Greetings all,

Andrew Lim and I are combing our joint obsessions with modern technology and good writing to start your.sydneyanglicans.net’s first ‘wiki style’ writing project.

In short, we’re launching an experiment - can our Christian community jointly produce a credible, readable re-imagining of John Bunyan’s classic, Pilgrim’s Progress? It will basically involve writers volunteering to have a go at its various chapters. You can read about the idea in more detail here.

This forum will be used to talk over issues, trade ideas and offer suggestions. Feel free to contribute, but try to be positive. We realise we are having a go at a time-honoured and much-loved book, and we do so with the greatest respect and humility. It’s not meant as a replacement, just another doorway for modern readers who might find the original too daunting. As much as anything, we’re hoping the process as well as the result will be an encouragement to all involved.

So if you’re interested in being involved, click the link above - and get writing!

Kind regards,

Mark Hadley

A quick update - the writing team so far…

Stage one - Andrew Lim

Stage seven - Mark Hadley

Stage eight - Andrew Tilsley

There are ten stages all up, listed in the pdf provided with the original article. So, as you can see, plenty of room for more contributors.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

A question that has already been raised by email - should we use or avoid Australianisms?

My take is that we try and avoid them where possible so that we include rather than exclude readers. That’s the beauty of the net; we may end up writing for a substantial English-speaking Pakistani community ... or not.

In any case, Kel Richards has probably done the best job of Pilgrim’s Progress WITH Australianisms, so no sense going that way.

I’m interested.
You’d only be doing part one? (I suppose part two could be done at a later time if this was successful).
What sort of licencing are you considering for the final product?
I’d agree to avoid string Australianisms, aiming for a sort of “international English” would be best.
I more important issue, what do you think about renaming the characters?

Hi Dannii,

The style Andrew has set in his first chapter is to rename the characters with more recognisable synonyms. You’ll see what I mean.

We’re thinking we just try Part One first and see how the rest goes - organising ten writers may prove difficult enough. As for licencing, we’ll discuss that when we get a few more people on board. However it’s looking pretty much like a not-for-profit or Creative Commons licence at this stage.

So, feel free to suggest a stage you’d like to tackle :)

Stage six to Dannii - four down, six to go.

Stage two to James Cartwright - five down, five to go.

And in passing, James has raised the interesting issue of characters that cross stages, and making sure the names are consistent.

Now, thankfully, most of Bunyan’s characters are confined to the various stages, but those that aren’t clearly need to be consistent. So, let’s start a little list here to make sure we have them down for everyone…

Here are the ones I’m aware of:

Christian >> The Traveller, or Traveller

Evangelist >> Evangelist

Faithful

Discretion

Piety

Prudence

Charity

Apollyon

Hopeful

That’s all I can find off hand but feel free to post some more if you note them. If you see one of your characters in this list then the best thing would be to check with the writer of the stage before or after that has the ‘repeat’ and see what they’re thinking for a name, or suggest your own. Don’t forget to post it here just in case someone else is looking for the same answer.

Here is the text of Pilgrims Progress at CCEL - I found it a little easier to use than the PDF.

Thanks mate, and Craig’s taken up Stage 10, so that’s four more to go…

Budding writers, don’t miss out!

As Hannibal Smith used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

A question that’s been raised is what to do with Bible verse references in the New PP.

Please footnote the references. This gets around the problem of old English, which Bible version, and the tricky issue of (post)modernising God’s Word.

Thank you for all your efforts, and seriously can’t wait to read your submissions.

Andrew

New Pilgrim’s Progress.

Yes, wondering about what to do about the names too. The main guy in section 10 is Hopeful (who is introduced earlier). I can’t really think of a better word than “Hopeful” to describe his character (Kel used “Trusty"). Perhaps the names can be used as surnames - eg. John Hopeful or John Hope, who is then referred to as Hopeful (or Hope) in the subsequent text.

Interested to hear what Andrew’s thoughts are.

Oh yeah, and something else regarding names. I find “the Traveller” to be a bit impersonal in the text. I really think retaining “Christian” (shortened to “Chris") would have been better. Something to think about…

Ignorance = Mr Blind

I like the idea about Christian; not a bad abbreviation either.

I think the great temptation is to merely synonymise (is that a word?) the characters.
The great challenge is to grasp the essence of the character and find an appropriate name/title in today’s vernacular.
My 30 seconds’ worth on Hopeful, as he appears to be a younger Christian brother:

Young Traveller
Traveller 2.0
Young/Little Brother