Beauty Always Attracts

Alice Rollins wrote on what makes something beautiful:

“The test of beauty is not that it is perfect, but that it always attracts.”

That line attracted me when I read it this weekend in Shane Parrish’s Farnum Street blog.

I need to think about this.

It’s true. My heart and belly tell me it’s true.

Why?

“It always attracts.”

Not, “It is always perfect.”

Not, “It is always symmetrical.”

Not even, “It is always comprehensible.”

The line itself is beautiful.

“The test of beauty is that it always attracts.”

What music attracts you?

What person attracts you?

What art, poetry, or architecture attracts you?”

What landscape?

Do you know why?

I think Rollins is right. I’m attracted to beauty.

I can read a book about a subject I have no interest in if the writing is beautiful.

I’m not a literary writer. I mean, I don’t try to be one. I don’t usually try to make art.

I generally see writing as a way to convey a principle and persuade someone toward transformation.

I love that. I’m called to it. As a Christian publisher, it’s all I do all day.

But I’m attracted to the idea this morning—-that I’m attracted to what is beautiful.

The fact is that if we want to transform others with our writing (because God has called us, given us a message, and sent us to spread it), then making it beautiful attracts recipients of that message (readers).

How to Write Beautifully

The question is, how does one write beautifully? What is it? I know what it is in a girl (my wife and daughters!). But what makes a piece of writing beautiful?

Then I went away to think about this for a while….

…..…..

………

……..

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Okay, I’m back. Beautiful writing surprises me. The author who surprises me most often is Annie Dillard. Consider this paragraph from An American Childhood:

Like any child, I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the fingertips on the water, her wrists slide up her arms. The diver wraps herself in her reflection wholly, sealing it at the toes, and wears it as she climbs rising from the pool, and ever after.

Holy cow!

Couldn’t you read that over and over and over?

She could have just said, “I became aligned with myself.”

But she did not. She said, “I slid into myself perfectly fitted…”

And then stuff about the diver, right down to “sealing it at the toes…” My goodness!

If I could write like that, I don’t think I’d stop to eat.

Anyway.

Did Dillard land here from another planet able to create like this? Maybe. But what about you and me earthlings?

How can we make our writing more beautiful so that it attracts?

By-the-way, this is why I am a Christian. I am attracted to Christ. See my latest reflection on Him here at my Biblical Human Substack.

It seems to me the thing we need to chew up (that was me trying to be literary) is the idea of feelings and discovery.

How do we get a reader to feel something as they discover?

When I read Annie Dillard, I feel warm. I feel seen. I feel alive, and that I’m reflecting on living.

What words make someone feel?

What word combinations?

Gosh, I don’t know. But here’s an exercise I found to help us both that will train exactly what we’re talking about: moving from principle to experience.

The “Incarnation Drill”

Step 1: Start with a true sentence (normal mode).

Write a clean, direct statement like you naturally would:

• “I felt distant from God.”
  
  
• “I was trying to control everything.”
  
  
• “I didn’t know who I was anymore.”
  
  

Don’t overthink it. Just state truth.

Step 2: Ask one question only

“What does that feel like in the body or in the world?”

Not metaphor yet. Just reality.

• Distant from God → quiet? empty? like talking into the air?
  
  
• Control → tight chest? rehearsing conversations? gripping something?
  
  
• Lost identity → drifting? trying on roles? silence when asked a question?
  
  

Stay concrete.

Step 3: Translate into image or action

Now turn it into something seen, touched, or done.

Not clever. Just real.

• “I felt distant from God”
  
  → “My prayers felt like throwing words into an empty room.”
  
  
• “I was trying to control everything”
  
  → “I replayed every conversation before it happened, like I could script people.”
  
  
• “I didn’t know who I was anymore”
  
  → “When someone asked what I wanted, I stalled. I had no answer ready.”
  
  

Step 4: Add movement

This is the missing piece in most writing.

Beauty often moves.

Take your image and let it unfold slightly:

• Not just: “empty room”
  
  
• But: “I spoke, waited, and nothing came back.”
  
  
• Not just: “script people”
  
  
• But: “I rehearsed every line, then panicked when they went off script.”
  
  

Movement creates life.

Step 5: Cut 20%

Now tighten it.

Remove anything that feels like explanation or commentary.

Let the image carry the meaning.

Why this works

This works, because you are training three muscles at once:

• Seeing instead of abstracting
  
  
• Trusting images instead of explaining
  
  
• Letting truth be experienced instead of just stated
  
  

A constraint

Don’t do this for every sentence.

Do it once per section, or once per key idea.

That keeps you in your lane as a writer of whatever you normally write, but gives your writing points of attraction.

Now let me try.

Here’s line I wrote and published yesterday:

“You can’t follow Jesus and manage your image at the same time.”

Step 1: Done

Step 2: Ask one question only. What does that feel like in the body or in the world?

It feels like conflict. It feels like being disjointed, fragmented. A lack of wholeness, which is a lack of settledness or peace. Like a split personality.

Step 3: Translate into image or action.

You can’t be two people going in different directions before you rip in two.

(Hmm…vivid, but not beautiful!)

Step 4: Add movement.

I already had some movement, but let’s go further:

Following Jesus and managing your image is like one person trying to walk in two opposite directions at once, or like a medieval criminal being torn apart on the rack.

Step 5: Remove 20%.

Following Jesus and managing your image is like being a medieval criminal being torn apart on the rack—one direction is Jesus, and the other is image.

Well, I should have picked a positive sentence to start with. The negativity of “you can’t” has led to violence more than beauty, but oh well. Next time I’ll rewrite something nicer.

Jeff

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