Writing parallel
Asked by Berta Smith on April 7, 2020
Hi Jerry. First month here! I am writing my personal story of walking through cancer while pregnant at the age of 26. My title is, The Journey of Hair. My initial though is to use the stages of hair as a parallel to my spiritual walk of meeting God (baby hair and early childhood hair), walking through cancer with Him (bad hair cuts and hair experiments), and learning to continue the journey of faith afterwards (fresh and new hair). For the current market, would this parallel work? If so, should the stages of hair simply be a touch point and not a part of the foundation of the story? Losing my hair was the one thing I prayed daily to not happen, and it was the one thing God asked me for. I am learning my story needs to be reader focused, so I want to avoid using too much unnecessary personal connection to a single item and bore the reader. If it isn't impactful to the main point (God's faithfulness even when we don't understand), how much elaboration is acceptable? Thank you.
Jerry's Answer
First, Berta, welcome! Good to have you.
The tricky part of the kind of book you envision is -- as you imply -- keeping the reader with you. I think the parallel sounds fine, but your instints are right: don't let it become the main course. It will provide a framework, a skeleton to support the meat of the story.
And of course, while you're using your journey as the vehicle for your message, the message must be more about the reader than about you. In other words, the takeaway value has to be transferable principles, universal truth readers can apply to their own lives -- whether their issue is cancer or abuse or addiction, whatever.
You want them to come away with the idea that no matter what they're going through, they can endure it and come out victorious. And well-told, your story/theme/message won't even have to be didactically applied. They'll apply it themselves.
All the best with it.