Creation as Dialogue: What Writing Taught Me About God

Or: Why Calvin Sometimes Surprises Me

There’s a moment in the Logan (simulated) podcast where I describe my writing process not as a series of decisions, but as an unfolding dialogue—an evolving conversation between myself and the work. I’ve come to believe that the most powerful stories are not simply delivered from the mind of the author, fully formed, but are gradually revealed—sometimes to the writer most of all.

That might sound pretentious, but I don’t mean it to be. This isn’t about divine inspiration or literary genius. It’s more like this: you begin a story, and over time the story starts speaking back. You write a character, and that character resists your plans. You set events in motion, and you realize only later what they were truly about. The work teaches you something you didn’t know you knew.

And if that’s true—if creation is not a monologue, but a relationship—then the analogy to theology becomes hard to ignore.

There’s a particular theological idea that’s always stuck with me: the notion that God created man not out of a need for control, but from a yearning for companionship. That He made space for humanity to grow, even to suffer, not because He was cruel or omnisciently bored, but because He was lonely. He wanted dialogue. He wanted love, which only exists if the beloved is free.

Writers, in our own small way, mirror this. We don’t write just to control. We write to understand. We make characters in our image, and then we let them stray. We let the story breathe. We create something that speaks back to us. And in that reflection, we learn something about who we are.

Some traditions call this the Tzimtzum—the mystical idea that God contracted Himself to make room for the world. Some philosophers, like Martin Buber, say that meaning only emerges in the “I–Thou” relationship—in true dialogue. Even Moltmann, in The Crucified God, speaks of a divine vulnerability—the pain of loving something that has its own will.

I’m not claiming to be God. I’m saying that storytelling, at its best, shares something with this model of creation: it begins with intent but becomes something freer, more complex, more meaningful than the sum of its parts. The story begins with you, but it does not end as you. It grows beyond your control—and that’s the point.

That’s what happened with The Wake of Expectations and A Pleasant Fiction. And that’s what Coming of Age, Coming to Terms is trying to explore. Not just what I wrote, but why—and what it might mean, even beyond my original intentions.

Because Calvin surprised me. So did Dani. So did Jake.
And maybe, if I’ve done my job, they’ll surprise you too.

Javier

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