Why do we allow darkness into writing?
“Show the darkness so that the light shines brightest.”
I stumbled upon this quote recently, and it’s had me pondering the concept of light and dark. It’s a classic combination in literature, and we dedicate whole books to fleshing out the battle between good and evil.
I like the way this quote looks at that concept. They posed the question of how much darkness is worth showing in our writing. How much brokenness do we elaborate on to make our point? What is the point of showing broken people and the darkness that is so real in our world?
Most stories have some form of “darkness,” whether that be internal struggle or external strife. But is it worth describing such things in detail to create a good story? Is there a balance that needs to be found to keep from dwelling on the bad for too long?
We live in a scarred and broken world. The truth of it is that we’re a broken and hurting people, with no way to fix ourselves. So why, you may ask, should we let this dismal fact seep into our writing? Shouldn’t we want to escape that? Shouldn’t we desire high ideals and beautiful people with struggles that are easily overcome in our stories? Shouldn’t writing be a chance for us to take our dreams of what could be and immortalize them in words?
While that may be true to an extent (we all love a good hero, am I right?!), I believe there’s more to it than that. See, the good news is that the darkness is not the end of the story. It’s not the end of the real story, and it shouldn’t be the end of the stories we write.
There is light, and hope, and goodness, and everything pure and right. There is Jesus. And with Jesus, everything has the chance to be redeemed and rebuilt. There is hope for the hopeless, rest for the weary, joy for those who mourn, and peace for the anxious.
We cannot allow ourselves to become so overwhelmed with the darkness that we forget the light. If we write only darkness, getting bogged down in the sadness and despair that fills our world at times, we risk losing the joy of the good news we have.
Our writing should do just as this quote says: show the darkness to remind us of how bright the light really is! Struggles and strife in stories (both our own personal ones & the ones we write) should point us back to what’s important. They should be there to show the light off in the best way possible. After all, lights are best seen in the darkness, and it is in our own darkness that Jesus meets us.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
