Stories have always had a powerful influence on my life.

I grew up in a family that valued stories and took every opportunity to share them together. Some of my favorite memories include reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings around the dinner table, listening to the Chronicles of Narnia on road trips, experiencing the epic account of King David’s life during family devotions, and discussing the latest Pixar films. My parents took care to provide my siblings and me with worthwhile books and films that would broaden our perspectives, present worthy examples, and encourage us to think.

Books held a special sense of wonder for me. I was fascinated by the power words had to draw me into the distant times and places inhabited by my shelf-friends and the way language allowed me to see the world through their eyes. Books were a key to learning, discovery, and adventure.

Early on, I decided I was ready to be a part of the magic of story in a deeper way. I was going to be a writer.

At age eight, I thought I had life pretty much figured out. I was convinced I had something profound to say to the world. I believed I was mature for my age and enthusiastically aimed at a target audience around fifteen years my senior.

My vision eventually came a little closer to earth, but as a young teenager, I was still confident my stories were going to change the world and convince people of the beliefs I’d grown up with.

By that age, I had begun to notice patterns separating the books I admired from the ones that didn’t meet the same standards of quality. I became a pickier reader, and started digging for the secrets that made good stories tick. (I owe an apology to all the people whose childhoods I trampled as I vocally consigned Nancy Drew to the dustbin of mediocrity.) My best friend bravely asked for my feedback on her short stories, and I accepted. With practice, I got better at analyzing storytelling issues and rooting out writing errors.

I wondered if my calling might include changing the world through helping other people write stories.

The future was bright, and I thought I had all the answers. But I was about to discover how much I still didn’t know.

As a teenager, I suddenly found myself fighting to hold onto the foundational truths my whole life had been built on.

Nothing dramatic had troubled my confidence. I simply became aware that the world was a lot bigger than I’d thought. How did I know the faith I had been brought up in was the right one? What if I had missed out on the truth simply because I hadn’t explored all the options? Though my Christian worldview held up under my questioning, I was afraid to commit myself to the God I so desperately wanted to believe in without first knowing I’d exhausted all the possibilities. This would have been impossible, and I wondered if I would ever be able to trust God enough to be sure of my relationship with Him.

I struggled for years under the weight of the unknown. Though I still desired to write stories that would reflect truth, I was no longer confident in what the truth was. But the stories I read—especially those by C.S. Lewis—gave me hope that it was still there and the courage to keep fighting for it.

Eventually, I knew I couldn’t keep going on this way. Peace came with the realization that knowing the truth wasn’t about having all the answers. It was about trusting Someone who does. I was able to stop striving to hang on to God in the strength of my own belief and found rest in in the knowledge that He would hold me fast.

Once I was sure of the ground beneath my feet, my world opened to a new journey of discovery.

All my life, I had been looking forward to the moment when I would finally have all the right ideas collected in a tidy little box. Now, the longer I looked at God, I realized that exploring the depths of His character and beauty was a quest that would take me into eternity.

The more I learned, the more I saw lay ahead waiting to be discovered. The unknown was more wild and vast than ever before, but I was able to walk toward it in wonder instead of fear.

My assurance of the absolute nature of truth freed me to embrace my questions. But like many lessons, this was one I would need to learn more than once.

After many years of developing stories in my head only to drop them when I matured faster than they did, I started seriously working on my first novel.

When I started out, I knew my story was going to make an impact. I knew had a message the world needed to hear. I had studied writing craft and critiqued other people’s stories, so I knew I was way ahead of the game. I knew what everybody said about first attempts at writing a novel, and I was going to prove everybody wrong. I knew the rules and assumed I knew how to break them. (I now know that thinking I know stuff is usually a symptom of a swollen head.)

I had no idea what I was doing.

It should have been obvious early on that something was wrong with the story’s foundation. My message seemed to shift every time I thought I had it pinned down. The plot was disjointed and refused to connect with the characters’ thematic arcs in a meaningful way. My main character was unrelatable and unlikable. I blundered headfirst into every rookie mistake in the book.

After a long struggle, I was forced to admit that I no longer knew what my story was about.

But I wasn’t about to give up. Eventually, a moment of game-changing clarity came from an unexpected place.

One day I caught myself asking a question I thought I’d heard before.

I had heard it before, though not in the same words. It was the question at the heart of my story’s main character. Until hearing her insecurities echoed in my own voice, I’d had no idea I shared them.

I had tried unsuccessfully for so long to teach my character a lesson, never realizing I was in the same boat (and not in the lighthouse.) Now, instead of viewing my character as an unenlightened student, I began to see her as a friend and fellow traveller.

Owning the gaps in my understanding gave me the freedom to seek answers. My story pushed me to confront lies I believed about God and sharpened my thirst for truth. As my storytelling came to revolve around my questions, my novel’s plot and theme began working together in pursuit of a common goal.

Instead of acting as a channel for teaching others, story became a safe place for me to explore and learn alongside my characters. My novel’s thematic questions were no longer defined by the answers I already had, but by the ones I was still looking for. My goal changed from sharing knowledge with my readers to inviting them to share in my own journey of discovery.

As I began this journey, I met someone who would continue to transform my understanding of what meaningful storytelling looks like.

I hadn’t been planning to start working on another story.

Until he sprang into my imagination.

This character was different. A sweet-natured sailor boy with a simple virtue that clashed with his rough surroundings, and a fearlessness born of his love for the thing that held his life in its power. He had a beautiful secret, a purity and wholeness I couldn’t help but be drawn to. I knew from the beginning that I would not be the teacher in this relationship.

Though he was on his own journey of discovery, this character was defined not only by his questions, but just as much by the foundation of trust and freedom he was already standing on. As I got to know him better, I realized that what set him apart was the longing he inspired in me. He made me yearn for the not-yet and drew me to dwell on what ought to be.

As this story has continued to develop, I’ve been introduced to several other people—both real and fictional—who have further shaped my perspective. A mentor encouraged me to value virtuous fictional characters’ potential to be fascinating when they reflect the compelling beauty of God’s goodness. I discovered the work of Harold Bell Wright, whose stories illustrate what the church is intended to be even as he unflinchingly critiques its failures. I met George MacDonald’s Sir Gibbie, whose purity and selflessness in a dark world paint a winsome picture of virtue as precious and desirable. I revisited C.S. Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader and found myself carried forward by a current not of dread, but of joy, wonder, and longing.

These writers and stories all had at their heart a deep, captivating awareness of beauty and truth. Their power lay not only in their thought-provoking illustrations of the consequences of different choices and beliefs, but in their capacity to stir up desire for the right choices and beliefs⁠—and for God Himself.

This realization revolutionized my perspective on how truly impactful stories leave their mark. Lasting change requires more than just recognizing that something is wrong. If we want to be freed from lies, we need to grow to love the truth instead.

As I began to seriously pursue editing professionally, I knew my approach needed to change. I used to base my evaluation of a story on the absence or presence of mistakes. Editing was about eliminating errors. Now, I saw that as an editor and writing coach, the heart of my calling was to help other writers draw out the best in their stories.

Though bringing issues to attention is an imperative part of the process, it’s only half of the picture. My greatest hope is to encourage writers to cultivate their strengths and to fan the flames of curiosity and longing that fuel their storytelling.