By Jeff Reynolds
This
month, I'll be interviewing Christine Hunt, whose writing includes
fiction, non-fiction, and stage plays. Christine formed Right Line
Editing & Design in 2005, assisting clients with a wide variety
of projects —from business cards to editing manuscripts and book
production. In 2010, she started Right Line Publishing to produce You
Are What You See by
Scott Nehring. (You may remember I reviewed this book and interviewed
its author in my November and December installments last year.)
Christine is a member of the Editorial Freelancer’s Association
(EFA) and other industry groups.
JR:
Welcome to Hoosier Ink, Christine. Let me start with the typical
starting question for authors: How did you start writing?
CH:
Thank you for inviting me, Jeff. You’ve collected some
interesting, informative reading on Hoosier Ink. I like Millie
Samuelson’s suggestion of AYC for “at your convenience.”
Everything doesn’t have to be done immediately; so many well-done
things take time.
Reading
and writing were always my escape. During high school a friend and I
wrote a play based on the Biblical book of Acts. Our church’s youth
choir loved it—performed it during a summer choir tour through
several southwestern states, and I was hooked. I stayed active in
church and since I wanted more than the normal fare of bathrobe
dramas during the holidays, and being a Type A personality, I
volunteered to write and direct. Productions became more professional
in quality. I was hired as scriptwriter for an audio/visual
production company, and it’s progressed from there—ghostwriting
and clean-up work for businesses, individuals, and non-profits.
JR:
You've told me your writing is primarily stage plays, though you do
have both a narrative non-fiction work and a novel in the pipeline in
addition to business writing. How does writing a stage play differ
from other writing, and does it help you in your other writing?
CH:
That’s a thoughtful question, Jeff. We are created to emotionally
respond to story—the journey of a heroic character through extreme
difficulty. Even small segments of that journey resonate with us;
that’s why advertising works. We see a guy who’s had a rough day,
he climbs into his quiet car, turns on the A/C and the radio, relaxes
back into cushy leather, and drives fast out of the city with a smile
on his face. Even if we’re not in the market for a new car, we
identify with the guy and this snippet of his story.
Watching
audience reactions to moments in my stage plays provided instant and
unguarded feedback. I saw what worked, what didn’t, what could
have. I learned the need for economy in words, actions, even
characters. I think one of the most valuable things I learned,
however, was the importance of communicating an understandable,
retainable, orderly progression of information—revealing point upon
point. In that particular, all writing can be considered similar.
Whether it’s a small business’s annual report or personal e-mail
to a friend, if your writing isn’t understandable, doesn’t
connect with the story of life or communicate your intent, then it’s
a waste of everyone’s time and effort.
JR:
Your stage plays and some of your shorter works are adaptations of
Bible stories. How do you balance between having a fresh story --
especially with the much adapted Christmas and Easter narratives --
while being accurate to the Biblical text? This may either be a
clarifying question or a related one, but how do you keep from
putting a spin or agenda to the story while retelling it?
CH:
If you don’t mind, I’d like to break the question into sections.
You
ask about keeping a familiar story fresh. My instant reaction is that
Scripture is alive, powerful—it’s a treasure trove we can’t
find the bottom of. As we grow in Christ, as we experience hard times
or become aware of new truths, as we see more and more of His grace
and how He is active in our lives and in the world—as we live life
in Him—our perspective changes, we have deeper understanding.
That’s one way it stays fresh.
Another
thing that keeps story perspectives fresh is keying on different
individuals, learning more of what life was really like for them in
their time, in their place. One resource I recently found are the
works of Dr. Kenneth E. Bailey, specifically Jesus
and the Prodigal
and Jesus
Through Middle Eastern Eyes.
Your
saying, “while being accurate to the Biblical text” is probably
the most important piece of the whole puzzle, whether or not I’m
writing something with any overt spiritual content. To me, if what I
do or say doesn’t line up with the truth of Scripture, then I’m
in error, whether it’s my personal life or my writing. Part of
digging for the treasure in His word is searching for
understanding—deeper truths—studying the nuances of words and
their meanings within their accurate context.
Everything
we say or do—or write—comes from our individual set of
experiences, awarenesses, our scars and sorrows and joys, and lessons
learned; so, from that standpoint, there’s always going to be
pieces of an author in everything they write. As far as a spin or
agenda—that’s an excellent question because today’s
movers-n-shakers, our culture makers, are always spinning things to
their advantage. Even when we mean well, we, as humans, are bent
toward putting the best face on things.
That’s
where, for me, writing from the word of God is so very different than
any other writing. It’s not my story, it’s His. He’s just
letting me use a little sanctified imagination to nuance out of it,
if you’ll allow me to use that term, to delve into it and extract
truths to communicate. But I have to remember, always, it’s His
story not mine. I’ll get a check, a hesitation, an
impression—whatever you want to call it—that I’m going the
wrong way or pursuing a tangent, and I have to stop, back up to where
it’s safe, and then pray for wisdom and guidance to do it right.
It’s always done in prayer. And I have a core group of people who
intercede for me.
JR:
I mentioned your narrative non-fiction work that's nearing
publication and the novel you're working on. Could you tell us about
them?
CH:
An interesting tie-in, because the whole time I was writing the
non-fiction work I constantly reminded myself, “This is Norm’s
story, Norm’s and Jerry’s and Joe’s, not mine. I just have to
find the best way to tell it.”
In
May 1973, a florist named Bob Nachtsheim was murdered. The media
named it The Orchid Murder, but the crime was never solved. Years
later, Norm Wartnick, Nachtsheim’s former employer, was sued by the
victim’s widow. Norm’s attorney was incompetent—made egregious
errors in Norm’s defense and, in 1986, Norm heard a jury declare
him responsible for the wrongful death of Nachtsheim. A
three-million-dollar civil judgment forced Norm to sell his family
business and branded him a murderer.
Jerry
Snider and Joe Friedberg, two of Minnesota’s top trial
attorneys—knowing they would battle enormous pressure from the
legal community—put their profitable careers on the line in a
six-year long, contingency-fee struggle to get Norm out from under
that judgment.
In
2007, Norm decided he wanted his story told by someone he could talk
with eye-to-eye. It didn’t take much investigation to realize
Norm’s was truly an inspirational story—a fight for justice for
an innocent man. I quickly understood Joe and Jerry’s passion in
wanting justice for Norm. I found the heart of the story, though,
when I realized the significance of how the two families handled the
situation: the Nachtsheims were splintered apart by greed; the
Wartnicks were strengthened through adversity. Throughout the
Wartnick’s 21 year struggle, their belief in each other and in the
truth preserved them. The Wartnick’s faithfulness to each other
touched me deeply.
The
fiction project is a spin-off. Connections were alleged to exist
between the murder and organized crime—plus a slew of fascinating
tidbits I couldn’t include in the non-fiction narrative due to
story structure constraints. So, I’m using those juicy pieces as
back story for a detective/crime novel. My main characters and their
story, though, will be totally fictitious.
JR:
What future projects do you have on the table? Or, in other words,
what burden or vision do you want to deal with in your writing?
CH:
Wow, let’s see. On the front burner is a one-act play based on the
Orchid Murder that I hope will be used for high school and college
one-act competitions.
On
the back burner, and unrelated to Wartnick, are four projects: a
screenplay based loosely on Jesus’ parable of the prodigal; a
series of detective fiction short stories; a fictional trilogy about
a female photojournalist’s fight against human trafficking; and a
non-fiction project on the “I Am” statements of Christ. Though
they seem unrelated—and why it’s interesting that you ask about
“burden or vision”—at the core of each story is our desperate
need for significance, for value, for purpose. We try so hard to
earn them, but they really are unattainable until we find them in the
One who designed and intimately crafted each one of us.
JR:
Thank you for your time, and have a blessed day.
CH:
Thank you, Jeff, for the opportunity to share.
