The Paradise Trap

It’s been interesting, over the last few years, to see how the climate of JW fiction has evolved. Before I wrote All Things New, I’d read some short stories by other Witnesses about paradise and the resurrection. Some were only a page or two, while others went on for a few thousand words. (To my knowledge, there were no full-length paradise novels available prior to 2013, but if I’m wrong about this please feel free to comment below.) Since 2013 however, a whole slew of JW authors has emerged, each with their own take on what life in the new world might be like.

Despite the increase in authors, though, it seems that many paradise stories fall into a similar pattern. It goes like this: a character shows up in the new world (the Guest) and is introduced to  various aspects of paradise life by a personal guide (the Mentor), who explains why and how things are the way they are.

The reason for setting the story up this way is obvious: the Guest becomes a stand-in for the reader, who has been thrown into this fictional version of paradise, and whom the writer assumes must be curious about each aspect of life, and thus the writer goes about explaining things as carefully and as detailed as possible, doing so through the Mentor.

Yes, this is precisely what I did for my first novel. Mitch Hanson was the Guest, and the various characters he met and interviewed along the way became his Mentors. And no, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this premise. In fact, you’ll find the same set-up in much of popular and classic fiction.

But there is a trap, so writers beware. Because if the author isn’t careful, the book can easily turn into a lengthy exposition about their version of the future. Instead of a story, it reads like a series of small essays in which the author explains why he or she feels paradise will be a certain way. Instead of focusing on the story, the characters, and the underlying themes, the writer finds himself or herself contriving all sorts of scenarios in order to shoehorn in various conversations about why the resurrection has occurred in a certain way, or why technology does or doesn’t exist, or why some other element of paradise life has defied common expectations.

Again, I speak from experience. When I wrote All Things New, I knew that there were some ideas I really wanted to talk about, and so I went about squeezing them into the story via dialogue between the Mentors and the Guest, or debriefings, or found documents, or whatever else I could think of. And at the time, this felt novel and exciting. Looking back, I realize this is pretty much the go-to for stories set in paradise. But can these lengthy forms of exposition be sufficient to hold up the framework of the stories they are trying to tell? Sometimes.

This isn’t to say that these stories won’t find readers; I believe they will. I think Witnesses will always enjoy reading about various versions of paradise, regardless of how compelling the stories at their cores are. However, it’s my suspicion that many readers have begun to tire of novels and novellas that are beginning to feel a bit like soapboxes for the authors’ personal visions of the future.

I think one of the most difficult challenges of writing is not knowing what to write, but what not to write. Over-exposition is the demise of many a budding author. It can be painful to cut and trim and edit out beloved chunks of dialogue, explanation, background info, and all those other bits that spent so much time marinating in the author’s head. But for real, grounded stories, cutting and trimming is exactly what must be done.

So if you’re writing a paradise novel, here’s my challenge to you: just tell the story you want to tell. Refrain from explaining and defending every aspect of your version of the new world. Try not to build your story around explanations.

Remember, even though this is all based on future realities, we’re ultimately writing fiction.