New!
Author resources • Lorehaven Guild
Podcast sponsors • Subscribe for free
Crew manifest Faith statement FAQs
All author resources Lorehaven Guild Subscribe for free

Please Return to the Lands of Luxury
Reviews, Mar 24, 2023

154. What If You Had to Fake Being Genetically Modified? | Enhanced with Candace Kade
Fantastical Truth Podcast, Mar 21, 2023

Exile
Reviews, Mar 17, 2023

Library

Find fantastical Christian novels

fantasy · sci-fi · and beyond
middle grade · young adult · grown-ups
All novels Search Add a novel
Enhanced, Candace Kade
Bear Knight, James R. Hannibal
The Wayward, Tabitha Caplinger
Fortified, V. Romas Burton
Canaan Sleeps, Daniel Camomile
Silver Bounty, Victoria McCombs
A Sword for the Immerland King, F. W. Faller
Calor, J. J. Fisher
Once Upon A Ren Faire, A. C. Castillo
The Genesis 6 Project, Michael Ferguson
Exile, Loren G. Warnemuende
Aberration, Cathy McCrumb
The Truth Beyond the Lies, Kathleen Bird
Frost, Winter's Lonely Guardian, E. E. Rawls
Podcast

Get the Fantastical Truth podcast

Podcast sponsors | Subscribe links
Archives Feedback

154. What If You Had to Fake Being Genetically Modified? | Enhanced with Candace Kade
Fantastical Truth, Mar 21, 2023

153. When Can Deconstructionism Threaten Christian Fiction? | with Michael Young aka ‘Wokal Distance’
Fantastical Truth, Mar 14, 2023

152. How Can Christian Fantasy Fans Heal from Church Trauma? | with Marian Jacobs and L. G. McCary
Fantastical Truth, Mar 7, 2023

151. How Can Fantastical Satire Sharpen Our Theology? | The Pilgrim’s Progress Reloaded with David Umstattd
Fantastical Truth, Feb 28, 2023

150. Is the U.S. Government Covering Up Spy Balloons or Alien Spaceships? | with James R. Hannibal
Fantastical Truth, Feb 21, 2023

149. Why Do Christian Fiction Fans Love So Much Romance?
Fantastical Truth, Feb 14, 2023

Quests

Join our monthly digital book quests.

Lorehaven Guild Faith statement FAQs

War in Heaven
Book Quests, March 2023

Rose Petals and Snowflakes
Book Quests, February 2023

Prince Caspian
Book Quests, January 2023

Dream of Kings
Book Quests, December 2022

Reviews

Find fantastical Christian reviews

All reviews Request review

Please Return to the Lands of Luxury
“Jon Tilton explores complex topics like memory loss, personal and societal responsibility in this light sci-fi story.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 24, 2023

Exile
“This gentle fantasy from Loren G. Warnemuende shows little magic or strange creatures, focusing on complex emotions and relationships.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 17, 2023

Illusion
“Frank Peretti’s last novel creates a romantic world with sci-fi flourishes where likeable heroes, villain twists, and familiar places sell a dramatic performance.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 10, 2023

War in Heaven
“Charles Williams’s classic supernatural thriller pairs a deeply spiritual worldview with perceptive examinations of human nature.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 3, 2023

Gifts

Find new gifts for Christian fans

Archives

The original SpecFaith: est. 2006

Speculative Faith | archives

Lorehaven issues (2018–2020)

Order back issues online!
New
Library
Podcast
Quests
Reviews
Gifts
Archives
Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
Subscribe free to Lorehaven
/ SpecFaith /

Books Have Themes?

Using the vehicle of theme, writers say something. Whether that something is trivial and mundane or significant and profound depends on how unafraid they are.
Rebecca LuElla Miller on Mar 25, 2019
2 comments

Fifteen years ago, one of the big knocks on Christian fiction was that the books were too preachy. This complaint seemed to reach writers who then proceeded to ditch any themes, at least ones purposefully crafted. After all, one sure way to not preach is to not say anything at all. In fact, stories should just entertain, never mind this moralizing, philosophizing, and sermonizing.

Themes began to disappear.

Until a number of writers noticed that general market books and movies and even TV shows had themes. Some of them even preached.

The truth is, using the vehicle of theme, writers say something. Whether that something is trivial and mundane or significant and profound depends on how unafraid they are. Yes, unafraid. Many writers are afraid they will limit the scope of their book if they place their story firmly in a particular economic or political or religious milieu. They’re afraid if they take sides in a controversial question, they’ll make enemies and lose readers. Some are afraid they will be labeled “preachy” if they include meaningful themes in their stories.

According to a number of writing instructors, novels that name specifics—details brings a place or a person alive, and that includes specific themes—engage readers in a way that generic stories don’t. Consequently, writers that steer away from presenting a particular view point, whether religious or political, are actually neutering their story. From agent and writing instructor Donald Maass:

What distinguishes our era? What are its look, buzzwords, issues, and conflicts? Fashion magazines, op-ed pages, sports reporting, rappers, corporate websites, and teen slang are all barometers of our times . . . I don’t mean to suggest dropping in brand names or news events. Those are shallow gimmicks. I do mean that an important component of any novel’s grip on readers’ imaginations is how that novel brings alive its times. (Writing 21st Century Fiction, p. 168—emphasis mine)

Certainly speculative novels should do both—bringing alive the times in which the story is set but also bringing alive the themes that will resonate with people living in the real world.

The fear of dating a novel scares off some authors from creating the kind of particular atmosphere that makes a story feel as if it’s anchored in reality. However, stories like The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck bring alive a time and culture through which the author can then say something important and universal, something that applies today as well as to the original audience.

Some writers also fear taking a stand on a controversial subject or saying something significant about an eternal question. And more so in these recent days since “author shaming” or bullying has become a thing on twitter (see L. Jagi Lamplighter’s recent article on this subject). Maass again:

The mysteries of existence are also often avoided in manuscripts. Do you believe in destiny? Do you believe in God? Are our lives random or do they have a purpose? Do you think about these things? Of course you do . . . What about your protagonist? What’s her take on the big questions? Is it pretentious to include them?

Ducking the big questions is easy. So is achieving low impact . . . Is there such a thing as justice when laws are made by fallible humans? Does do no harm have any meaning when medicine becomes guesswork? Is it worth building bridges when their ultimate collapse is guaranteed? Do we teach in schools “truths” that are untrue? Does the accumulation of capital do good or does it corrupt? What are the limits of friendship? Should loyalty last beyond the grave? We read fiction not just for entertainment but for answers to those questions. So answer them. (Writing 21st Century Fiction, p. 169-170— emphasis mine)

A good many writers are afraid of answering these kinds of questions, thinking that by doing so they’ll come across as preachy—that death knell to Christian fiction.

To_Kill_a_MockingbirdBut having something to say does not equate with preachy writing. Harper Lee had some specific things to say about prejudice, but I’ve never heard anyone claim To Kill A Mockingbird was preachy. That’s because Ms. Lee didn’t explain what she had to say: she showed it through her characters.

She didn’t have one of them sum up the meaning of all the events or spell out the ethical implications of why they did what they chose to do. Rather, she created believable people who lived in a specific time with a certain set of problems, and she showed one man and his daughter who lived in contradiction to the societal norm.

Clearly she tackled her subject unafraid, even in the racially charged era of the pre-Civil Rights movement, and the result was a classic story with timeless truths, still being read and studied fifty-plus years later.

Shouldn’t Christian authors be the most unafraid of all? Shouldn’t we be putting spiritual truth at the forefront of our themes? Shouldn’t we do so intentionally, taking care to craft our themes as carefully as we craft our characters?

After all, aren’t the best books the ones that make us think and ponder long after we’ve come to the end and returned the book to the shelf or to our Kindle collection? And shouldn’t Christians aim at writing the best books?

Rebecca LuElla Miller
Best known for her aspirations as an epic fantasy author, Becky is the sole remaining founding member of Speculative Faith. Besides contributing weekly articles here, she blogs Monday through Friday at A Christian Worldview of Fiction. She works as a freelance writer and editor and posts writing tips as well as information about her editing services at Rewrite, Reword, Rework.
Website ·
  1. Autumn Grayson says:
    March 25, 2019 at 2:37 pm

    Not sure how everyone feels about this, but if the plot or story doesn’t feel like it’s going somewhere, or serving a purpose, it’s much harder for me to pay attention to it or find it meaningful. This means that without a theme or at least an attempt to communicate/illustrate something, the story is more likely to feel pointless. There may be times when a story can resonate even though the author wasn’t intending to communicate anything, but that was probably because regardless of the author’s intentions, meaning could still be gathered from the tale.

    Of course this doesn’t mean stories should be preachy. It’s much harder to like preachy stories unless the author can make them entertaining enough for everyone to ignore the preachiness. But that doesn’t mean the stories shouldn’t have some sort of purpose.

    Something I learned from plotting one of my future Naruto fanfics, though, is that the point of the story doesn’t need to be encapsulated in the ending. Maybe in that fanfic the ending helps drive the point home (the accidental isolation of the main chars ended up being dangerous for them). But the story is less about that, and more about how isolation and mistrust affects the two main chars as they grow up.

    Athough the chars are good people, growing up under their particular circumstances changed a lot of how they interacted with others, where their priorities are, etc. The chars themselves aren’t even entirely aware of the story’s point, and the audience isn’t called to take a specific action. The story, instead, probably serves more as an opportunity to observe, understand, and empathize. And maybe doing so will give readers insight into human nature that will improve their lives in the future.

    Maybe that approach (having the point subtly illustrated throughout the tale rather that having it culminate in an obvious way at the end) can be a good stylistic approach for those that want to say something without feeling preachy.

    Reply
    • Rebecca LuElla Miller says:
      March 26, 2019 at 7:11 pm

      It’s completely about crafting theme well. With the exception of, perhaps, an allegory along the line of Pilgrim’s Progress, nothing should be “obvious,” if it comes at the end or the beginning. We have simply lost the understanding that theme≠preaching. We think, meaning will naturally seep from our worldview into the story because it’s part of us. But that doesn’t make sense. We are “characters” and we still work hard to craft our characters. We live in the world and we still work hard to construct our storyworld. It’s simply off to think that we can make our stories about nothing in particular and meaning will jump out anyway.

      Becky

      Reply

What do you think? Cancel reply

  • Bringing The Personal To The UniversalBringing The Personal To The Universal
  • Preacher preachingWhiplash Wednesday - A Look At Preachy Fiction
  • Books For Speculative ReadersBooks For Speculative Readers
  • Managing The Minefield On The Way To Successful PublicationManaging The Minefield On The Way To Successful Publication
Lorehaven magazine, spring 2020

Wear the wonder:
Get exclusive shirts and beyond

Listen to Lorehaven’s podcast

Authors and publishers:
Reach new fans with Lorehaven

Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
Website · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter