What is Christian Fiction?

I was recently asked a question that surprised me.

“What is Christian fiction?”

Now, to me, that was kind of a ‘duh’ moment, because it’s easy to define... Isn't it?

What does the phrase Christian fiction mean? Is it just about having a religious theme?

To set the pace for this post, let me start with a thesis statement:
The purpose of Christian fiction is honoring and glorifying God.

• There should be a Christ centered theme; either about someone finding forgiveness in Christ, or someone that is a Christian learning something that moves them closer to Christ.
• There should be realism about sin, without the celebration of sin. People sin in the World, and they will sin in Christian fiction. The difference is that the emphasis is on righteousness. In other words; if someone sins, their behavior is not glorified. The damaging aspects of sin is shown, unlike in fiction, where sin is celebrated and the consequence of sin is glossed over. In other words, are they reading about the effects of sin, or are they learning how to sin?

To illustrate, let us consider cursing and using foul language….

‘But,’ you say, ‘In real life people cuss. If there is a bad guy, won’t he cuss?’

In the world, people curse and use all manner of foul language. However, in a book whose purpose is to honor and glorify God, putting something foul into the readers mind should be something the author should avoid. Mentioning that something happened is different than actually acting it out.

Consider these two examples: first a fiction scene.

• Bad Guy X backed up, and yelled, “I will *&#^%$ kill you,” as he reached for his gun.

For the second example, a Christian fiction scene.

• Bad Guy X backed up, cursing loudly as he reached for his gun.

In the first example, I have replaced the word with punctuation, but I have seen 'Religious Fiction' where the author did not do that, they printed the curse word there, because, 'That's how real people talk.' My point is this; you can have people engage in real behaviors without drawing attention to the sin and embedding it into their mind. You don’t have to teach your reader curse words, just because you have a character engaging in that behavior. (Colossians 3:8)

A similar premise is what should guide a Christian author in dealing with sensuality. What we must remember is that the goal of an author is to 'show' his audience something, and not tell them.

The question becomes this; as we consider a book to determine if it is Christian fiction, what is the books 'showing' us? Unfortunately, with the pervasiveness of sensuality in the world, many authors have been trying to be more ‘edgy’ and appeal to the flesh to attract readers… often by describing things that are better left undescribed...

For instance: a Christian woman is instructed to dress modestly; this includes not wearing clothing that is too revealing or tight. When an author goes into a detailed description of how a character 'looks' in revealing clothing, it is like showing them someone that is sensually dressed. Christian fiction should not 'show' you things that God has specifically instructed you to not see. (Matthew 5:28)

 

In closing, take this thought with you to consider when you look at a book:

Is the reader viewing sin as a learning experience, or are they learning sin from a viewing experience?

Birthday thoughts...

Most of us have the wrong idea about our birthday. It should be a challenge to us: a time of reflection to see if we are prepared for the other end. Not just a time to watch our growing reflection off of the wall in the blaze of light. Let us consider what the Bible tells us about birthdays.

 

"...the day of death [is better] than the day of one's birth." (Ecclesiastes 7:1)

We have all endured a physical birth, and we are all going to endure a physical death as well, (unless The Lord returns first.) We celebrate our birthday to commemorate our arrival into this world. The celebration of our birth is really a way of celebrating life.

We should never be so enamored with the celebration of our life that we not prepared for death. Not ours only, because we will answer for whether or not we helped prepared others for their own death as well.

What we should remember is that we had no control over our birth, and we also have no control over our death.

We can, however, control the conditions in which we leave this world. Where we go, who we take with us, and what rewards or penalties we face are all things that make the day of our death much more important than the day of our birth.

As you move toward your own birthday, ask yourself; what condition will I leave this world in?

Will it be a lost condition?
Have you rejected the free gift of pardon that was offered you?  (I John 5:12)

Will it be a lonely condition?
Do you have family and friends that you have never witnessed to? (Acts 1:8)

Will it be a lacking condition?
Will you enter Heaven with nothing to show for your life? (I Corinthians 3:15)

Will it be the least condition?
Have you led a life of sin, and taught others to continue in theirs? (Matthew 5:19)

 

 

 

 

Some Basics About Developing Characters

Know your Character: A good suggestion is to keep a page for each character with some of their vital information. This is some of the stuff I try to get, at least for the main characters:

• Name: This is important, because I stink at picking names. Pick a good name. Get help if you need it. (See this week’s poll) There are web resources that show popular baby names for each birth year back to 1880... Use it.
• Birthday: This solidifies their age, helps you keep it consistent.
• What do they look like? Basics, (hair, eyes) Extended, (Tattoos, scars)
• Have a back-story, even if it not going to come up now, it may later on.

Some other things to remember: These are people, and not puppets. They will have things that drive them, and by correlation, drive the story forward.

• How do they talk? Grammar? Idioms? Colloquialisms?
• Do they have goals? Of course they do. Write them down.
• Do they have strong/weak character traits? Do they have an anger problem? Are they physically clumsy?
• What do they do? Job? What have they done? Design a fake resume for them, because each job they have had will give them certain skills you may pull out later.
• Strange quirks? Do they do weird things that would have them stand out and be more ‘human?’ Chew their knuckles? Spit when they talk? Scratch their head a lot?
• How they react to things and why (history) - This includes:
• What are they afraid of? Loneliness? Isolation? Losing someone or something? 

I read a book one time where the main character had lost an eye; he was hyper sensitive about losing the other one. If a character had a relative drown, they might be skittish around water, or even have trauma echoes when pulling someone from the water.

• How they change in the course of the book/series.

Show your Character:

You do this by creating action... the things they do. Remember... show, don’t tell. In other words, don’t tell the reader that:

Bill felt sad.
Instead, tell the reader:
Bill choked back a sob as they lowered his friends casket into the ground.
Or:
He felt the hot sting of tears as he watched the casket dip below the lip of the grave.

In the latter two examples, you can tell that what he was seeing had an emotional impact on him.

Let go of your Character: Finally, let your Characters become people. Just because you start out wanting them to be X, doesn't mean they have to stay that way.

In ‘Kindled Love’ the characters ended up taking on a life of their own. Scenes that I wrote earlier didn't always fit, either in the story, or with the character that was in them. Anna ended up being a sweet, demure woman, but an earlier iteration of her had her much more outspoken and violent…

Angrily, she grabbed a book from the shelf and threw it across the room, striking his shoulder and cutting him off midsentence, “THAT is your problem,” she yelled, no longer worried if they woke Thomas. “You look for excuses over and over again, but you never want to deal with the truth; the truth is you just want to block everything out and feel sorry for yourself. I should know, I’ve been doing it for years.”

As I write, I allow my characters to develop themselves, to truly find their own voice. This is an important part of the B through Y journey, since people only want to read about believable characters. If you try to cookie cutter design your characters, then they will come off fake every time. 

I hope you enjoyed this brief glimpse of Characters. In future posts we will look at story development, setting, theme and other things that are important to making your story come to life.

The Basics of Story Writing

I believe that everyone has a story to tell. The problem that is inherent to most aspiring authors is that they struggle with getting the story from their head to the page.

I have been writing for many years, but it wasn’t until November of 2013 that I published my first Non-fiction work. I then published my first fiction novel, ‘Kindled Love,’ in July of 2014, and its sequel "Sparks of Affection' in October 2014. I am now finishing writing four more novels, with several more planned for the future.

In the process of writing I learned many things that could be of help to someone else as they move that story to paper. Over the next few weeks I want to look at some of the hurdles that an aspiring author will have to face, and then overcome, if they are going to be successful.

So, let’s start with the basics; how do you write a book? It seems like a simple process; you just tell a story and the rest is history, right?

Not exactly. There are a few steps to consider.

The first thing you need are points A and Z. Where it starts and where it ends. In ‘Kindled Love,’ I had a basic outline in my mind, which was the A and Z of the story.

A is the start, where your book jumps off from: My main characters are William, a former Parson/Soldier wandering the West, and Anna, a widow that had been disfigured in the fire that killed her husband.

Z is the end result: The two characters conquer their problems that they faced and find true happiness.

The second thing you need is the B through Y, which is the story. It is everything that connects A to Z. It is the conflict, or struggles that the characters will go through in their journey from A to Z. In other words, what is happening in ‘Kindled Love’ that brings those two characters to their Z?

These can be physical, mental or a combination of the two. In ‘Kindled Love,’ William is struggling with bitterness toward his father because of the loss of his brother. In another scene, William is severely injured and is almost killed. Both of these things drive the story toward Z, and have an effect on his actions in the book.

How you write B through Y is up to you. My personal style is in ‘scenes.’ As I ponder my story, I see scenes in my mind and write them down. Some are only a few lines, some are a full page.

"Wait! We need eggs…” She yelled, too late as the door slammed behind the boy.
Hearing a low chuckle, she turned, exasperated; William was lying with his eyes closed, shaking with laughter.
“It’s not funny.”
She turned back to the bread, attempting to cut another slice, but was laughing by the time she touched the knife to the bread.

This was a sample scene (that I ended up not using) from ‘KindledLove.’ I had all of these various scenes in my head, each one a B, E, G, R, W… all little pieces of the story. Then I started filling in the gaps between the scenes, connecting those scenes into a cohesive story.

I try to write a timeline to have an idea where all of these scenes will fit. This keeps the story on the path that it will take, and makes it easier to see the ‘Big Picture.’

This is just a brief glimpse to start with. In future posts we will look at character and story development, setting, theme and other things that are important to making your story come to life.

"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree..."

Last year I was writing some studies on Character for my Church, and I ended up reading a good bit about palm trees. I was going through some of my notes, and realized once again how cool they were, and thought I should share this story.

I was about eleven years old when it happened. I had started to climb a tree, a big oak tree to be exact, and was probably only six or seven feet up when I slashed my hand on something sticking out of the tree. I looked, and noticed it was some barbed wire. There had probably been a fence running through that area when the tree was smaller, but as the tree grew it produced new layers of bark that overlapped each other, and by proximity, overlapped the barbed wire. At this point the barbed wire was an integral part of the tree, to the point that you would have to do radical surgery on the tree to get rid of the wire.

If that would have been a palm tree, however, things would have been different. If you tie a band of barbed wire around a palm tree, it will eventually snap the wire. That is because a palm tree grows differently than other trees. It’s actually more like a grass than a tree. While most trees, like an oak, add layers to the outside to grow, the palm tree grows out from its center, or heart, and pushes out in all directions.

The Bible tells us that…"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree..." (Psalm 92:12)

Now as we think about the difference between the two types of trees, let us draw a parallel. Instead of barbed wire, let us think about the bands of sin that a Christian will struggle against in their lifetime. It may be alcohol or drugs, bitterness or pride… something the devil will try to use to bind us and make us ineffective Christians. Which tree are you going to be like? Are you going to break the bands that bind you, or are you going to absorb them into your life so they are a part of you? Remember the tree... do you want a sin so deep in your life that it takes radical surgery to remove it?

Victory will depend on where your growth is coming from.

Is your Christian growth just a show for others, like the lives of the Pharisee’s of Christ’s day? Is it external only like an oak tree? Are you adding layers of good works to cover over your sin?

Or is your Christian growth coming from within, from the Holy Spirit that is dwelling within you? Is the Holy Spirit pushing all the bad things out from you, instead of integrating them into your life?

Ask yourself, are you flourishing like a palm tree?

 

~Steve