Can we say any more that a specific gendered character will act in a certain predetermined way, based primarily on that individual’s gender? I once had a guy critic my writing by saying that it wasn’t realistic because my male protagonist admitted to fear and weakness. Guys would never do that, this male critic said. But recently I read a novel in which the main character (or at least one of the point of view characters) did that precise thing—clearly, out loud, in front of other people, admitted his failure. The character proclaimed, in the face of others praising him as a great man, that the only way “great” applied to him would be as a great failure. The problem is that this novel was also written by a woman. Are we seeing writers who are somewhat blind to traits of the opposite gender?

Which brings up a whole can of worms. How does gender influence fiction? The gender of the author, the gender of the characters?

Can women misunderstand and misrepresent men in fiction? Or can male authors do the same to their women protagonists? Should authors avoid featuring characters of a different sex from their own?

At present, our society is so gender sensitive, our current Speaker of the US House of Representatives and her Democratic Chairman of the Rules Committee “introduced the new set of rules for the 117th Congress. It included several changes from the rules package for the 116th Congress, including using gender-neutral language instead of gender-specific language in references to pronouns and familial relationships.” (AP) As I understand it, this rule for the House is not a ban on such

specific terms as mother and father, son and daughter, and aunt and uncle.
Instead, only gender-neutral terms such as “parent,” “child,” “sibling” and “parent’s sibling” would be allowed in the text of the House rules. (New York Post; emphasis is mine)

Although this language applies to a fairly narrow aspect of government, it nevertheless points to the increased awareness of “gender issues,” specifically the idea that people can choose their own gender, no longer “limited” to two, but open to as many as 64 different gender terms that describe a person’s gender makeup (Healthline).

Of course, the discussion includes both biological traits and societal-cultural aspects. Some are imposed on an individual by society—something that has been criticized for some time—IE, girls don’t have to like pink or dolls or tea parties and boys don’t have to like trucks and army men and making loud noises (Vrrrrmm, vrrrmm, vrrrmm being an all time favorite). On the other hand, as is more often the case today, individuals are imposing on society their own understanding of gender. Hence, the House Rules change.

But how does this all play out in fiction?

Some time ago a writing instructor told me that male characters should not be adept at identifying a wide range of colors, such as beige, mauve, or turquoise? Are there still majority cultural ideas surrounding gender that can and should define a character? Or is the best plan to include as few gender specific references, or identifying markers, as possible?

Not so long ago, I read a general market young adult novel in which the main character, a girl, played the part of a boy joining the army. It fulfilled her life-long dream, and oh by the way, it protected her impaired twin brother from being conscripted. But because girls were not allowed in the army, she had to play the role of a young boy. The book was quite frank about the biological problems the character had to navigate, and the contempt some of her companions had for her lack of upper body strength.

I’ve read other books with a similar concept, but I wonder now if such stories that tinker with gender roles will survive. Or how about movies like Some Like It Hot (1959 with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemon) or Tootsie (1984 with Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange)? Are these stories destined to be banned one day, to be looked at as threatening in the same way as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has become in the arena of race?

Of course, for Christian writers, there’s also a need to look at our writing through the lens of Scripture. Some years ago, guest blogger Mike Duran tackled the subject of gender here at Spec Faith in an article he entitled Does Diversity in Fantasy Publishing Reflect God’s Kingdom or Identity Politics? His basic question is this: Is forced diversity really biblical diversity?

Do Christians, then, aim to write to the sensitivities of our culture or to the standards set out by the Bible?

Tootsie photo by Jan Sarkandr Tománek

Whenever I deal with science fiction, fantasy, or horror written by Christians or for Christians, I am struck by how the potential audience for this type of story is much bigger than what authors are currently reaching. This post, while serving a dual purpose to promote a specific project, most importantly explains why the Animal Eye comic exists and how it’s part of the drive I feel to reach a larger audience via visual media.

In that sense the Animal Eye comic is an example or model and I hope it will be part of a full arc of a successful crossing over into other media. I also hope this article will help other story creators decide if comics are a good choice for them—and further, may this bit of written work will help fans of Christian fiction become aware of a medium (comics) that they may not be paying much attention to.

The Dominance of Motion Pictures–and Moving that Direction

Informal surveys I’ve done on churches I’ve attended yield no shortage of fans of speculative fiction, especially the space opera flavor of science fiction and also epic fantasy. But these genres are mostly enjoyed by a majority of people in movie form. If we throw superhero movies into the mix, I’d guess that well over fifty percent of almost any group of Christians enjoys speculative stories–but only a tiny fraction of them are reading the stories in novel or short story form. Most are watching movies. Some read comics in addition to movies. Another group plays video games and also watches movies. Only a relative few are mainly readers of fiction–but even the reader crowd also watches movies.

So for that reason I’ve thought, for around six or seven years or so, that Christian creators should be getting into filmmaking. However, that’s significantly easier said than done.

I can pull an example of what I mean from my foray into translating stories from English into foreign languages. Hey, that’s something I’m already partially proficient at, because I speak multiple foreign languages (especially Spanish and French) and have actually worked as a translator. But even so, knowing part of what it takes and “translating that” into a business model of regularly-produced stories in foreign languages has proven to be quite difficult for me to pull off. Yeah, I’m still moving forward on getting speculative fiction stories into Spanish, French, and Portuguese (with other languages planned), but it’s hard, harder than you might think, to do it right. And that’s a subject I know.

Making movies I don’t know much about. So naturally there’s no easy way for me to immediately step into movie-making. That is, people like me without the proper training and equipment can’t just make it happen on a whim. Not to mention the budget for special effects and digital art.

So for me, comics are a step in that direction.

I don’t want to sell comics short, like they are only a means to an end. They aren’t–however, I suggested to Cindy Koepp we make her Novel Animal Eye into a comic because I want to head in the direction of more visual art. Ultimately I want to get to the production of films. I’m hoping Animal Eye is a good candidate for going in the direction of more visual media.

Drawn by the Idea

The most important thing about the Animal Eye story is it’s in a genre known as GameLit. The story is set within a video game.  (Cindy Koepp and I did an entire blog post about GameLit as an original approach Christian writers could take to speculative fiction and talked about a few details behind the Animal Eye story as well in a previous post for Speculative Faith.) For the purposes of this post, the plot of Animal Eye isn’t that significant–what is significant is the story has a natural connection to visual media.

The story features human beings with the ability to see and do things the way animals would–or better said, the they can see and to the way very-realistically-simulated animals would (as seen by human video game players). For example, the story-set-in-a-video-game describes a dog character seeing words rise from things revealing scents. Such scents could blow in the wind or linger on things like clothing. Which would be a simulated way to perceive the world the way a dog does. Which would bring with it with the drawback of not seeing in as many colors as a human can see—again, as much as possible, showing the world the way a dog experiences it.

Another example: A bird would be able to see further and clearer than a human–and from an aerial perspective of course. Likewise a cat character could see at night. Animals in general in the Animal Eye story world can perceive human emotions by smell and other clues a human would not detect, even if the person is trying to hide their true feelings. (Which in the story world is shown by emojis floating over human characters.)

Seeing what the animals can see is an inherently cool idea, I thought. What a shame that the medium of written words can only tell what that would be like but cannot show it, I thought.

Entering Into Comics

Cindy, the author of Animal Eye, happened to have befriended a Christian creator of comic books around the time I published Animal Eye in novel form…and when she was filling in for me here on Speculative Faith on one occasion, she wrote an article about that company (Terraform) and their comics. Shortly after that, I asked her if she’d be interested in making her novel into a comic. Because wouldn’t it be nice to actually show the (simulated) animal perspective the novel described.

She agreed it was a good idea. So we set off in pursuit of that goal. Making the novel Animal Eye into a comic.

How to Make a Novel into a Comic–According to an Idiot Who Had Never Done It Before

Well, calling myself an “idiot” may be going a bit far (though not everyone reading this will disagree I’m sure, lol), but in fact I knew very little about comic books. I barely read comics. How do you go from not knowing anything to making a nice-looking final product? Let me detail my method:

1. Have somebody else do the scripting OR be willing to diligently study how to write a comic book script: Quite honestly, Cindy did the scripting, though maybe I should have, since it was my idea. She also worked at understanding how a comic book script works (in short, you’ve gotta be brief and action-oriented). She asked people about it. She studied. She practiced.

Her research materials included Scott McCloud’s trilogy: Reinventing Comics, Making Comics, Understanding Comics; and some sample scripts supplied by comic book writer and novelist Brian K. Morris. It took time and effort. THEN, she asked my idiot self what I thought about her script for issue and I managed to stammer out a few words about inconsistencies I noted in the story, gave some ideas guiding the best approach to take in certain scenes, and looked for spelling errors. But let’s be clear–while I helped with the comic book script for Animal Eye, Cindy Koepp did the heavy lifting.

1. Make friends in the genre: Maybe I should have listed this as step one, because it affects so many other steps here. Friends in the comic genre have helped us with advice on scripting, art, promotion, distribution, and many other things. However, you could learn to write a script without having any friends who are into comics if you referenced the right resources. So you could in fact start the script first. But you will need friends to help with other things. Cindy paid attention to comic book writer friends, messaged groups of authors, offered corny jokes, gave support to people and in many ways, by being friendly, got the help and advice she needed. (I also contributed a small bit here–I know a guy at my local church who is a comic book store owner–he gave us some helpful advice as well.)
2. Hire the right artist! I mean it! It’s important!: So at some point you will have to hire a comic book artist if you are a crafter of words and want to make a comic. Somebody has to take your ideas and make them into pretty pictures. In this, Cindy knew from friends where to look for artists (she publicized on broadcasts like Clever Title Pending and Nevermind the Furthermore, and Facebook groups like Comic Related Madness and Rising Tide Publications). Artists sent in portfolios and Cindy and I together made a decision on whom to hire. I think it’s fair to say I took the lead in this decision and one of the factors that mattered to me was cost per page. The artist I wound up hiring is from outside the United States. Less expensive art wasn’t the specific reason I hired him, but it helped me make the decision (Rowell Cruz, our artist, is from the Philippines). HOWEVER, cost cannot be the main factor. You have to like the art you get when the project is finished. I at first was thinking I wanted a more realistic style but Rowell’s anime-like style won me over. While the Animal Eye comic is an adventure suitable for all ages, it will probably appeal more to younger readers. Rowell’s style is perfect for appealing to that age group. Thank God that even though didn’t fully understand what I was doing, I believe we picked the right guy.
   

   Page 18: I really like Rowell Cruz’s handling of a battle scene, Nagheed the dog and his human companion verus story monsters (“maniacs”).

3. Have knowledgeable people give feedback: Here’s where friends came in handy again. People who knew the comic book industry, people Cindy had made friends with, gave feedback on both the script and the artwork. Overall, they were impressed with what we had done, but gave important tweaks.
4. Figure out Kickstarter: It’s industry standard–I mean in the comic book industry–for a project to cost more than indie creators can swing from their own pocketbooks. Rowell was relatively inexpensive, but his artwork still cost well over 1,500 dollars. Hey, you can’t get something from nothing and even at the lowest possible cost, good artwork will cost some $$$. So that’s why getting to know Kickstarter (KS) is important. Optimizing a KS campaign is somewhere between an art and a science and there are lots of elements involved. You have to offer rewards for people who donate to your campaign but those rewards should not cost more to provide than about 1/3 the amount people donate. The rewards come in tiers and levels and not every idea works equally well. You have to do mockups of rewards offered, you need to create a video introducing the project, and a number of other matters. It takes work–you have to study how to do it right. (Cindy actually paid to take the ComixLaunch course from Tyler James.)
5. What’s next…er…? I wish I could offer a perspective of years of experience at this and tell you for sure what will work and what won’t beyond what we’ve already done. In truth, I’m not 100 percent sure. I’m still learning. But what I’ve learned so far, I’m sharing with you.

And Next, a Video Game…?

It so happens that in an online group, I ran into a video game creator who was asking questions about his storyline. I offered some free help. Then I asked him about creating a video game. He directed me to a Christian game creator’s group on Facebook. I asked there, and now Cindy and I are having a conversation in which we will get an estimate on the creation of 2 different possible types of video game.

Hey, that’s very, very, very preliminary. I am making no promises of any kind. But, God willing, we will push forward to the next step with this story. A video game in which the player can take on the role of an animal character who is a companion to humans in a fantasy role-playing type adventure.

Again, will this happen? I don’t know. But we are working in that direction. (A story set in a video game seems a natural choice for a video game, right?)

If the comic succeeds, it will give us a reason to continue on the path to the video game. If a video game succeeds, then we will look into making a movie. Can I guarantee any of that? Absolutely not. But this is the aspiration we have for Animal Eye.

By the Way, French, Portuguese, Spanish Animal Eye…

By the way, I’ve already produced translations of the comic into French, Portuguese, and Spanish versions. However, I haven’t been able to pay our artist to put the foreign words into foreign-language versions of this comic, because that requires adjustment of the art in many places. But if we get enough in the KS campaign, that’s one of the things we will do.

Will foreign-language versions of the Animal Eye comic (or Oeil D’Animal, Olho Animal, Ojo Animal) sell well? I don’t know. We have got some positive feedback concerning the Portuguese version having sales potential. But we don’t in fact know. However, it’s something we will try–broadening the net we cast, so to speak, hoping to catch something along the way.

Please Help Us if You Can

Hey, if what Cindy and I want to do with Animal Eye sounds like a good thing to you, please consider supporting our Kickstarter campaign (bit.ly/AnimalEyeKS). BY THE WAY, if you follow the link I just shared to the KS campaign, you will see the image I just copied with “print screen” to put into this post, right below this paragraph. On the actual KS page you will see a “play” button that actually works, which has a two minute video used to describe the Animal Eye project for KS linked to it. That two minute video is actually a mini-movie, God willing not the last one Bear Publications produces. Check it out, I think you’ll like it!

If you would like to find out more about how to do a KS campaign or a comic, please feel free to mention what you’d like to know in the comments below, and I will do all I can to help you. (Cindy and I actually have learned a thing or two as of now!)

The term “woke” has been around for a while, but its wide-spread use burgeoned last year with the Black Lives Matter movement. To what does it refer? According to the Urban Dictionary “woke” means “being aware . . . knowing what’s going on in the community (related to racism and social injustice)” (as quoted by “What does ‘woke’ mean?“).

As I understand it, this “being aware” is closely aligned with “agreeing.” In other words, a person is not “woke” unless they agree that racism is systemic in America, that whites have advantages minorities don’t have, that Blacks should receive “reparations.”

It’s pretty extreme, but because it is tied to the idea of “racial justice,” it has gained a great deal of traction in the US.

I could build a case of pros and cons, but my intention is not to analyze this idea of “woke-ness.” (For a great discussion about racism here as Spec Faith, see Travis Perry’s 10-part series on the subject, starting with his August 2020 article “Let’s Talk About Race and Racism. Part 1: The Bible.”) Rather, my question is, how does this ongoing idea affect Christian fiction?

I see three broad, general responses. First, authors can ignore the subject. I can see this approach especially in books that don’t lend themselves to dealing with such a contemporary understanding of race relations. A romance for instance, or a historical that is set in 18th century France. That sort of book. To force a contemporary understanding onto the unrelated subject would be the height of preachiness.

But preachiness is a second option. I’ve seen it. The issue is not personal actions or responsibility, but group blame. The problem, as I see it, is that people don’t act consistently with the stereotypes we force on them, and to pretend that they do, doesn’t make any story seem true to life. In addition, these kinds of “message driven” novels can become transparent and predictable. Without going very far into a story, the reader can already know the desired outcome.

In this regard, novels dealing with “woke culture” are no different from any other novel that exists to pound out an agenda as opposed to telling a story.

The third response Christian fiction can take is to expose readers to race issues or ethnic diversity. I’d even suggest that some might call this a “Biblical approach,” since the Bible advocates over and over for multinational and therefore multiracial equality in God’s sight and within His family.

Interestingly, readers have similar choices as writers have. First, readers can seek out books that, by their nature, do not address the contemporary “woke” ideas. Second, readers can accept a new kind of novel: one that has a clear message that the writer wants to deliver—either pro or con—regarding the “woke” culture. These books will be thinly veiled messages with predictable outcomes, and the reader can see through the story to the advocacy of a position, without much effort. Third, they can purposefully, and patiently seek out books that tell a story which aligns with the truth of Scripture about God’s attitude toward multi-racial issues.

To illustrate these points, I’ll hold up the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (understanding, of course, that Mark Twain did not profess Christianity or write Christian fiction. Nevertheless, we can learn lessons from his work.) First, choosing to read a book set in the American South during slave years, means that there is likely no hiding from some aspects of the subject of race. But is the novel preachy? Does it have an agenda? I’d answer No, and Yes. Most novels have an agenda, known in the literary world as the theme. Having something to say is not a problem. Saying it in a transparent way that makes the novel predictable, is a problem. Is Mark Twain’s novel preachy or predictable? I don’t think so. As evidence, I’d suggest that the “woke” culture is largely responsible for having the novel scratched off any number of school reading lists and banned by any number of libraries.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explores themes of race and identity. A complexity exists concerning Jim’s character. While some scholars point out that Jim is good-hearted and moral, and he is not unintelligent (in contrast to several of the more negatively depicted white characters), others have criticized the novel as racist, citing the use of the word “n___” [edited] and emphasizing the stereotypically “comic” treatment of Jim’s lack of education, superstition and ignorance. (Wikipedia)

It’s hard to believe that a novel which has both praise for its treatment of a bi-racial situation and criticism for it, is preachy. One thing that’s true about preachy fiction: readers don’t miss the point. But apparently “the point” of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not as crystal clear to today’s culture as it would have been if Mark Twain had stripped away the complexity and made his point obvious and transparent.

Clearly, Mark Twain took an approach that exposed readers to race issues and ethnic diversity. Through this novel readers discover attitudes about slavery and about people, expressed by both the white character, Huck, and the black character, Jim. While race wasn’t the main focus of the novel, it was certainly a vehicle for Mr. Twain’s thoughts about morality and conscious. In fact, there is room within the novel to agree with parts and to disagree with parts, to understand individuals as well as institutions, to approve and to disapprove. In other words, readers are allowed, and encouraged, to think for themselves.

As far as I see it, this is the best kind of Christian fiction, whether dealing with “woke” culture or any other topic.

Featured photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

Who doesn’t love a good disaster film? How often have we sat on the edge of our seat in a theater and watch as carnage and destruction decimate our planet? The more deadly and vicious the threat, the more we want it. Film has a unique way of putting us in the thick of things as we are surrounded by crashing tsunamis, exploding volcanoes, off-course asteroids, virulent viruses, alien invasions, or any number of phenomena destined to destroy our way of life.

Disaster films generally utilize an ensemble cast with each character bringing a bit of their story to the overarching one. This aspect is important to the success or failure of a film. Recently Warner Bros. released the monster disaster movie Godzilla vs. Kong. Critics faulted the movie for failing to develop its human characters. (Perhaps I am too simple. I didn’t care about the human element. I just wanted to see the lizard fight the monkey.) Whether one agrees with the sentiment, a successful disaster film appeals to our concerns about the humans involved.

Many films in the disaster genre explore unique symbolism. Given all the disaster film subgenres—manmade, apocalyptic, natural disaster, epidemics, and pandemics, and more—I’ll limit this article to the analysis of a selection of apocalyptic disaster films.

Apocalyptic films explore humanity’s purpose and desire for existence

Armageddon (1998) explored humanity’s potential end via an asteroid.

According to my mom, the plot is similar to 1978’s Meteor, with the added intrigue of Cold War politics with the United States’ favorite enemy, Russia. Humanity’s salvation rests on the eclectic motley crew of an oil rig who are tasked with drilling into the asteroid to break it apart. Scientific inaccuracies abound (according to those who care about such things), but the movie appealed to audiences because of the relatable characters.

In the movie, the world’s hopes rest on this crew. Within the movie, people of all different religious beliefs come together to pray for this crew’s success. Ultimately, they succeed when Bruce Willis’s character sacrifices himself at the end to save the world, a definitive parallel to Christ’s sacrifice. Praying to God represented people’s understanding that if this plan will succeed, the people need divine intervention. I don’t recall anyone heckling the thought of God intervening. In fact, this was welcomed.

Armageddon had more comedy than probably is warranted. However, laughter goes a long way in making dark news light. Deep Impact (1998), Armageddon’s fraternal twin, also explored the potential destruction of Earth via an asteroid. This film was more of an emotional story with potential survivors being chosen by a lottery. Deep Impact dealt with water, an allusion to Noah’s flood whose waters God used to cleanse the Earth. At the end, Morgan Freeman’s character stares at the camera saying, “The waters receded,” indicating God had spared his full judgement on Earth.

While I wouldn’t call both movies Christian, they had themes and precepts that fall in a Christian worldview. Our existence is completely dependent on God. Irrevocably. Anyone who believes different is welcome to…but it doesn’t make it true. Any illusion of control is simply that…an illusion.

Apocalyptic movies highlight our desire to prevent self-destruction

Recently my Granny and I watched a movie called Crack in the World (1965). In this movie, scientists send a nuclear missile into the Earth’s crust to access geothermal energy and release a crack that travels around the world. After the experiment succeeds, one scene shows all the animals running away. It made me laugh. (“Stupid humans,” you could hear the animals say.) This movie obviously showed how man’s consistent need to manipulate nature points to his own self-destruction.

Just like other impossible science fiction from the 1960s, the crack around the world is stopped by some secret underground laboratory and a big red button. The crack releases a giant chunk of the Earth, which glows and turns into a second moon.

The Core (2003) also digs into the Earth to depict our own self-destruction. In this film, our planet’s core, believed to be a Mars-sized chunk of iron in rapid motion, has stopped spinning. This affects the Earth’s electromagnetic field which affects life. Dangerous microwaves pierce through the atmosphere in lethal doses. Bizarre weather destroys cities. Devices affected by the electromagnetic field’s volatile change cause loss of life.

Our motley crew of terra-nauts have constructed a ship made from an improbable element called Unobtainium. They inform us that America’s enemies created a device that could create directed seismic disasters. Because one good turn deserves another, the main scientist of the project says, “They [our enemies] built it first. I built it better. M. A. D.! Mutually Assured Destruction.”

In The Core, one member of the crew dies. An argument ensues and the commander explains the cause of death as, “Fate or God—” But the science teacher screams. “You leave God out of this.” In the movie, the commander chooses not to save his friend and instead reluctantly chooses to save the world. This dialogue mirrors that it wasn’t fate or God, but man who caused the demise.

At the end, with help from nuclear bombs, they restart the Earth’s core.

These films are like Aesop’s fables about man’s arrogance. In both movies, scientists are responsible for the planet’s approaching destruction. In the name of defense, they create weapons to capitalize on power.

Apocalyptic films reveal that humanity cannot stop its own judgment

Can you remember the fervor over “Mayan prophecy” that predicted the world’s end on December 21, 2012? I’m so glad I didn’t set my watch. That fervor exploded into several movies, such as 2012 (2009). The apocalyptic end, caused by the shifting of the Earth’s crust, was spectacular.

I’ve watched the movie many times. Each time, I’m struck by its symbolism.

Water once again points to God’s judgment. 2012 shows most of the United States being destroyed by earthquakes and tsunamis. However, the story’s disasters shifts in subtlety, from a nominal spiritual element that all experience to a subjective emphasis.

Consider this: In the scene where the president speaks gently to the terrified masses, he begins to recite Psalms 23—but he is cut off. Fear ensues and volcanoes erupt. Here in a nation purporting to be Christian, the words of the Lord are superficially comforting.

A giant tsunami wave hurtles toward the cool, collected façade of the Dalai Lama who faces his end with serenity. In his last effort, he rings the bell of the temple before the wave crashes upon him.

The crazy prepper disc jockey who embraced the truth of the end joyfully accepts his fate, laughing and smiling in the face of death as a fiery rock burns him to a crisp.

Lastly, the Indian scientist, who discovered the changes within the Earth, dies in the disaster he predicted along with his family.¹

This film and many others depict the inevitability of humanity’s end. We understand our flawed, wicked nature. We don’t have to look very far to see humanity’s tendencies toward destruction. We must be stopped—and if we’re stopped by worldwide destruction, so be it.

Biblical prophecy points not only to a certain end, but a new beginning

If you want to start an eschatological fist fight, talk about the apocalypse according to Scripture. Christians share two popular points of views on the popular prophetic passages of Daniel, Ezekiel, the four Gospels, and Revelation.

The futurist view

This centers the apocalypse on the person of the Antichrist who develops a one-world government, with the Mark of the Beast as a way of separating true believers from the damned. It involves a complex aligning of geopolitical events to bring about the end in which the Rapture will occur, the reign of the Antichrist, then a global war between Satan and his demonic forces and God—who will ultimately win. The judgment ends by the purification of fire. ²

The Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins explores this view.

The preterist view

In this concept, the apocalypse is the breaking of the old covenant with Israel and the forging of the new one. The language of Revelation is metaphorical with allusions that first-century Jews would have understood: for example, the Antichrist being Nero, the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., and other geopolitical events of the known world during that time frame. Most proponents of the preterist view believe that not all events mentioned in Revelation have already happened but that some are still yet future.

The Last Disciple series by Hank Hanegraaf explores this scenario.

Either way, God writes the ending

Regardless of one’s view, apocalyptic films mirror this biblical end-times imagery. However, most apocalyptic films stop at humanity’s end, where only a remnant of people are saved. Or, worse, everyone gets wiped out. Humanity dies away into stardust.

Thanks be to God, that’s not the end.

God’s judgment unleashes His righteous wrath that He has held back for so long. Yet, instead of utter destruction, He will restore creation to perfection: a New Heavens and New Earth where sin will have no reign.

That’s different even from supposedly hopeful endings like in the movie Knowing (2009), where we find Nicolas Cage running around trying to figure out end-times stuff. At the last end, mysterious beings (angels?) collect his children and a few others and take them to another planet (another Earth?) where they run by a tree, implied to be the tree of life. The problem with that scenario is that all the kids get saved—but they’re still stuck in their sins. Eventually, their descendants will make the same mistakes as their forefathers. In that movie, man’s destructive cycle continues.

Our Lord will end that cycle and bring a new beginning that will last forever.

What are some of your favorite apocalyptic sci-fi movies or series? What are some other underlying themes I missed? Share your thoughts!

I’m a fan of Jill Williamson’s writing. I haven’t read every single book she’s written, but close. In fact, I just bought her latest release, Hunger, the second book in the Thirst duology, prequels to her Safe Lands dystopian trilogy. This is one I’ve been especially eager to read. When news came out that she’d be releasing the book this April, I made a special effort to jump right in and get my copy ASAP.

Some might be skeptical, thinking if you’ve read one dystopian, you’ve read them all, but that’s not the case with these books that serve as prequels to Williamson’s Safe Lands trilogy. For one thing, the timing of the books about a virus—albeit, one in the water instead of one passed by human secretion—is eerily prescient. For another, Jill exposed the underbelly of human behavior in the midst of panic, painting pictures that are all too reminiscent of store shelves stripped of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, canned products, fresh fruits and vegetables, and more.

Of course, the over arching goal of these books aims to show what happened that brought about the circumstances in the Safe Lands books in which the majority of people lived in a walled section of the world, while a much smaller group lived more like survivalists apart from the majority. How did this happen? That’s the driving question behind Thirst and Hunger.

Here is the description of Hunger

In the wake of a pandemic, Eli and his friends find a thriving community that offers free housing, food, and thankfully, safe drinking water. But something is amiss. The residents spend most their time partying and attending concerts. No one seems concerned that the virus is still out there. When Eli tries to leave, he discovers a fence has been built to keep him, and everyone else, inside.

Hannah is tired of running. When she is conscripted to work in the hospital, she hopes she’s finally found a place to belong, but Admin’s disregard for a doctor’s pledge to “First do no harm” is unsettling.

As Hannah starts to wonder if she will ever be safe again, Eli clings to his hope for freedom. In a world filled with lies, can they learn to trust each other? Or will their hunger for safety trap them in a world that’s not so safe after all?

Clearly, Hunger is the Part 2 of this two-book explanation for the existence of the world a reader will discover in the Safe Lands trilogy. For those who have not read the Part 1—Thirst—I strongly encourage you to start there. The really good news is that the book is available on Kindle for $2.99. That’s a steal. This book is fast-paced and highly entertaining. No one should worry that they will arrive at a cliffhanger ending, though it’s evident at the conclusion of Thirst that there needs to be more story. (See “Fiction Friday: Thirst By Jill Williamson”). And of course, the other good thing is that “more story” has now arrived!

As a refresher

Jill Williamson is weird, which is probably why she writes science fiction and fantasy novels for teenagers. She grew up in Alaska with no electricity, an outhouse, and a lot of mosquitoes. Thankfully it was the land of the midnight sun, and she could stay up and read by the summer daylight that wouldn’t go away. But the winter months left little to do but daydream. Both hobbies set her up to be a writer.

Also Jill is a Whovian, a Photoshop addict, and a recovering fashion design assistant. Her debut novel, a medieval fantasy called By Darkness Hid, won an EPIC Award, a Christy Award, and was named a Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror novel of 2009 by VOYA magazine. Jill has since published thirteen books.

Finally, she loves working with teenagers and encouraging them to respect their dreams. Jill speaks and gives writing workshops at libraries, schools, camps, and churches. She blogs for teen writers at www.goteenwriters.com. She lives in Oregon with her husband, two children, and a whole lot of deer. You can also visit her online at www.jillwilliamson.com, where adventure comes to life.

Jill is a prolific writer. Besides her Safe Lands dystopian books, she wrote a straight science fiction story about cloning called Replication, a young adult series suited for younger teens called The Mission League books, two co-authored (with her son) children’s stories in her RoboTales series, and several fantasy series. If you haven’t jumped on the Jill Williamson bandwagon yet, now is as good a time as any to dive in and find out what you’ve been missing.

Looking for something to entertain me horror-wise, I traveled to YouTube. Finally, I found what I was looking for.

Unlike their big budget or low budget longer counterparts, short horror films work very quickly to tell a story. The story doesn’t have to be completely flushed out, but you need to get the gist of what’s happening. Some of the short films are anywhere from three minutes to ten. Some a little longer like twenty minutes.

The movies I’ve listed below are on YouTube. If you decide to click on them, the thumbnail will reveal the scary image of the film. This is to attract viewers to the channel and entice potential subscribers.

The Beauty of Short Horror Films

Simple storylines.

In the short film titled, Polaroid, which is only three minutes long, we follow a young man who just moved into an apartment. He finds an old polaroid camera. Bemused, he takes a picture with it. And what he sees starts his journey in horror.

Within the first maybe five or ten seconds, without any dialogue, you pick up on these cues. The director staged everything so well that even the most passive viewer can see it.

Plot driven acts.

In these short films, it’s not necessary to know about the characters’ entire personal history. Depending on the type of story it is, we only need to know enough to follow their path. The purpose is to build tension within a short time frame. In She Knows, a five-minute film, we don’t know much about the main character. We only see the results of his actions as he hides the body…and what happens after that.

Sound effects, lighting, and space.

I think sound effects in these short films can really amp up the creepiness. Hearing a maniacal laughter in the background, crying, the creaking and cracking of bones, wind shrieking, a timid voice, a deep growl, all of those bring forth visceral reactions. In Reflection, another three minutes short, we have no idea who the woman is brushing her teeth. We don’t care. All we do care about as she’s doing something completely innocuous, we see the edge of something strange behind her in the mirror. Throughout the short is this weird laugh throughout that adds another level to strange to it.

The lighting and spacing in the movie created a claustrophobic feel. Evoking that sense brought you deep into the film. Tight spaces, darkness, and shadows are a recipe for creepiness.

Jump scares are a stable of horror films. Something jumps out at you when you least expect it. This technique can be overused to the point you no longer feel the impact of the scare.

Interpretative.

Due to the limited nature, some shorts have the capacity to craft a well-rounded story that leaves the viewer to guess what it means. This ambiguous aspect adds to the tension but in a more subtle way. “Make Me a Sandwich” explores domestic abuse and its psychological effects on the victim. The special effects weren’t the greatest, but the acting really made the film standout. As we follow our abused wife as she hurriedly answers her husband’s constant calls for another sandwich, we start to wonder at the happenings between this couple. The disgust factor in this three-minute film adds that weirdness to it. the husband chomps, and chomps, and chomps on the sandwich – no matter what’s in it. When we arrive at the end of this film, we find ourselves wondering about our own state of mind.

In “Lili”, an excellent eight minute film, it’s entirely dominated by two people. A man who remains mostly off-camera and a woman, an actress auditioning for a role. Her acting skills are phenomenal to anyone listening and watching her…but the guy behind the camera wants her to do a bit more. Echoing sentiments of the MeToo movement along with feminine empowerment, when we get to the end, it’s not what you think.

Predictability.

These films are predictable – that’s why we like them! We know someone’s going to get it. We know something dreadful is going to happen. We want to be the ones safely ensconced behind our monitors or our TVs in the living room and holler at the screen. “Don’t go in there!” “Don’t open the door!” “Stay away from the ancient demonic artifact!”

When you look in the comment section on YouTube, the commentary can get hilarious. In Lights Out, the not-even-three-minute film that became a full-length feature that grossed 150 million dollars, we’re screaming at the lady to ‘Keep the lights on!’ She does that. Then we heard creaking footsteps and we’re like, “Get out of the room!”

But we know she’s going to stay there. Ultimately, we really don’t want her to get out the room. We need to see the monster, the goblin, the ghost, the alien what have you.

This doesn’t mean that all short horror films are good. Due to the limits some are pretty bad. But why spoil it for you?

Looking through these short horror films, I noticed something a few things about them. There are more knowledgeable people about the film industry than me so please take these below ideas in a general sense of someone on the outside looking in.

1. Many of them were amateur movie makers. The makers weren’t well-known directors or had thousands of dollars at their disposal. They had a vision and worked at executing it.
2. Many of them used what was available. This means they called in friends, used their own vehicles, houses, borrowed clothes, and other favors. Many of them are scaled back in production design.
3. Those moviemakers who continued to make movies got better at making movies. Practice makes perfect. With the kind of technology out there, some of it free to download, use, share, and connect, more people are going at it.
4. Movies is an art form, not just entertainment. Most like to tell stories.
5. There is a community working together.

The Advantages and Examples of Horror Writing through a Christian worldview.

Mike Duran got into a lot of trouble about advocating for this, but I contend that he’s right. Horror is an excellent vehicle that depicts the human condition, and the need for salvation vs. survival. I am reminded of Frank Peretti’s The Oath, a thoroughly enjoyable book that took a literal and symbolic view of sin and Satan in the form of a dragon and black goo.

Most people think of horror as gore. It’s not. Horror has many sub-genres like any other. Sometimes it’s psychological, mysterious, comical.

I’ve seen Christians bully Christian writers out of exploring in this genre because of their own dislike for it. Well, admittedly, not just this genre but any speculative fiction genre. Folks have a knee-jerk reaction and because they don’t like it, you shouldn’t either.

The best book I’ve read in a long time is Nate Allen’s Death is not the End, Daddy. This psychological thriller explores the story of two men – a young girl’s father and the serial killer who kidnaps his daughter. Through dark storytelling, Nate Allen explores themes of sin, spiritual warfare, forgiveness, and possible redemption through a Christian lens. I told Nate it’s the best book I’ve read. I’ve enjoyed many, many books and it’s hard to pick ‘the best’ but I picked it because it’s a powerful piece of fiction looking at God’s grace through the eyes of someone the rest of us would give up on.

Another dark novel I’ve enjoyed is Jess Hanna’s Bright Lights, Dark Skies. Exploring the nature of alien abductions and speculating if they are extra-terrestrial or something much darker. When you listen to the stories of victims of alien abductions, they’re quite frightening. They aren’t first contact with a Klingon. They aren’t aliens asking for you to ‘Take me to your leader.’

There’s something sinister beneath these incidences.

In Deborah Alten’s Mrs. Shackles, this short collection of flash fiction pieces is reminiscent of the Twilight Zone with the recurring character of Mrs. Shackles. I told Deborah I wanted to see more of this woman who acts as judge, jury, and executioner. By the time you’re finished reading it, you begin to wonder why Mrs. Shackles is the way she is.

I wouldn’t call the book horror, but it does have somber, moodier stories. Hopefully, she continues to write more.

I sense there are those in the community of Christian speculative fiction writers who want to explore topics in this genre. Why not? It’s not always about demonic entities but psychological thrillers, cover-ups, manipulations and so much more. In fact, forget the demonic forces at large. What people do to each other can be quite frightening. Maybe you don’t want to go the spiritual or monster route. You don’t have to. The creep factor is what you make of it.

Horror is an excellent canvas to explore good vs. evil, light vs. dark, survival vs. salvation and a whole host of themes. I think it would be even better written within the context of a Christian worldview.

In the US, with the First Amendment protecting free speech, I have not imagined a time I would be discussing banning books, but here it is. I’ll be discussing some of the books that I read during my enforced time away from the computer, but another matter has more urgency, I think.

With little notice, society has taken upon itself the banning of certain books. I looked at lists from 2019 and from 2020 listing the top ten banned books, usually by some library. School libraries were the most apt to ban the books. Technically taking a book out of a library is not “banning,” because presumable people can go elsewhere and find the book or perhaps buy their own copy.

It is troubling that books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain ( a Bantam Classics, published in 1885); To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (publised by Harper Perennial in 1960); and Lord of the Flies, make these lists, but the idea that they are banned is not quite accurate. Rather, more often than not, concerned parents who found the content of certain books, often required reading, to be offensive, complained to their school and their library or administration removed them.

However, in 2019 the US moved a step closer to actually banning a book:

In 2019, two New Jersey lawmakers introduced a non-binding resolution calling on school districts in the state to remove the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—considered to be one of the greatest in American literature—from their curricula.

Government, “suggesting” to schools what people can or can’t read.

More recently, however, “cancel culture” has influenced the withdrawal of six Dr. Seuss books from publication. Complaints caused the organization to rethink the books they put in print:

As adored as Dr. Seuss is by millions around the world for the positive values in many of his works, including environmentalism and tolerance, there has been increasing criticism in recent years over the way Blacks, Asians and others are drawn in some of his most beloved children’s books, as well as in his earlier advertising and propaganda illustrations.(ABC news report)

Finally, last year the organization holding the reins of the Dr. Seuss legacy, decided to stop publication of a select number of titles.

Dr. Seuss Enterprises, working with a panel of experts, including educators, reviewed our catalog of titles and made the decision last year to cease publication and licensing of the following titles: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer. These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong. (from the Dr. Seuss Enterprises statement, as quoted by Deadline)

And so the dominoes begin to fall.

The canceling of books in a little confusing. For instance, some of the books on the 2020 list of “banned” books were removed because Christian parents objected to graphic sex portrayed in the book, some because of vulgar language or similar questions about age-inappropriate material. Should parents be allowed to make those decisions for their children? Should they push for what they believe to be inappropriate books to be removed from their school library?

On the other hand should the hypersensitivity of a culture in the 21st century remove books written earlier, often with the very intent to eliminate the objectionable behavior about which people complain?

No matter where people stand, I think the most dangerous piece of this puzzle is the involvement of a state government which has moved the needle toward actual censorship in the form of banning books.

How can we discuss ideas if we are not allowed to read anything about those ideas?

As I see it, the same “banning” approach is being employed by the “legacy” media and the tech giants that control social media. How else is a story published by the fourth largest newspaper in the US squelched? If our approach to news stories comes under the control of those holding only one view, how are we not turning our those reports into propaganda? I have to admit, I am strongly reminded of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in which the protagonist has the job of rewriting the past to suit the needs of the Party in control of the government.

In other words, I see books as key elements of our society—on one end giving a prescient look at our society, and on the other end, receiving the brunt of criticism caused by a climate of offense. The latter should concern readers and writers alike. Even when no harm is intended, when humor and caricatures are widespread such as in the canceled Dr. Seuss books, when the subject of a book is purposefully to expose a wrong attitude which has become “sensitive,” books are subject to negative treatment, if not actual banning.

To be honest, I’m surprised that Gone With The Wind is not on a recent banned book list. I’m pretty sure that Uncle Tom’s Cabin found its way on one such list not long ago. These books show life in the South during the era of slavery. To Kill A Mockingbird showed life in the segregated South during the 20th century. How are we to talk about the whys and the needed changes if we don’t have some look at what those times were like?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that romance receives a lot of hate.

Recently I saw someone comment about romantic fiction; something to the effect of, “When you read romance books, you’re committing adultery.”

I rolled my eyes, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard that argument. Probably won’t be the last. In this Fantastic Romantic Fiction series, I’ve answered to the best of my ability the common critiques romance receives as well as presented a primer.

My hope is I’ve given a fresh perspective about a genre I love.

To end this series, I wanted to share insight from two authors.

‘I didn’t know what I was getting into’

Outside of Travis’s wife, I am Travis’s biggest cheerleader.  I have a great deal of respect for him. He’s been a blessing to me as a brother in Christ and as a fellow author. He and I, along with three others, created a romantic fiction series. I’ve asked him to share his thoughts about the experience. ¹

1. Why did you want to experiment with writing romantic fiction?

Travis Perry: I have enjoyed stories with strong love interests. I didn’t understand the difference between a romance and a story with a love interest. The other reason is that romance sells better than speculative fiction. I wanted to get in on those romance dollars.

2. What did you learn about writing about romantic fiction that you didn’t know before?

Travis Perry: Flirtation and building expectation are essential commodities of the genre. My initial idea was two characters find something in common and fall in love. Romancing the Stone (1984) is a good example. The movie is an adventure.  Romantic fiction is about relationship-building.

3. During our time working on this project, I critiqued your draft and provided some suggestions to add stronger romantic elements. How was that experience for you?

Travis Perry: Details about attraction, flirtation and romance building are elements I’d seldom used. When you went over the draft, you included details about physical attributes, thoughts, and internal narrative. I focused on other parts like dialogue and plot development.

4. We released the series. What were some things you gathered from the experience?

Travis Perry: I’ll share the following:

• I should have used a pen name for writing out of genre. The crowd who followed my work knew me for my military and sci-fi work.
• As a group, we included fantasy, sci-fi and romance and ended up offending all three sects of readers. Also, the covers did not attract the readers we were looking for. We should have created a more romantic storyline and covers that matched it.
• We imagined that putting three genres together, thinking we’d attract all three categorical readers, but that didn’t happen. We should have simplified the stories.
• Romance dollars don’t come as easy as you think. Some speculative fiction writers believe romance is a pile of money you only have to pick up and grab, but that’s not true. Writing romance takes a certain skill set. It’s not easy.

I agree with Travis: we made some choices that didn’t pan out. But neither of us would call it a failure. If anything, we learned what not to do.

‘I use the Bible as a guideline’

My second author is Suprina Frazier.²

What can I say about my beautiful friend? She loves the Lord, and she doesn’t have any issue with adding sex and sensuality in her Christian fiction books. Her primary works are contemporary romance, but I reached out to her for this interview because she has a unique perspective I felt should be shared.

1. As an author who has written sex scenes in her Christian stories, what kind of opposition have you faced?

Suprina Frazier: I faced a lot of opposition from Christians. Realizing they are coming from their own interpretation of what is clean, I don’t vilify them. I’ve learned not to let other people’s interpretation be mine. One well-meaning Christian told me I wrote unclean books. In response, I took her to the book of Acts, to Peter’s vision, and showed her how the Lord admonished Peter for calling what he called clean, unclean. God created sex. It’s people, not God, who make it ugly.

The things you may call unclean are what God wants me to use to reach somebody. God has made me fearless in this path. He told me I am going to write what He tells me to or not at all.

Someone else’s displeasure can’t move me, only His.

2. What are the boundaries you use when crafting sensual scenes?

Suprina Frazier: I talk about whatever God gave me permission to talk about in the Bible. If you go to Song of Solomon, Chapter 4, the groom describes the woman and her body. He pans down from her hair, eyes, teeth, neck, and breasts. My love scenes are steamy, but tasteful. In the Song of Solomon, the groom discusses her face, her lips, her breasts, thighs. This is the permission God has given me.

3. How can you compare the intimacy of husband and wife with the intimacy with God?

Suprina Frazier: With intimacy between a husband and wife and intimacy with God it’s knowing a person like no one else does and should. No one else should know your husband or wife like you do. Likewise with God, there are things we trust God with to be completely naked with Him. When all our sins are laid bare, and He knows all about them. It’s undressing your soul before the Lord. Intimacy with God is greater than intimacy with your spouse.

4. If an author wanted to dip their toes in this volatile area of edgy Christian fiction, how would you advise them?

Suprina Frazier: I would tell the author to do a study in the Word of God. Start in Song of Solomon, but you can look at other instances where God refers to a man and woman becoming one. “He went into her.” “He knew her.” and other phrases. Be prepared to deal with those who will object.

The Creator of romance

My confusion remains why Christian authors and readers have such a hatred of romance. It’s strange. When God describes His relationship with the Church, He calls us his “bride.” As my author friend David Bergsland recently said to me, “When God talks about knowing us, it’s using the same term of an intimate relationship with a husband and wife.”

God is the creator of romance. He’s as crazy about love as we are. This doesn’t mean that he loves so blindly that He lets us do whatever we want. That wouldn’t be genuine love. Love has conditions.

Travis mentioned romance isn’t just two people falling in love. It’s relationship building. When you first fall in love, you can’t get enough of your sweetheart. You long to be in his or her presence all the time.

When we fall in love with our Lord, for new Christians, we bask in His love for us. He came to our rescue, a knight in shining armor, and carried us away from the dragon.

Committing to each other, a couple’s love grows as they experience life. Marriage, children, sickness, career changes, finances, and more. Each segment works to build the couple together. Romance explores this.

Committing to God, our relationship thrives as we experience life. The ebbs and flows of everything above and more. Our love for Him deepens the longer we get to know Him.

In the article “Meet 105-year-old man and 96-year-old wife who have been married for 79 years,” we hear of a couple who have spent nearly eighty years of happily ever after together. Through it all, they had each other.

It makes me look forward to the day when our happily ever after comes, when we reach Heaven and bask in His presence. We’ll be surrounded by His love for all eternity as we partake of the marriage supper and cement our relationship as His bride forever.

Ah! Isn’t that romantic?

I’ve been absent from this site for 2 and 1/2 months, and even before that, I was hit and miss. Long story short, my old computer needed to be upgraded. The operating system was no longer compatible to a lot of newer versions of the software running many sites. While I could still post here at Spec Faith, I could no longer comment from the site (I could still go to the administration page and search for comments I wanted to respond to, but I could not generate new comments). This went on for several months.

Then one December while I was watching a video, my computer simply stopped. Just stopped.

Since it was the week leading up to New Years Eve, I decided to wait until the new year to handle the problem

When I contacted my computer guy—a tech person who has a one-man business working with old Apple computers (the Apple people had long since told me they could not maintain my machine, because it was so old), I worked out a way to transport that desk top computer a half hour or so to his business. He laid out my options: he could try to repair the machine, but for a little more money he possibly could find a newer, used model that would have more life in it than my old computer which was likely to have other problems as time wore on. Fine. I

I expected in to call me that week to let me know if he’d been successful in finding such a used computer. Instead, nothing. OK, I thought, I’ve dealt with old cars before, so maybe he’s having a little trouble finding the part that he needed to get my old computer up and running. So I waited. And waited. After about three weeks, I considered the possibility that he was waiting for me to call him instead of the other way around. So I called.

Instead of his immediately picking up the phone, as he had initially, I can a recording that allowed me to leave a message. Fine. I did so, including my phone number, though I knew he already had it. The week wore on, and nothing.

So I called again. The recording said the number was being rerouted to a different number, where I gain left a message. A couple days later I called again and received the same recording.

Now I’m starting to get concerned. This was a man with a respected business, who had received 5 star reviews on Yelp, including a comment about how fast the service was. This was a business I’d used before, and had been very happy with. And now he had my computer and I did not. So many of the sites that require passwords were ones I did not have—only my computer did. Consequently trying to use my phone was out for practically everything.

Then I began to be concern for my computer guy. Did he have Covid? Had he been in an accident and was laid up in a hospital? As weeks went by, I prayed. What else could I do? Basically my brains were locked up in a shop in another city, and I had no idea how or when or even if I’d get them back.

Finally, in early March I called again, and my tech guy answered. Turns out he had been dealing with a family emergency. Now he was able to give me some answers. Turns out, my old computer was still suddenly quitting as if the electricity had been turned off, despite his efforts to repair it. So the option was a replacement. He called on Friday to say it was ready.

And he found me a good one. It’s big, has upgraded software and a much newer operating system. He transferred all my programs and documents—the info on my old hard drive, in other words, so at long last, I’m back up and running.

That was likely more information that you’re interested in, but the end result of all this time away from my computer gave me time to read. And mostly I read fantasy novels that I’ve had on my Kindle or as physical copies, and had not yet read. So I thought over the next little while, I’d give my thoughts on these various books—which will be a good thing because I haven’t had books to talk about in some time. I mean, ones I personally had read. Now I have some. And I’ll use this opportunity to give you my $.02.

Among writers, there exists, for some, a latent sense of snobbery when it comes to the romance genre. Perhaps, they feel as if romance is easy to write. Like, it doesn’t take any effort. As my good friend Travis Perry jokingly mocked to me once when we worked on a romantic fiction project together, “Kissy, kissy.”

It should be noted that some speculative fiction writers will add a romantic element in their stories. Often, the romantic element is under-utilized because the writers have a preconceived bias about romance. They don’t feel it’s important.¹

Romance is just as fantastical. Romance writers create an engaging couple that, despite the ups and downs, survive and thrive. ²

Relationships – the glue of a romantic story

Relationships make the world go around. Regardless of the genre, every story is built upon relationships. No relationship, no story. Humanoid or not, sentient beings or instinctual predators, plant life, angels, demons – every story is built upon relationships.

Romance tropes and why they work

Here’s a secret: people read what they are familiar and comfortable with. Chances are, if you like dragon stories, you’ve read dozens of books about them. It doesn’t matter if the story has twists and turns, or even a fresh spin. What drew you to the story is that it contained dragons.

Some popular romantic tropes are:

First love – Exploring the characters’ first awakening feelings of romance.

Enemies-to-lovers – Friction between two seemingly aggressive and opposing characters that hide a romance.

Second chance – Presenting or gaining an opportunity to regain a lost romance ripped apart by conflict.

Best friends – Transforming an intimate friendship into a romantic relationship.

Forbidden love – An external or internal mandate or perception creates a taboo romance.

There are plenty more and while it is true that tropes can be overused, they aid in helping to defining the pathway of the couple’s journey.  It should be noted that tropes are reflections of real life. There’s not a person who is reading this blog post that hasn’t a relationship that started in one of these ways.  Or even a combination.

When authors who are trying to write a romance ask my advice, if they are married or in a relationship, I often tell them to remember what it was like for them. Often, I hear, “Well, our relationship was different.” “It’s complicated.”

Great! Go from there.

Hopefully, through the tropes I’ve provided, you can see how a speculative fiction story can utilize them. Starman (1984) What if an alien came to Earth and took over a man’s dying remains and falls in love with his wife?

Worldbuilding through romance

Understanding the fantastical elements of romance is to understand that the dynamics of the couple is central to the storyline. We experience the world through the couple’s eyes, interactions, and responses to external stimuli. A story can have romantic elements in it, but simply having those elements doesn’t make it a romance.

In the movie Her (2013), our protagonist develops a relationship with his AI virtual assistant. Through their relationship, we learn about the world our protagonist lives in. Yet, it’s not the relationship that is core of the story. It plays a major role but at the end, the movie tackles other questions besides their relationship.

In Ex-Machina (2014), our protagonist learns the hard way that his AI Robot romantic interest passed the Turing Test with flying colors. We learn about the blurred line between the natural and programmed. Whether AI consciousness, allowed to develop, would be able to deceive us.

In these two movies, the romantic element moves the plot along but ultimately, the couple doesn’t end up together. In my opinion, and in the romance world, opinions differ, a romance is when the relationship, through the ups, downs, twists, or turns, the conclusion is the cemented relationship of the main characters.

That’s right — happily ever after!

In Jupiter Ascending (2015), the main story revolves around the relationship between June, the cleaning woman come galactic princess and her protector, a half human/half canine soldier Caine. Through our couple, we learn of the worldview, conflict, and more. I wouldn’t call the movie a romance as the couple’s relationship isn’t front and center. In the true nature of a space opera, other points of view intersect but at the core, you have strong romantic element.

C. S. Johnson’s book, Northern Lights, Southern Stars is a great example of romantic fantasy. A retelling of Snow White, we experience our world through the dark-skinned princess Ebony of the Southern Colonies and her love interest, the pale-skinned Prince Rion with commentary from his stepmother, the evil Queen. The romance is the core of the story with their relationship moving the action and plot along.

Plot development through romance

In Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, we follow the main characters, Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell through twenty-five books. Their relationship throughout the books evolves in ways through the external happenings all around them. Richard’s love for Kahlan remains true despite a dumpster truck of happenings. Goodkind considered his books to be fantasy, but I think he was shocked when his fourth book in the series, Temple of the Winds, won a Romantic Times award because, like it or not, the romance between Richard and Kahlan appealed to romance readers.

In the same way, romance can help develop a plot. In Carole McDonnell’s tribal speculative fiction book Wind Follower, Satha and her husband Loic are forced to deal with a long separation, invaders, and other elements. Through these events, they are changed and grow but the plot moves along because of them.

Every relationship experiences conflict. No conflict means no growth. You don’t know what type of hardships you can live through until you live through them.

As in life, a couple who experiences hardship and survives them, often grow stronger. In the agonizing slow-burn series, Colony (2016-2018), we follow husband and wife, Will and Kate Bowman as they navigate their life through the occupation of an alien race that dominates Earth. Will becomes a collaborator while Kate becomes part of the resistance. Will is acting as a double agent, pretending to be a collaborator but trying to gain information about his missing son. He’s forced to kill resistance members, which puts Kate in danger as this is a secret from her husband.  Throughout the series, their relationship is attacked from all sides, all while the plot of the story moves it along.

Romance makes the story.

I tell myself he’s not real, but it’s hard to remember that when he’s sitting across from me in the bathtub.

“Read my audiobook,” I command him.

His electric blue eyes gleam for a second. Do they gleam because he’s processing my request? Or because he’s excited to read this juicy part of the book just as I am excited to hear him read it in that deep, milk and honey voice?

He speaks, his full lips moving, reciting the sensuous words as I slowly sink deeper into the bubbles. I try to remember that the man in the tub with me is only a visual representation of millions of lines of code, a force field, and holographic technology. Layers of artificial means to simulate reality for my pleasure.

A jarring series of knocks almost…almost…takes away the magic of the moment, but I ignore them. The man before me may not be real, but he’s more real to me than my husband knocking at the door, begging to be let in.

The above snippet is ‘fan fiction’ of the Michael B. Jordan commercial I alluded to last week. In it, I ask the question: “What if a woman finds herself in a love triangle with her distant husband and a computer program?”

To conclude, the fantastical elements of romance are just as strong. Crafting a story utilizing the relationship as the main vehicle is a skillset to be honed and improved over time. Speculative fiction writers need to consider that in their great worldbuilding, can a couple fall in love and grow together?

As a pastor told me last week: Our whole relationship with God is romance, of the right kind.

Ah! Isn’t that romantic?

What are some ways you can explore your speculative fiction world through romance? Do you think romance is overrated? How does your own real-life romance show up in your stories or books you read? Share your thoughts!