s the first mention of tennis in the Bible?” He didn’t know. I told him, “When David served in Saul’s court.”

He was not amused. “Son, you should not make fun of the Bible. It’s God’s holy word.” I turned away, chastened. Silver Acres and Pine Valley taught me that the Bible did not, could not have any mistakes in it—inerrancy on steroids.

Later, I enrolled in Moody Bible Institute. Impersonal Chicago intimidated me, although I felt comfortable behind the sacred gates of Moody’s big stone arch that fronts LaSalle Street. I expected that by studying my inerrant Bible at Moody I would find the answers to my nagging questions: How understand my loneliness? Lack of friends? My social awkwardness? But I was disappointed and sank further into depression.

I feared I would find one fatal, unanswerable flaw in the Bible that would bring my whole faith crashing down.  I consulted my roommate George: “I’m really confused. The numbers don’t agree. I Kings 7:26 says that Solomon’s basin held two thousand baths, while II Chronicles 4:5 says it held three thousand baths. Were these two different basins? Did Solomon have four thousand horse stalls (I Kings 4:26) or forty thousand  (II Chronicles 9:25)? Did Jesus’ sermon occur on the mountain (Matthew 5:1–2) or on the plain (Luke 6:17, 20)? Did Judas, Jesus’s betrayer, hang himself, or was he eviscerated in a field? Three of the Gospel writers list three different ‘last words’ of Jesus. They disagree about whether Jesus was two or three days in the tomb. Which of these is inerrant? All of them? And why doesn’t God answer my prayers?” George only nodded his head thoughtfully.

And the scientific contradictions. When Job states that God “hangs the earth on nothing” (Job 26:7), my teachers saw an ancient confirmation of modern science.  But elsewhere in the same book we learn that God “laid the foundations of the earth,” (38:4), a pre-scientific view.

My teachers pointed with approval to Isaiah’s phrase “the circle of the earth” as an example of ancient scientific knowledge (Isaiah 40:22). But when John mentions the “four corners of the earth” (Revelation 7:1) they protested that he was only using a metaphor.

I despaired of finding the answers I was seeking. I even considered becoming an atheist.

“Inerrancy” is a modern controversy. Even the great 16th century theologians John Calvin and Martin Luther allowed mistakes in the Bible. They treasured a God-inspired text in spite of the contradictions they found.

After college I was speaking at a graduate school where I suggested that the notion of Biblical inerrancy is a “shibboleth” (that is, a symbol, a code word to signal the difference between “us” and “them.”) To separate us from the people with the wrong doctrines. After the talk, the grand old man of the school took me aside and told me, “Inerrancy is not a shibboleth; it’s an essential doctrine of the Christian faith!” I felt like a Cub Scout in knee pants being scolded by his scoutmaster.

But eventually I turned again to read the Gospels where I discovered that inerrancy and other doubtful questions, while important, paled in the brilliant light of the man Jesus who had “nothing beautiful or majestic to attract us to him, did no wrong, was despised and forsaken, yet bore all of our weaknesses and sorrows.” Today, this man’s love, his words and his deeds, overwhelm any doubts that may trouble me.