1. Fantastic thoughts here! And yes! Where are the supposal stories? I do think they’re being written. Whether they find an audience or not is another discussion altogether.

  2. I have a somewhat hard time answering this because I haven’t really looked into the supposal thing very much. I don’t really think a lot of people are writing straight up allegory, though. In fact, I think a lot of people try to make stories that vaguely feel like Narnia since that’s what they know and love. So from that standpoint, a lot of people are writing supposals. But maybe in some cases people might stay so much in the Narnia paradigm that their story doesn’t stand out on its own as much as it could.

    I don’t think I really write allegory much, or at least not in the sense of making the entire story an allegory. What tends to happen is that I come up with a world/character/what if scenario/etc. and try to figure out how it would realistically function. God, Christianity, etc. are usually one of the elements involved, whether or not those things actually appear in the story(the universe a story takes place in might have God, but sometimes characters won’t encounter him). From the standpoint of using what if scenarios like Lewis did, I guess my stories are supposals?

    At the same time, though, some of my characters and stuff do exist to represent and discuss things. One of my stories uses a Faust-like premise, and the main female character in that has a fully fleshed out personality and character arc, so she feels like an actual person. At the same time, she somewhat does represent humans and their relationship with God. But I don’t think she’s actually going to be an allegory to those things, mainly instead just following a lot of the patterns of behavior that humans have in their relationship with God, and thus she can be useful for opening up conversations about those matters?

    I don’t know. You can tell me if all that sounds like an allegory, supposal or a mix. But I think maybe a lot of modern Christian fiction stories might be a mix. The Dragons In Our Midst series seems like one, at any rate.

    • Autumn, I think mix is a good way to describe it. I don’t recall, for example, Christianity existing in Narnia. Rather, Lewis supposed Christ to come to a world with talking animals as the King of the animals, a Lion.

      I don’t think Davis does any supposal in his Dragons in Our Midst. He simply invented the equivalent of hell (Circle of Seven, for example), and took characters through experiences in which they had to defeat evil.

      I think allegory might actually becoming more popular again. A client of mine has written a four book series of allegory, right from the mold of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. His name is Walter Cantrell, and the first book is Disciple’s Quest. Here’s the link if you’re interested. https://www.amazon.com/Disciples-Quest-Adventure-Walter-Cantrell-ebook/dp/B017MBVZEE/

      Then not so long ago in a Facebook group, I saw a couple others who have written allegories, too. I’m glad that this genre is coming out of the mothballs.

      Becky

  3. Rachel says:

    Your post makes me think of a letter featured in a kids biography of Lewis where he states what each book is about and how it is a supposition if another word fell like ours how Christ would go and save it. I copied it here:

    The Magician’s Nephew tells the Creation and how evil entered Narnia
    The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe tells the Crucifixion and Resurrection
    Prince Caspian tells the Restoration of the true religion after a corruption
    The Horse and His Boy tells the calling and conversion of a heathen
    The Voyage of the Dawn Treader tells of spiritual life (especially in Reepicheep)
    The Silver Chair tells of the continued war against the powers of darkness
    The Last Battle tells of the coming of the Anti-Christ (The Ape) the end of the world and the last judgement.

What do you think?