Booking Through Thursday

This week's questions on Booking Through Thursday are:

If you’re anything like me, one of your favorite reasons to read is for the story. Not for the character development and interaction. Not because of the descriptive, emotive powers of the writer. Not because of deep, literary meaning hidden beneath layers of metaphor. (Even though those are all good things.) No … it’s because you want to know what happens next?

I'm actually quite bad at being able to tell (most of the time) whether or not a story is "well-written" or not. This can be considered a blessing or a curse. I'm not English Major Minded as you can probably tell from the way that I write. The downside to this is that I have the ability to annoy even myself in the knowledge that I miss punctuation problems and grammatical errors. The plus side is that I am at liberty to enjoy a story more fully than other of my friends or family simply becauase I can blindly ignore the writing problems and can therefor focus on the story itself. So, as you can see, it is a blessing and a curse.

I love getting lost in stories and being interested only in what happens next.

That being said, regardless of the writers ability, I am completely inept at ignoring the message of the book. The message is the most glaringly obvious part to me. I see it sometimes even when I don't want to see it. That can destract me from simply wanting to know the end of the story. If I disagree with the meaning or message of the story, my chances of liking the ending are slim to none. I cannot seperate the message from the story. That is impossible.

So the answer to this week's question is yes and no. I love the simplicity of story-telling but if a truth (or otherwise) is intended to be communicated, that is what I shall focus on. Stories are meant to be vehicles for moral values. Jesus used stories all the time to communicate truths about Himself and God. That is a story's primary purpose - to enlighten and instruct. I just wish it weren't that way sometimes.