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What were the major themes of your early plays, and stories?
OSC Answers
I don't have "themes." I don't think fiction is the proper place for themes, anyway -- if a writer has a "theme" in mind, chances are he should write an essay. But if by "theme" you mean the general "matter" of the stories, my early plays were all aimed at the Mormon audience, particularly in Utah (where Mormons are thick enough on the ground to have a hope of developing a large enough audience to support Mormon theatre). Thus they tended to be dramatized stories from the Book of Mormon, the Bible, LDS Church history, or (in rare cases) contemporary Mormon life. Thus "The Apostate" and "Of Gideon" were from the Book of Mormon (as were some unproduced plays as well), "Stone Tables" was from the Bible, "Liberty Jail," "Fresh Courage Take," and "Father, Mother, Mother and Mom" were from Mormon history, and "Across Five Summers" and the unproduced "The Ph.D." were more contemporary, the former from the memories of my mother and father growing up in Salt Lake City, and the latter set at BYU and based on my own experiences there. (Unproduced because it was pretty savage and also rather inept, having been written without the perspective of intervening time <grin>.)

In contrast, my early science fiction stories were definitely not Mormon, since I was explicitly trying to write to "the world" and not to "the Church." Mormon beliefs and concerns crept into my work anyway, because I'm a believing Mormon and what seems true to me is always going to be more or less consonant with Mormon theology as I understand it and Mormon culture as I have experienced it. But the language and the "matter" are not LDS in those early works. Since then I've done some explicitly Mormon-related things -- Homecoming being a retelling in sci-fi terms of the first part of the Book of Mormon, Folk of the Fringe being an extrapolation of Mormon pioneer culture into the future, and the Alvin Maker books drawing their basic structure from an allegorical version of the life of Joseph Smith. And of course there's my novel Saints. Right now I'm writing an explicitly Biblical novel, Sarah, about the wife of Abraham, as a followup to my novel adaptation of my play from 1973, Stone Tables. But ... in no case does the reader have to decide whether or not to believe in Mormonism in order to appreciate the story. Whereas with my college-era plays, I can't think that a non-Mormon would be remotely interested in them ...


Question
Is your religion Mormonism a major influence in your works. Because from what I read it seems that it is?

OSC Answers
Oops. I accidentally answered that question with my previous answer <grin>.

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In my fiction I explore all the issues I care about, and some of those are particularly important to Mormons. I also use various sources and cultural references, some of them for fun (making Ben Franklin a wizard, for instance, or using Joseph Smith's leg operation for my own purposes in Seventh Son), and some of them quite seriously (my use of a real slave rebellion in Charleston in Heartfire, for instance). But I make no effort to expose readers to "Mormon" values. Instead, I do what all fiction writers do whether they mean to or not: I expose my readers to MY values; even though all of my characters have value-sets different from mine to at least some degree, the overall story will always reflect my view of how the universe works and what matters and does not matter within it. Since I am a believing Mormon, there will be considerable overlap between my values and the values of that culture. I couldn't keep that from happening if I tried, and I don't try (though I used to; it simply didn't work, so why bother?). However, as many Mormons can tell you, my values also sometimes differ from views widely held within the Mormon community, and some Mormons are outraged by what I write. Again, I have no program to irritate them, but it's bound to happen, since no two Mormons believe in exactly the same set of doctrines, however much some of them might try to believe that they do, and assume that where there are differences, the other guy is the heretic.

There is also a huge overlap between Mormon values and the values of most human beings, since a religion cannot last as long as ours has, and cannot grow as much, if it does not answer fundamental needs and longings, and correspond in significant ways with reality. This is true of all successful religions, regardless of what an outsider might believe about specific doctrines and practices. But if I expunged ALL Mormon values from my work, I doubt that non-Mormons would find much to value in my work, either.

I don't believe Mormons are overrepresented among science fiction writers, compared to our proportion of the general American public. It's just that the image of Mormons in most people's minds is one that makes it surprising, and therefore memorable, that a science fiction writer could be a believing member of such a religion. Since there are Mormon science fiction writers, the only plausible conclusion is that the general public image of Mormons must be false. And, of course, it is.

Science fiction and fantasy are the only genres where important religious, theological, and cosmological ideas are dealt with seriously and open-mindedly on a regular basis by most of the writers in the field. It's not just Mormons who find that the genre allows them to discuss core metaphysical concerns. This does not indicate they are proselytizing, of course, only that they are writing fiction that deals with issues they care deeply about. Most do what I do - they create characters with every point of view that they think matters, including the views that the author hates most. And most of us manage to disguise this discussion within the story, not because we're doing something "secret," but because we have learned that the entertainment cannot stop just because the ideas are serious, or we'll have no readers <grin>.

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QUESTION:
How has religion influenced your writing?

-- Submitted Anonymously

OSC REPLIES: - March 12, 2001

All my real beliefs (not what I believe that I believe, but what I really believe at the deepest, most unconscious level) show up in my work without my having to make any conscious effort to include them. Because I am a believing Latter-day Saint, some of those beliefs are bound to show up. But I have no program for trying to put those beliefs into my writing. On a superficial level, I have used some Mormon history and scripture or Mormon cultural motifs in my fiction, but these are not of any particular significance in terms of "influencing" my fiction. I also use other histories and cultures in my fiction, as they serve my storytelling purposes. I have no "Mormon" agenda with my fiction -- I simply tell stories I care about and believe in, and hope I can write them well enough to reach the audience that will care and believe also.

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Originally posted by Sartorius:
"Ender's Game" ranks second only to the works of CS Lewis on my list of non-scriptural books that have shaped my personal practice of Mormonism.

I hope that doesn't sound creepy.

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