Soul-Touching Stories: How to Recognize Them and Write Them

Last night I was moved to tears, broken and built up at the hands of a paperback novel with the cover torn off from years of being read and re-read. It was ten o'clock, a good hour after I usually would be getting to sleep, but my mind was awake as I quietly cried, shutting the book and taking a deep breath after reading the final words. I know this sounds like I was being dramatic, but once again The Warden and the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson had moved something deep within me, something I couldn't describe, something beyond mere emotions, something that was in my core and couldn't be seen by physical eyes. After reading the Wingfeather Saga books a trillion times, you'd think I'd finally stop being so stunned and moved by the ending. That's what I tell myself every time I pick up the first book, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, yet I always find myself pulled into the vivid writing, the emotions, the characters, and once again I find myself crying in my bed as I slowly shut the book and wonder why I feel this way about a bunch of words.

What makes a book good enough to touch someone's soul? Why, out of the hundreds of books I've read, do only a few rattle me so deeply? They spoke to my soul. The first time I uttered this explanation it sounded ridiculous. After all, a soul is a spiritual aspect of humans. A book is physical. I was a tad horrified that was all I could think of. Surely something like a book, no matter how well it was written, couldn't possibly do anything to anyone's soul! But the feelings for some stories go beyond what words can describe. I stayed up late that night, last night, thinking and praying, asking God if physical, earthly things such as books and music and nature could be soul-stirring. I did a lot of thinking, and it wasn't until early this morning the answer came at me like a baseball bat to the face. Okay, that last description was a tad dramatic.

On my shelf was another series I had read many times. Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer. The eight book series had much in common with the Wingfeather Saga: found family, real family loving and fighting and protecting each other, trust, honesty, loyalty. There were humorous scenes that made me laugh out loud, made my siblings cackle as I read the scenes out loud to them. There were sad scenes that made people cry, beloved characters dying, scenes that filled me with fear and hope and anger as the characters battled many great evils. There was a selfish protagonist learning about sacrifice, protecting others, facing the evil within himself and eventually making the ultimate choice at the climax of the last book. Both series, it is safe to say, are well written and wonderful stories.

Something was different about them though, other than the fact Janner Wingfeather wasn't an Irish criminal mastermind, and Artemis Fowl never had to fight a toothy cow from Glipwood. Artemis Fowl was a moving piece of work, but my soul remained, well, untouched. The story evoked many emotions, but nothing close to the wonder of the beauty of God that the Wingfeather Saga stirred in many a reader's heart. One story, though truly a masterpiece, was entertainment. The other was entertaining, certainly, but it struck a nerve beyond the physical emotions of reading a riveting tale. It was soul-stirring. That's the only word I can think of to describe it.

So what made one soul-stirring and other not? What made some books just entertainment, and what made others something that proclaimed God's majesty and the beauty of stories? After all, God made beauty. He made the wonder within humans that we display through art, music, writing, and much more. It kind of makes sense that some stories could touch one's soul if God made wonder and imaginations, which He did.

I thought about my own story. A fantasy novel trapped in a rough draft that gives me emotions ranging anywhere from depression when I think my writing will never improve, to the simple joy of writing a funny sentence. I figured that my story might eventually, with enough editing and a lot of changes in some areas, become a good story. A riveting one. Maybe even a masterpiece that makes some girl stay up until the late hours of the night trying to get to the last page. But it was definitely missing the aspect that touched the soul. Obviously I had to find that aspect so I could add it to my story. But what was it? This morning I realized just how long I had stayed up trying to figure this out, when I looked in the mirror and saw my bloodshot eyes. It wasn't a pretty sight, I'm afraid.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I figured out the answer, although I have a sneaking suspicion that God had more to do with my finding out than my mere mortal mind did.

What makes a book soul-stirring, my friends?

God. God creates our sense of wonder, and a story with God at its core has the power to touch someone's soul, their deepest self, that part of us that goes beyond emotions and sinks into who we are as creations made by a Creator who loves beauty and wonder.

So how do we write and/or recognize soul-stirring stories? Here are some questions I came up with to help point us in the right directions.

1. Is death the worst thing that could happen to your characters? If so, there may be a lack of hope. Once the reader closes the book, even if the good guys win, do they know, deep inside, that once the characters die there is no hope? Is there something beyond a few short decades of life? Is there something the characters can hope for even if they die fighting for their cause?

2. Are there spiritual aspects? Do the characters have a God, Maker, Creator that some believe in and others don't? Is there a deeper plot going on in the characters' souls, changing them spiritually? Like Janner in the Wingfeather Saga, do their souls shift from focusing on themselves to focusing on others?

3. If there is a spiritual aspect, do some things about it remain a mystery, or does everything get answered? There are some great Christian books that make the mistake of explaining everything. They leave nothing a divine mystery, removing the spiritual part of the spiritual world, which basically defeats the purpose of having a spiritual aspect in the first place. The characters get all the answers, the mysteries of the soul are explained in great detail, and suddenly it's not realistic anymore. In real life, we don't get all the answers. We don't understand everything about God and the spiritual world. When a book removes the mystery out of the spiritual parts of the story, it moves into the physical realm, where everything is eventually explainable. I get it, it's tempting to explain everything sometimes. In my first books I wrote (I don't know if a three page story at typed out on an ancient computer when I was nine counts as a real book, but that's what we're going with) I tried to explain everything about the characters' life after death, what they believed and how it all made sense, and basically forgot that God leaves many things a mystery for a reason. My stories strayed away from the mysteries of the soul and salvation by trying to explain it all, and it took out the sense of wonder in the story.

Well, this post has gone on for pretty long. A huge thank you to anyone who stayed with me the entire time to read it all. I'm not sure how much sense this will make, because my own thoughts on it are still new, and I'm sure there's much more I have to learn about spiritual aspects in stories and the wonder they can give- or take, if done improperly. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, so if you would like to leave a comment, go right ahead!

Until next time, y'all! -Serena Stellington