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Art And The Clive Staples Award, Continued

The Clive Staples Award is not a popularity contest. Consequently, no voter should choose a book he has not read! Our aim instead is to honor fiction well written. · Rebecca LuElla Miller

Fiction Christians From Another Planet! VI: Alien Love Slaves

Even in many speculative-novel subplots, the bad Christian-fiction romance is coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere. · E. Stephen Burnett

More About Characters

The subject of characters in Christian fiction has been coming up on this blog a lot recently. I’ve appreciated E. Stephen Burnett’s excellent series “Fiction Christians From Another Planet” — Patrick Carr’s guest post about writers using real people as […] · Yvonne Anderson

Fiction Christians From Another Planet! IV: Terror Of The Megachurchians

If we only ever meet in Christian novels pagan characters overcome by platitudes like “Really? There’s a God who loves — me?”, the author has gone beyond corny. Worse, our Hero and the Gospel look ridiculous. · E. Stephen Burnett

Fiction Christians From Another Planet! III: Voices From Beyond

You want a Christian-fiction notion that makes pagan readers cackle and other Christians cringe? Then exalt voices-from-beyond as the only way God daily guides His people. · E. Stephen Burnett

Fiction Christians From Another Planet! I: Invasion Of The Child-People

Why do some Christian novels keep presenting only equivalents of kid-Anakin or Wesley Crusher, instead of Han Solo or Captain Picard, and expect readers to like them? · E. Stephen Burnett

The Fine Line Between Reality and Fantasy

When I started writing my recently released young adult novel, Fathom, I knew there would be otherworldly creatures involved and that they would play a big part in the story. However, I always felt that at its heart, Fathom was a contemporary story · Merrie Destefano

The De-volution Of Revolution

There’s a monster lurking inside all of us. · John Otte

What’s In A Name?

Pretty or not, names have power. · Fred Warren

Speculative Faith Reading Group 3: Enter The Witch

For the real-life Speculative Faith Reading Group for LWW, this week we’ll pick up the pace. It helps that chapters 3 and 4 are short and follow one vital story development — Edmund meeting the White Witch. · E. Stephen Burnett

Sex In The Story 7: Patri-Archetypes

Why do you believe speculative stories, in particular, are so apt to explore issues of fathers and children? Which father-oriented stories have you enjoyed and why? Which ones haven’t done so well? · E. Stephen Burnett

Speculative Antichrist

There’s a website called “The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became an Evil Overlord.” In that spirit do I compose my list of things the Antichrist should avoid or implement. · Kaci Hill

Rearranging Icons 6: Images Of Man

Just as Christ wants us, His “icons,” to exalt the Father and be one with Him as He and the Father are One, so we may want to “exalt” iconic characters who reflect us. Which iconic characters are your favorites, and why? · E. Stephen Burnett

Rearranging Icons 5: In The Eye Of The Beholder

I’m more interested in the idea that readers can have a richer reading experience and writers can tell richer, deeper stories if they understand how this works. · Fred Warren

Rearranging Icons 4: Characters Becoming Icons

For every Christian, icons are inevitable. But they must show a process of redemption. Christ the “Icon” of the Father underwent suffering. So should we, as we image Him, and so should art and story characters, which image us. · E. Stephen Burnett

Must Good Characters Be Likeable?

For a good story, must its central character be likeable, or only sympathetic? For Christian stories, that dilemma is more pronounced, because many authors focus on sympathetic non-Christians, rather than more-likeable Christian characters. · E. Stephen Burnett

Sex In The Story 6: Heroes and Heroines

Amidst belching sitcom dads, raging feminists, over-angsty teen-boy “chosen ones,” or inhuman “warrior princesses,” we find God-glorifying men and women in many stories. Here are a few. · E. Stephen Burnett

Sex In The Story 5: More Male Mythologies

We may always have sex caricatures in stories, and they may balance each other out. But how do we cure stock males, gender-neutrals, bad boys, men-children, faith-based supermen, and Prophesied Heroes™? · E. Stephen Burnett

Sex In The Story 3: Trans-Gender Issues

“The Church is too feministic!” “The Church is too chauvinistic!” Either extreme will affect our real-life thinking, and will infect Christian stories’ characters, replacing them with caricature-icons. · E. Stephen Burnett
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