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119. Will Congress Disclose the UFOs Our Favorite Alien Stories Ask Us to Believe In? | with Colin Samul
Fantastical Truth Podcast, Jul 5, 2022

The Governess of Greenmere
Reviews, Jul 1, 2022

Phantastes
Book Quests, Jul 1, 2022

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Shadow of Honor, Ronie Kendig
Lost Bits, Kerry Nietz
Rats of Dweltford, Matt Barron
Vivid, Ashley Bustamante
My Soul to Take, Bryan Davis
Into Shadow's Fire, Mark Castleberry
Deceived, Madisyn Carlin
Arena (2022 edition), Karen Hancock
Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers, N. J. McLagan
"In a city where debts are paid in blood, one young man will learn that everyone needs help sometimes if they want to survive." New in the Lorehaven library: A Matter of Blood, Lauren H Salisbury
Son of the Shield, Mary Schlegel
Maxine Justice, Galactic Attorney, Daniel Schwabauer
Mordizan, Alyssa Roat
Prentice Ash, Matt Barron
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The Governess of Greenmere
“Obscure Arthurian and Celtic references blend with biblical imagery and high heroism in this brief yet old-souled story.”
—Lorehaven on Jul 1, 2022

Tilly
“Written in 1986, Frank E. Peretti’s novelette Tilly may feel melodramatic to today’s readers, but remains a tearful tale of brokenness and redemption.”
—Lorehaven on Jun 24, 2022

The Wonderland Trials
“Although indebted to a classic, The Wonderland Trials is inventive and colorful in its own right, abundantly able to charm and to intrigue.”
—Lorehaven on Jun 24, 2022

Rise of the Earthborn
“Societal intrigue plus steampunk flair and a dash of romance help make Emma Buenen’s Rise of the Earthborn a solid extra-biblical adventure.”
—Lorehaven on Jun 17, 2022

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Book Quests, July 2022

Lost Bits
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Maxine Justice: Galactic Attorney
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The Green Ember
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119. Will Congress Disclose the UFOs Our Favorite Alien Stories Ask Us to Believe In? | with Colin Samul
Fantastical Truth, Jul 5, 2022

118. Which Fantastical Stories Help Us Celebrate Human Life?
Fantastical Truth, Jun 28, 2022

117. Why Should You Build a Fantastical Lending Library? | with L.G. McCary
Fantastical Truth, Jun 21, 2022

116. Why Do Homeschooled Students Love Fantastical Fiction? | with Ethan Nunn
Fantastical Truth, Jun 14, 2022

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The original SpecFaith: est. 2006

site archives | statement of faith
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Yes, Speculative Faith Is Closed, At Least For Now
E. Stephen Burnett, Dec 30

Last Stands, Custer, General Gordon, and Being a Christian Warrior
Travis Perry, Jul 2

How Christian Must Christian Fiction Be?
Rebecca LuElla Miller, May 24

Gender In Fiction: The Implication Of Failure
Rebecca LuElla Miller, May 10

Making a Story Visual UPDATE: Behind the Scenes of the Animal Eye Comic
Travis Perry, May 9

What Does “Woke” Culture Have To Do With Christian Fiction?
Rebecca LuElla Miller, Apr 26

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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.
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From The Writers’ Toolbox: Developing Fresh Story Concepts

Take romance for example. Everyone knows that the traditional plot form of a romance is boy meets girl and they fall in love, but Things happen to keep them apart. In the end, however, they conquer, or their love conquers, and they get together.
Rebecca LuElla Miller on Jul 27, 2020 · Series: Writers' Tool Box
3 comments

Recently Travis Perry, a regular writer here at Spec Faith, did a 10-part series of articles on storyworld ideas. I thought it might be helpful if we explored the ideas behind stories themselves.

Most writers know there are no “new” plots. That doesn’t mean there are no new stories, however. An oft-done plot can still be made into a fresh and entertaining story.

Take romance for example. Everyone knows that the traditional plot form of a romance is boy meets girl and they fall in love, but Things happen to keep them apart. In the end, however, they conquer, or their love conquers, and they get together.

No real surprise in a romance. Then how does a writer make a romance seem fresh? The easy way is to create seemingly insurmountable barriers—cultural or religious mores that keep the couple apart, personality quirks, misunderstandings, irreconcilable (until they are reconciled — 😉 ) differences.

For example, one character may be a faery and the other a human, who also happens to be in a wheelchair. Those are obstacles! Who would even see romance coming? Which is precisely why R. J. Anderson surprised and delighted readers with Faery Rebel: Spell Hunter (more recently published under the title Knife by Enclave Publishing).

But what if the couple is already married—a union of convenience or position—and they barely tolerate each other? What if, in fact, the wife holds her husband in contempt because she admires a mysterious someone else who does gallant, selfless deeds to help others?

That set-up describes The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, one of my favorite novels. I suspect one reason I love it so much is because of the surprise I experienced the first time I read it.

But now those two have been done, so how can a romance writer find a new something? One idea is to merge elements of “already been done” stories. Take Beauty and the Beast, for example, and merge that with Sleeping Beauty, and you have Shrek.

Of course, the brilliant writers who created all three Shrek movies did much more than staple two threads together, but the point for this discussion is that they worked from familiar storylines. By starting with two that seemed unlikely to fit together, they made a movie (three actually) that seemed familiar yet wholly new.

Sometimes the newness isn’t in the plot but in the characters. Take an interesting, quirky woman engaged to someone her family approves of; perhaps she’s single longer than most and has a family who values family and marriage above all else. Add in humor (which comes from the quirky characters), and you have the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding which turned out to be a surprising smash hit a couple decades ago.

Or how about a widower not looking to remarry, with a little boy who longs for a mother, so much so that he makes a call to an all-night talk show and pours out his heart. Interested women start to write. MANY interested women. Now we have distance, reticence, an engagement, the many others, all standing in the way of true love. And that’s Sleepless in Seattle, another classic movie from years gone by.

Fresh stories can also come from different settings. What would a romance look like set in Louisiana as the state battled the worst oil spill in history? Or between two people who met during the Katrina hurricane disaster?

What would a romance look like between a 9/11 widow and a firefighter years after the Twin Towers attack?

New places, odd places, uncomfortable places can be fuel for fresh fiction just as much as plot twists or off-beat characters. The important thing, I think, is to imagine beyond the list of “first responders”—the plot lines, the characters, or the settings that first present themselves when we writers start contemplating a new story.

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. nulligravida ftw says:
    July 27, 2020 at 6:49 pm

    I find the freshest stuff on tumblr — or since I don’t wanna go to the effort of curating a proper tumblr myself, the reposts of the good stuff on pinterest.
    Like flashfics where the villain is so proud of the teenage Chosen One for doing their best but incandescently angry at the adults who keep sending children to fight for them.
    And other meta commentary stuff

    Reply
    • nulligravida FTW says:
      July 27, 2020 at 9:04 pm

      Or for something completely different: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/744642119627102866/

      Reply
  2. Autumn Grayson says:
    July 28, 2020 at 9:37 pm

    “Write what you want to read” is some of the best advice I’ve seen when it comes to originality. Some of the originality may not be in huge ways, but if someone combines a lot of ‘what I’d like to read’ ideas in one story then that tale can turn out fairly original. This can be in terms of what a person actually enjoys, and/or in terms of what an author believes. Some aspects of my stories that I’ve enjoyed writing the most have resulted from me disagreeing with things that I see in real life and in fiction. It can be upsetting to see certain things in the world, but they can also serve as an opportunity to reflect, articulate one’s own beliefs, and then form observations during that process that are useful for fleshing out stories and characters. Doing so can mean that an author brings an unusual perspective to the mix, or at least presents old tropes in a fresh way.

    Reply

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Lorehaven magazine, spring 2020

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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.