Turning faith into fiction

Peter Parr and Mike Brooks are Quakers who are also writers. Both had their debut novels published this year. They discuss their work and how their Quaker faith informs their writing and what they hope readers will gain from reading their work.

Mike: How does it feel to have your first novel published? I understand it’s been a long time in the making.

Peter: I’m very excited. Yes, I began writing the book over twenty years ago while still at school, but I’ve changed a lot in the intervening years and the novel has grown with me. In particular, my faith has become more central in my life and that has influenced the tone of the book.

Mike: Escape to Redemption is a crime thriller with a spiritual undercurrent. Can you say a little more about it?

Peter: It’s about two flawed but decent people whose actions lead to someone’s death. One of them flees the country, leaving the other behind to take the blame. But the one on the run is struggling to run away from her guilt.

Mike: The book ends with one of the characters going to a Quaker Meeting for Worship. How else does your faith come through in the story?

Peter: Well, it may begin with a murder, but it’s essentially a positive book. We all make mistakes. What matters is how we learn from them and how we choose to live from this day on.

No matter what we might have done, nothing can cut us off from God’s love. Nor can it take away the truth of who we are, the divine essence within us.

Mike: It’s similar for my novel, The Machine Society. On the one hand it’s a sci-fi drama – full of thrills and spills, some comedy and romance – but at another level I’ve tried to write an allegory of the spiritual journey.

The hero of the novel is trapped in a world of consumerism and debt. He’s lost touch with what’s important to him and is even struggling to hold onto a sense of reality. So, he embarks on a search for what is real and meaningful for him.

Peter: Your description of the future sounds like the present day.

Mike: Precisely. One of the things I like about sci-fi and dystopian future novels is that they are a powerful way of talking about the present. I looked at all the branding and materialism that engulfs us in our daily lives today and imagined a very exaggerated version of this.

Peter: So, are you pessimistic about the direction society is headed?

Mike: Yes and no. While I can imagine a future that is bleak, I think there is always hope because the spiritual path is a perennial part of human experience and is always available to us – even if it involves some difficult choices.

Peter: We might say that guidance is always available to us. The question is, are we open to receiving it?

Mike: I like the verse in the Bible that says we are ‘refined by fire’. It seems people can very easily get stuck in their ways.

We can be reluctant to change, living life in the same old patterns – but then these challenging experiences come along that open us up to a better way. These experiences are painful at the time, and we wouldn’t choose to have them, but ultimately they’re good for us.

Peter: Have you found writing itself to be a spiritual experience?

Mike: It can certainly be a very moving experience. For me, it involves deep inner reflection as I try to tune into the feelings of each character – and each character, in some ways, is a different part of me.

So, writing is an act of self-exploration and self-awareness. There’s an element of truth-seeking in it, without knowing what may emerge.

Peter: That’s been my experience, too. When I sit down to write a scene, I may have a sense of the general direction, but when I’m in touch with my Inner Guide – as I might be in Meeting for Worship – new insights come.

I’ve found myself changing the direction a chapter takes, particularly if I get a sense that the way I’d initially planned it doesn’t feel true to how the characters would behave. In a way, writing the novel was about discerning the authentic story that wanted to be told.

Mike: Has writing also provided you with insights for your own life?

Peter: Certainly, that’s true of my nonfiction writing, such as the booklet I wrote for The Kindlers series [Answering that of God: discovering Spirit within]. But the advantage of fiction is that it can communicate abstract concepts in a way that might be easier to relate to.

For instance, we can be quick to form opinions about people and to judge them as good or bad, but often things are not so black and white. The process of writing my novel and immersing myself in my characters’ experiences has brought that home to me.

Mike: I found writing The Machine Society to be cathartic. For example, I got a chance to satirise the world of advertising, which I find inane!

I think what annoys me so much about advertising is the way it tries to sabotage a healthy sense of self by making us feel incomplete without the latest car or phone or the romantic relationship that will follow once we get that particular phone!

The tricky thing is, I think we all have a sense that life is lacking something – we’re all looking to fill the gap. From a Quaker perspective, I would say the answer is found in the Light or love, though, of course, it’s not a straightforward thing.

Peter: What impact do you hope your novel will have on people?

Mike: I hope people will be entertained, but I’ve also threaded into the novel a number of spiritual and psychological ideas that I find interesting.

Peter: It’s about sowing seeds. If we tell a story that’s engaging and authentic, one that resonates with people at a deep level, it may encourage them to reflect and perhaps see things in a new light.

The Machine Society by Mike Brooks, Cosmic Egg Books. ISBN: 9781785352522, £10.99. Available in October.

Escape to Redemption by Peter Parr, Roundfire. ISBN: 9781785352270, £9.99.

Both books will be available from the Quaker Centre Bookshop in Friends House and online or in ebook formats.

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