1. Mia Sandara says:

    You hit the nail on the head. The reason I am writing my speculative series is for the lost souls. If Christians happen to enjoy it, then that is wonderful…but I wrote these books for those who still need to see the Light.
    @triadvstrinity

    • Greetings, Mia; thanks for your comment!

      The reason I am writing my speculative series is for the lost souls. If Christians happen to enjoy it, then that is wonderful…but I wrote these books for those who still need to see the Light.

      A worthy goal. I’m curious whether you believe a series written by a Christian and intended nonbelievers needs to be explicitly “evangelistic”? Or can such a story show a fictitious “simulation” of the world through a Christian’s eyes to explore suffering and joy, evil and good, in a new way? If the latter, then couldn’t Christians enjoy it also?

      Of course, I’m asking because I’m biased. I don’t believe a good story should be necessarily “restricted” to one audience or the other. A good story is a good story and should be enjoyed by, and should challenge, Christians and non-Christians alike — because things such as beauty, goodness, and truth are universal.

  2. Matthias M. Hoefler says:

    Need we affix ourselves to gritty / not gritty? Some content might require one and little of the other, but along comes the next story idea and it needs the opposite ‘category.’

    Why do I want to explore grittier struggles? What in the Bible speaks to this discussion? What does faith look like on paper? Will there ever be enough grit? Isn’t this a mirror image of what the American secular storytelling machine does? -push for grittier and grittier?

     

    Should children be included in this discussion? What kind of book would Jesus have written when physically on earth? Where does the cross enter this discussion? Jesus lived spec fiction (in a manner of speaking. He performed the miraculous). Would he write it? Why didn’t He write anything? Or did He?(1)

     

    Funny you’d bring in J. Mark Bertrand. Just yesterday I was on his site, and left a question he had a good-sized discussion about several years ago. He wanted to know where the Christian Literature was. Brought up Flannery O’Connor and Graham Greene. I asked him how he felt about that same question these days.

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    (1) Hebrews 12: 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (emphasis mine) (NAS)

  3. Kessie says:

    These discussions always mix up “Christian” with “genre”. “Christian” seems to mean “applying the same restrictions that apply to children’s fiction to all adult fiction”.

     

    Gritty? Depends on the genre. Thrillers, dark mysteries, and that ilk are likely to be “gritty”. Same with the shades of fantasy–high, low, adult, YA, middle grade. Some are likely to have “grittier” content than others. But can it all be Christian? Sure!

     

    Christian means the worldview. Sometimes the religion of the characters. It doesn’t have to be a ghetto–it can be a quiet, but powerful part of the book, like Butcher’s Dresden series, or N.D. Wilson’s Ashtown Burials series. Even John Grisham has his moments.

  4. Jill says:

    I prefer to read and write fiction that explores ideas. I don’t know what gritty fiction is, but as I’ve said before, it sounds really annoying like having dirt in your keyboard that you can’t get out and that gums up the works so tht yr tying lks lik ths.

What do you think?