Deifying the Prophets

by Sariah S. Wilson

My publisher has manuscripts reviewed by several time-tested readers who rate it and give their thoughts and suggestions. I got a recommendation from a fellow author to request those reader's comments as they would help me in editing my novel.

With my first novel, apparently my manuscript got read by one reader and went straight up the ladder. When I got the comments, my editor attached a note saying to take it with a grain of salt. I remember taking big gulps of air, terrified that I would be torn apart and my newbieness laid bare.

Instead, the review was extremely positive, so much so that it said I would change the face of LDS fiction. Stop laughing. That's what it really said.

So, yeah, I was feeling pretty good. Maybe I wasn't that much of a hack.

With my second novel I got several reader's comments. This was a whole different beast. Lots of different opinions - one found my villain well done, another thought he was whiny and not scary. I remember reading the comments, half-expecting verbiage like my first review. Didn't happen.

I think I spent most of the afternoon eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The comments felt...so...personal. They were mostly positive, one of them being extremely helpful once I got past the emotional blow I took.

This time, I had three new readers and I think one of them just didn't care for the third novel (that being an understatement). I started reading the six pages worth of "YOU SUCK" but very soon found myself curled in the fetal position under my desk.

That's not what it really said. The readers try to be constructive and helpful. No one called down curses on my mother or anything like that.

But each and every negative comment felt personal. I don't know why. Cognitively I recognize that these are just opinions and if three other people read the novel they might think I'm the greatest thing since Heimerdinger.

I know that. But it doesn't make it hurt any less.

I don't want it to feel this way. I can't help how sensitive/emotional I am (which I do fully blame my mother for. I had a nice assertive red personality, and she gave me all her blue).

Maybe it's because in book writing, I do feel like I'm putting a piece of myself out there. I think it was Julie Wright (in the LDS Storymakers' book on how to get published in the LDS market and if it wasn't Julie please correct me) who talked about working on her manuscript and likening it to being her baby. Which makes sense - you create it and you have to spend all this time with it, feeding it, loving it, nurturing it. She said she dressed her baby up in its best clothes, sent it out into the world and hoped for the best. When she got her letter back from the publishers, they told her that her baby was ugly.

Now, I know they didn't actually say anything like that, but that was how it made her feel, how personal it became when it was never intended to be that way.

I'm usually okay after a few days (and darn this diet that keeps me away from the good ice cream) and then I can go back and reread the comments without wanting to commit seppuku. After the first painful emotional encounter I wait and then I can disassociate myself from the work and go from there.

I'm in the middle of that wait right now. I've thought over some of the comments given (and finally getting to the part of this post that relates to the title) and realized that something like 90% of the comments boiled down to, "This isn't how Ammon is. This isn't what he would do/act/say. You wrote him wrong."

Stop for a second and think. I want you to get a mental picture of Nephi. Of Alma. Of Ammon. Of Captain Moroni.

How do you envision them? What personality traits do they have? Or do they not have any at all?

I thought about how I saw the Book of Mormon prophets before I wrote novels about them. I honestly didn't think much about them being men at all. They were PROPHETS. Men of God. They were the holiest beings, above reproach in every fashion. They were nearly perfect. They were somber, serious, dull. Do your imaginings fall along the same lines?

But I bet that's not at all how they were. I bet there was laughter and happiness. I bet there was sorrow and sadness. I bet there was anger and jealousy and regret and guilt and passion. I bet they could be arrogant and boastful (even Moses had that problem). I bet they had shortcomings and weaknesses that they battled their entire lives. I bet they dealt with temptation on a daily basis, and that they weren't always successful. And I bet all that because we know for a fact that Jesus Christ was the only perfect man who ever lived.

I think we forget that those men and women we read about in the scriptures were REAL PEOPLE. We know they worried over their children as we do, that they tried their best to follow God's teachings but didn't always hit the mark. We know they must have worried over their fields, over their safety, over their liberty and going to war. So many things that we can relate to.

So when I wrote Alma, I looked at the things that struck me about him. I saw a deep passion in his writing to do what was right. I saw a man totally committed to a course of action - first to King Noah then to the true Gospel. But he himself repeatedly admitted to his weaknesses and sins, which I think gives him an interesting trait and drives much of "Desire of Our Hearts."

But with Ammon, I wondered what sort of man would impress King Lamoni and his court. I looked at some things that Aaron said to him, read Ammon's own words. I saw a man deeply committed to his mission with a great love for the Lamanite people. I envisioned him as a man who loved and had a zest for life. I imagined him being very charming and having a fantastic sense of humor, even in the face of great adversity. I took into account his upbringing in a royal household as a prince of an entire nation. He would have been extremely well-educated. He would have been a great fighter, as culturally leaders were expected to be better than their warriors or they wouldn't have stayed king for very long.

This is why it's called speculative fiction. You speculate. I may be close to the truth. I may be totally off base. None of us know.

But I think it's fun to imagine, to try and glean some specific personality traits from the scriptural account that may not leap out despite several readings.

I think though that there are cultural LDS things that exist that make it nearly impossible for us to envision anything other than what we perceive as correct. If I asked you to think of the court of King Noah, did you get a picture in your head of high priests with conical hats, a half-naked, white-haired Abinadi, a fat king with black hair flanked by jaguars?

I think the real court was nothing like the Arnold Friberg painting. But does our perception make it so that we can't ever accept any other interpretation?

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Exercised five days this week, did good on the diet, still need to work on some muscle strengthening. Gained 1 pound exactly.