Jesus- The Chosen One

This is my first FICTIONAL short story, I tried as a part of an online course that helps with creative writing. I am still learning to develop my writing skills in this genre.

Jesus lives in Bethlehem, present-day Palestine. He wakes up at 6 in the morning with his mother Mary and his pet puppy Tommy. On waking up he sees, Tommy sleeping near him with a smiling and content face. Tommy awakens with a startle while Jesus tries to get out of the bed. Jesus greets his mother Good Morning, who smiles and replies Good Morning.

He then goes to the bathroom for brushing and bathing. After bathing, he puts on a new cassock. On getting out from the bath, he hangs his washed clothes out to dry in the sun. He returns to his room and starts grooming himself. While standing and staring at his image in the mirror, Jesus reflects on the sorrows of people around him. Thinking about this he starts to see and feel the sadness on his face.

Tommy comes wagging his tail near the feet of Jesus. He comes out of his deep thoughts and starts grooming the puppy. All these activities took Jesus about half an hour so, he takes Tommy and rushes to the table for breakfast.

Today, mother Mary has prepared bread, jam, and orange juice for the breakfast. Jesus starts eating his breakfast and helps Tommy with the food. Mother asks Jesus, “My dear son, what are going to do today?”

Jesus replies, “Ma, today I’ll set my journey to meet and help people’s sorrowful lives. I'll listen to their problems and guide them out of their difficulties. I’ll take Tommy out with me and be back as the evening sets in.”

On listening to the thoughts of her son, Mary replies, “God bless you, my dear son. You have grown up to become an understanding man, full of hope, empathy, with a loving and caring attitude. Let the spirits be with you in helping the needful people.”

Jesus smiles and asks his mom, “Before I set my foot helping other people, I want to ask you ma, do you need help?” Ma was a little surprised at his question. She replied, “No Jesus, I am fortunate to have the tasks that are in my capabilities.”

Jesus says, “Isn’t it better to ask people at my home if they need any help before I set out to guide other people? Even after helping a few of my fellows, all my goals will be of no use if I can't help my own family.”

Listening to this, Mary couldn't stop admiring the wisdom of Jesus and blessed her son.

Author's Note

Looking for guidance with the writing style of "show don't tell".
P.S: I had no intention to offend any people, religion, or culture with this story.

Reviews

[JayG]

• Looking for guidance with the writing style of "show don't tell".

That’s easy, but it's not going to make you happy.

First a minor problem. Stories are, by definition, fiction. So there is no such thing as a fictional story.

That aside, the problem you face is one all hopeful writers do, but can’t see. It’s not about talent, or how well you write. It’s not even about the story. It’s about something they never told you in school: The skill you call writing, and which you perfected by writing a million reports and essays isn’t the kind of writing that fiction-writers use. It’s nonfiction writing, useful for writing the reports and essays that most employers need from us, but useless for fiction, because the goal of nonfiction is to inform. But as E. L. Dictorow put it, the goal of fiction is, “to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” And if you’ve never been told even that, you won’t try to fix the problem.

The true difference between Telling and Showing is one simple word: Viewpoint. If you present your story via the words of a narrator telling the reader the story, it can’t work. We can’t hear the voice you do when you read. You hear your own voice, filled with the emotion you see as fitting. To hear what a reader does, and how different that is from what you intend, have you computer’s Narrator program read it to you. I suspect that when you hear it, you’ll say, “Ouch.”

Look at a line or two as a reader must:

• Jesus lives in Bethlehem, present-day Palestine.

That’s not Jesus living, it’s you explaining. Jesus isn’t on stage, so the story has yet to begin. We could literally take each sentence in that paragraph. And label it, “Fact 1, fact 2, fact 3, fact… So the paragraph is a report on him waking.

But…do we know how he feels as he wakes? No. Do we know what has his attention? No. Do we know how old he is? No. Do we know if he’s rich or poor? No. Do we know what kind of house he lives in? Again no. So why do we care what time this person wakes up? Unless you MAKE the reader care, they won’t turn to page 2. And the thing that’s getting in the way of that is that you explain what matters to you, not to him. But isn’t it his story? Don’t we have to know what matters to him to understand his decisions on what to say and do? Just learning what happens is history, not story.

Remember, the reader just arrived. So when you say, “Jesus lives in modern day Palestine, in Bethlehem, there’s an immediate problem. The reader assumes that Jesus is simply his name and he’s unrelated to the historical Jesus. So his mother’s name is Mary? In the Hispanic community Jesus is a common name.

So we, the readers, leave the first paragraph with an entirely different set of understandings than what you intended. All because you’re telling instead of showing.

The fix? Place the reader into HIS viewpoint. Focus on what matters to HIM, because story happens, and does so in the moment he calls now. It; not talked about or explained. It's lived. If it matters to him it matters the reader. If it doesn’t move the plot, meaningfully set the scene, or develop character, it has no place in the story.

To see how much a protagonist’s viewpoint controls the reader’s view of what’s happening in a scene, take a look at the article who’s address is just below. It shows how the same situation, viewed through the eyes of someone with diferent needs and goals change drastically. This site doesn’t handle links, so copy/past the address into the URL window a the top of any web page and hit return.
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-grumpy-writing-coach-8/

There are other articles, there, on other aspects of fiction. The link to them is down the page on the right, and titled, The Craft of Writing.

So the problems you face are not your fault. You can’t fix the problem you don’t see as being one, or use the tool you don’t know exists.

So your solution is obvious: Add the skills the pros take for granted to those you already own. Not good news, I know, but everyone faces it, so it’s not a big deal.

And here’s the good news. If you’re meant to write you’ll find the learning a lot like going backstage in a professional theater for the first time. And the practice? Writing stories. So what’s not to love?

So where do you begin? Well, I’m vain enough to think the articles in my WordPress blog, while they won’t teach you to write professionally, and aren't meant to, will help you better understand the task.

Obviously, you could get a degree in Commercial Fiction Writing, if you have four year, plus the money. But there are also workshops and seminars, retreats, conferences, writing clubs and critique groups (but be careful, they can be the blind-leading-the-blind), and the library’ fiction-writing section, which is where I suggest you begin. That way you get a good solid grounding, and can work at your own pace.

And in that I can help. The single best book on creating scenes that sing to the reader, and linking them into an exciting whole, is free at the site whose huge address is below this paragraph. And free is good, right? It’s the book that gave me my first contract offer from a publisher, so maybe it can do that for you.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

So…I know this was a lot like trying to take a sip from a fire-hose. But it is what you need to know. I spent most of my career doing things that people said couldn’t be done, in the computer design field. But to do that, I followed the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. That means stay focused, work hard, and collect the tools necessary to do the job.

So dig in. And while you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Anjali]

Thank you, Jay, for taking your time to review and provide constructive criticism on my writing. I will check out the website and URLs you have shared. Deep down I know every pro was once a beginner. I'll keep on writing to improve.