When I was a sophomore in high school my teacher tasked us with a short fiction writing assignment to pair with our reading of The Great Gatsby. The assignment was simple enough, write a story of what happened in a narrative ellipse. There’s quite a few of them in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book. He relies on the reader to fill in the blanks of the story to build tension for the characters. The reading experience, then, becomes interactive. It also changes as we draw nearer to the ending. What could have been demure in a previous reading now becomes dramatic and forbidden. The empty spaces are where we find ourselves interpreting our allegiances to characters, concepts, and our perception of the narrative voice.
The Bible is similar. There’s a lot of narrative gaps. I assume the intention is the same: seek out the empty spaces and allow them interpret how you concoct your allegiances. The only problem is that Western Christianity — with its penchant for controlling a narrative — doesn’t give us the space to imagine what could be within the stories. Instead, we are told what is. Unfortunately, the “what is” fixates itself on what it can control rather that how it can liberate.
I loved the creative writing assignment from my high school English teacher. I loved it so much that I resurrected the practice when I decided that I needed a new (and fun) way to interact with scripture. I started to find narrative ellipses I found interesting and wrote fictional pieces to fill in the blanks. My drive is filled with short fiction and flash fiction pieces based of Biblical ellipses. What’s come out of that practice inspired my upcoming book.
Today’s post is one of the fictional pieces I wrote. It’s drawn from Genesis 35:22 and the hella dramatic dysfunctional family of Jacob. Reuben was caught sleeping with his father’s concubine, Bilhah. I thought it’d be interesting to see how Leah, the matriarch of the family, handles it.
Enjoy!
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