Last time, I looked at the need fantasy has, if it is to work, for an engaging, believable character and for a world that is well-developed and consistent. An element of that world building, and one of the genre’s tropes, is magic. I’m using the term loosely here, not in the same way the Bible does. Hence “magic” is something other, something beyond the normal realm of realism. It can be a gift, a power, something supernatural. A good number of Christian fantasies don’t have traditional magic. But they do have something mysterious or beyond the normal physical realm.

In George Bryan Polivka’s Trophy Chase Trilogy, for example, the only “magical” element was the firefish–a mythical creature he created–and that was enough. It was both mysterious and other—not of this world.

I personally like more magic, not less. I wanted Gandalf to overcome the Balrog and the Hobbits to escape the Black Riders. I wanted the Ents to stir up the trees and the Elves to shield the Hobbits from the Orcs. I wanted the White Tree to provide Gondor with protection and Boromir’s horn to bring the help he needed. I wanted to warn Pippin not to look into the palantir.

The more magic, the more intrigue. Anything can happen, and the reader is left equally to wonder and to worry because the best stories give magic to both sides of the good versus evil equation.

Intrigue leads to the next point. Fantasy that works also has a plot that works. Rule one for a good plot: create conflict by giving your character something he wants or needs and must strive to acquire.

Like other fiction, fantasy is best when the character faces an external conflict and an internal conflict. Ideally the two battles will coalesce at the climax. That’s what J. R. R. Tolkien did so well in The Return of the King. Frodo wasn’t only fighting against Orcs and Sauron and Shelob. He was also fighting against becoming another Gollum.

Shockingly, the latter is the fight he lost. Which brings up another element that makes fantasy work—surprise. I think one of the reasons so much epic fantasy gets criticized is because of a lack of surprise. Readers and reviewers will say a story is “derivative” (the kiss of death to a fantasy) though you never hear that accusation made of romance or even of mystery. I have to believe that what the “derivative” accusers are actually saying is that the story tipped its hand and didn’t hold any surprise.

One of the things that kept me reading furiously through the last three Harry Potter books was the unpredictability. Was Snape good or evil? Would Harry be able to leave the Dursleys and go to live with Sirius Black? Would he win the Triwizard Tournament? Who was trying to kill him during the competition? Why was he seeing realistic visions of what Voldemort was doing? How would Harry find the horcruxes? And on and on.

Questions create intrigue, twists create surprise, and delay creates suspense. All of these elements, along with conflict, make a fantasy plot work.

Which brings us to the next element in fantasy that works: it says something important.

Our own Stephen Burnett had this to say about fantasy a number of years ago in his article “Defeating man-centered monsters with greater stories”:

I’ve read a few fantasy books whose authors are trying to Imitate Lewis. But there’s a catch: their Christ-figures, a la Aslan, aren’t much like Aslan, much less so the Biblical Christ. Sure, they have all the loving-humble-helpful parts, but few to none of the sovereign-holy-kill-his-enemies parts. And these Christ-equivalents exist, not with their own missions, but mainly as sidekicks for the real hero of the story, the Self-Doubtful Often-Angsty Gifted protagonist, who is on a Quest.

Stephen particularly addressed the issue of stories with a Christ figure. However, not every story written from a Christian worldview needs an allegorical Christ figure, in my opinion. But those that include one have set themselves a huge task.

After all, C. S. Lewis created such a strong character that remained consistent with Christ’s nature, that any other may seem either derivative (there’s that dreaded word again!) or inadequate.

Does that mean we should shy away from showing Christ in Christian fantasy? No, I don’t think so. However, I believe that’s a high goal. If an author sets that high goal, rightly the reader must judge whether or not his story works by whether or not he successfully met the goal.

I tend to think that the problem Stephen mentioned in the quote above—that the Christ figure is a “side-kick”—occurs primarily because some authors back away from the high goal of putting Him meaningfully into a story as Lewis did with Aslan.

One secret here is that Lewis said he was not writing an allegory. Today, I think many Christian fantasy writers are writing an allegorical character, if not an allegory.

What was Lewis doing instead? He termed it “supposal.” In a world with fauns and talking animals and centaurs and dwarfs, Lewis asked, how would God show Himself?

Perhaps that’s the question we fantasy writers need to ask more often rather than forcing Christ-by-another-name into our stories.

But I said earlier that I don’t think stories have to have an allegorical Christ figure to still be Christian.

That doesn’t mean I think a story about not telling a lie or about forgiving our enemies is automatically Christian because it contains a moral value consistent with Christianity.

Rather, I believe—and this is quite subjective—stories that “till the soil” can be powerfully Christian. Such stories create the longing for the wholeness Christ gives, or for the acceptance His sacrifice made possible, or for the purpose His relationship frees us to achieve. I believe stories can show sacrificial love that is extraordinary and that will create a thirst for sacrificial love. I believe stories can show forgiveness that is pure and unmerited and it will create a thirst for similar mercy.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Instead of putting God into a story, I think it’s possible to put one of God’s characteristics in a story and show it so clearly that it becomes something that draws people, maybe even causes them to say, Wouldn’t it be great to know someone like that?

So what fantasies do you think work and why? Are there newer fantasies that have the elements we’ve looked at and which simply need to be discovered?

Of course, part of why I’m asking this is because I hope our readers here at Spec Faith are thinking about the Christian speculative novel–fantasy, science fiction, supernatural, or whatever–they would like to nominate for the Clive Staples Award. Let’s find the books that work and pick the best of the lot to honor.

A week ago Speculative Faith added several new features, on our quest to be the premiere resource portal for Christian speculative-story exploration.

Readers may have already seen the features, and perhaps wondered if they were there all the time? Nope. These are new:

1. A News section, for short blogs covering other interesting blogs, book or motion picture releases, or anything else.
2. A new feedback form to Send News Tips of your own. (This actually went live as of yesterday.) What news should we cover? Fill out the form and let us know. We want to know about any Christian/speculative-related news, including new books, free books, marketing, Christian SF publisher news, recent movies, and amusing memes.
3. Upgraded splash boxes that showcase any new content up front, wherever you journey on Speculative Faith.
4. A fantastic enhanced Advanced Library Search. Look for it at the right of the Library splash box.
5. Improved “lightbox” popup appearances for submitting novels and submitting novel reviews to our Library (along with the general site Suggestion Box). Soon we may have this same appearance for email-subscription signups.
6. Swapped places for the top navigation bar and quote box, sitewide. It simply makes more sense to have the quote box on top.
7. Improved sidebars to showcase all our recent content and customize based on what you’re reading.

Which new features seem helpful (or otherwise?). What would you like to see as Speculative Faith keeps growing?

Speculative Faith is not only a “blog.” As necessary as blogs are, readers and fans of epic stories need more than a blog. They need to find all Christian-speculative novels, gracious yet honest reviews, and in-depth genre explorations — all in one place. They need (to appropriate some evangelical-speak!) a resource portal, even a ministry. Lord willing, that is exactly what Speculative Faith will become. Speculative Faith is a resource portal to inspire exploring epic stories for God’s glory.

By now you’ve likely seen this film poster. Thanks to Relevant.com last month, it’s crashed here from the planet of Do Not Adjust Your Internet, For This Is (Apparently) No Parody.

Yes, that would be none other than a Left Behind movie reboot, the “Caged” version — as in, starring Nicolas Cage, along with another actor I don’t know, and another actress I don’t know but who reportedly headlined in High School Musical 3.

Someone failed to tell the Left Behind re-makers that Nicolas Cage is currently performing community service as the punch line of the internet. Yet I also recall these are the same Christian filmmakers who — I’m sure with the best intentions — pioneered the “release a movie to home video and then to theaters” marketing model.

I still recall my profound disappointment with that first Left Behind movie (The One with Kirk Cameron).¹ Here I’d expected blockbuster end-times awesomeness. Instead I got a cheesy direct-to-video low-budget attempt that arbitrarily changed Buck Williams to a clichéd TV reporter — as opposed to the books’ clichéd-and-already-dated-in-the-age-of-blogs weekly newsmagazine reporter — and worse, dropped out all but one mention of the very Name of Jesus Christ from the film. From my memory, the Savior’s only Name-check comes in a mention by T.D. Jakes, the Trinity-obfuscating leader who cameos in the film.

For the sequel, Kirk Cameron, then with Way of the Master, tried to rectify the Gospel-ignoring — resulting in a rather painful reenactment of the “Way” for a minor character.

Those are relatively major objections to the series based on doctrine and storytelling. But nine years after the book series’ 12th volume, Glorious Appearing, released in (expected?) shiny-white-rather-than-black-matte hardback, I disagree with much of the series’ minor-issued doctrines, especially that whole “Rapture” part.²

However, I’m not a snarky Left Behind critic. I have almost all the adult series’ 16 books, missing only Kingdom Come — the truly worst of the series that was set after a “millennial kingdom” and thus had no enemies and no plot. Yet I still appreciate the series in many ways. God used that series in my life for His purposes. If not for the LB series and their authors’ attempts to be faithful to Scripture, to harness imagination for God’s glory, and even to explore sci-fi and fantasy (though with overly constricted applications, especially in Kingdom Come), today I would likely not be writing fiction or writing for Speculative Faith.

Yet it’s the audio drama series I enjoy the most. Few know about the Left Behind dramas — or they confuse them with audiobooks. So I get major evangelical-hipster points for this.

Not an audio book, but audio theater. And now apparently anyone can listen to the complete dramatized series for free, at OnePlace.com.

The first dramatized audio adaptation of Left Behind, the first novel, released in 1999 and the last in 2004. When complete, the series spanned 144 25-minute episodes, 12 episodes per book. All were recorded at the Chicago studios of Gap Digital, whose engineers and producers have also edited and sound-effected episodes of Adventures in Odyssey and Focus on the Family Radio Theatre. Chris Fabry, now a successful contemporary-drama novelist, wrote the adaptation, often along with head production engineer Todd Busteed. With few exceptions, the actors were amazing. (In the last episodes, Jesus Christ sounded exactly like Christian recording artist Steve Green. But let’s admit it’s very hard to get His voice right.)

In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s I was quite the audio-drama fan. Being a proto-evangi-nerd, I corresponded with the dramas’ head production engineer and even suggesting ideas for demon-locust sound effects. (When Apollyon released, I was sure they had used the idea.)

Now, as I recently noted in a Speculative Faith comment, I realize that my love for Left Behind was my first experience with fandom — either “evangelical” or otherwise.

And now, about ten years later, I’m listening to the audio drama series all over again.

Want to join me?

Here’s how this will work:

1. This won’t be done in a blog series as I usually do. Rather I’ll make use of Speculative Faith’s new News section, to post sporadic updates as I listen to LB episodes.
2. In those news posts I’ll summarize an episode and briefly explore its story and doctrine.
3. If you want to follow along, I’ll link to episodes that are evidently free at OnePlace.com.
4. Meanwhile on the blog, before Easter Sunday, I’ll explore the often-confused and weakly applied yet fantastic Biblical concept of resurrection: Christ’s past resurrection, His people’s present/future resurrection, and physical creation’s future resurrection.

View the in-progress Listening to Left Behind series here.

A common complaint with Christian fiction is that it’s too preachy. Personally, I’m more apt to be dissatisfied because it’s not preachy enough.

Before you prepare the tar and feathers, please hear me out.

Maybe “preachy” isn’t the word I want, if preachy means, as one source defines it, “Having or revealing a tendency to give moral advice in a tedious or self-righteous way.” The “tedious or self-righteous” bit is a valid objection; no matter what the message, those qualities make for bad writing. They’re not particularly desirable in conversation, either. That sort of thing is just plain annoying.

Merriam-Webster’s definition is a little more vague: “marked by obvious moralizing.” What, exactly, constitutes moralizing? and at what point does understandable become too obvious? Is it only objectionable when Christians do it? or should, say, the makers of the movie Avatar be taken to task?

While you’re mulling those questions, here’s another for you: How effectively can Christ’s disciples carry out the Great Commission if they never spell out what they’re talking about?

Yeah, yeah, I know: Jesus spoke in parables. But how many of those parables were directed toward the lost? Not many. Jesus told stories to confuse the faithless while illustrating truths He wanted His followers to understand (Matthew 13:11-13). And, as you may notice, even the disciples often didn’t get the point until He explained.

Another familiar example of scriptural storytelling is found in 2 Samuel 12. The prophet Nathan told King David about a wealthy man who took a poor man’s pet lamb to feed a his guest, thus sparing his own flock. Nathan got the desired response from David – outrage. But until he explained the parable, the king didn’t get that the story was about him.

In other words, unless they’re accompanied by clear preaching, most parables are lost on the lost.

Moreover, Jesus didn’t only tell parables; on some occasions, He spoke plainly. I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me is pretty blunt, if you ask me.

If we truly believe Jesus is the world’s only hope, I think we have a moral obligation to say so. In 2 Kings 7:9, even the lepers knew they had to share the life-saving good news with the rest of the city. More to the point, Jesus commanded us to tell the world. I’ve never seen any scriptural justification for saying, “No, thanks, I’ve got better things to do.”

And let’s not forget what Paul said in Romans 10:14 (paraphrased): how can they believe in Jesus if they’ve never heard of Him? And how are they supposed hear without a preacher?

I’m not suggesting everything we write must include a Romans Road-style plan of salvation. But as Christians, everything we write (as well as everything we say and do) should reflect His truth without distortion.

In his guest post on this blog last Friday, Robert Treskellard related how the Lord used Christian speculative fiction as a tool to draw him to Christ: “…a friend shared The Chronicles of Narnia with me and explained that Aslan represented Christ. This opened my eyes to things I had rarely, if ever, thought about. Within three years, God brought me to faith.” Don’t miss the part where he said “a friend… explained…”

Because Aslan’s substitutionary sacrifice was so obviously a picture of Christ’s, it was easy for the friend to use it as an illustration. Nor was it difficult for Mr. Treskellard to get the picture.

“But,” you may say, “not every story needs to be about salvation.” No argument here. But whatever the theme, our stories should give an accurate reflection of God’s attributes. Christian characters (or those that represent them in speculative fiction) should be believable and lead lives a reader would want to emulate. Scriptural values should be valued and sin should not be glorified. Let’s show the world what Christianity’s really all about.

Though we should labor to get the point across with skill and finesse, we should, in fact, get the point across. Most importantly, let’s not be afraid to talk about Jesus—because it’s all about Him, you see. We can make all the vague allusions we want. We can write plainly about God and heaven. But unless Jesus Christ is the foundation of our stories, they’re flammable. Wood, hay, and stubble.

As Christians, our prime directive is to take the gospel of salvation to the world. How God would have each of us do this is between Him and the individual. For most of us, I suspect it will be a combination of writing and something else, something carried out through the vehicle of the church. But if we are called to write, let’s endeavor to make sure what we write is in line with our calling.

Today we continue our series on Magic in the Story with a form of so-called “magic” I believe many are confused about. This post, entitled “Written in the Stars” is an exploration of the difference between Astrology and Biblical Star-Reading (the search for meaning in the stars). As with all the other posts thus far, we will use the Narnia books as an example of stargazing since it fits our “fantasy fiction” category and is widely accepted and sold in the Christian marketplace.

I hope, after reading this post, you will see that when given its proper place the search for meaning in the stars is not something to fret about (especially in fantasy fiction), that the Bible encourages us to do it and that doing so is, in fact, God-honoring.

(Enter Collective GASP Here!)

Before we dive in completely, I’d like to encourage you to check out the previous posts in this series if you haven’t. It may provide a bit of reference from whence we came.

Part 1: What’s the Big Deal   <week one>

Part 2: The Two Faces of Magic <last week>

Part 3: Written in the Stars <—— YOU ARE HERE

When it comes to Narnia, the study of meaning in the stars (or astrology, if you prefer to use a single word) is, perhaps, one of the foundational elements that link all seven novels in the series together. Lewis was, himself, an avid astronomer. He had a telescope on the balcony of his bedroom and he often visited the Oxford observatory. But when it came to astrology, Lewis had been long fascinated with the subject of the stars and their meanings. He admitted that “…and who knows, perhaps in this [astrology] as in so many things the ancients knew more than we.”

Some have even convincingly speculate that the Narnia series is, in fact, secretly based on the seven planets of medieval astrology.

Lewis’ controversial dabbling in what some call “astrology” has been scrutinized over the years. In fact, many simply hear the word and toss it right out with magic as if both are a forbidden poison that will drag their authors and readers to hell in a hurry.

But astrology is by no means a definitive term. There is much to consider and scrutinize before we pass judgement on the books. I also found it intriguing to discover that Lewis himself was conflicted on the word as well.

So, What Do We Mean By Astrology?

Let’s start by defining the word “astrology” (since that is the hot word that concerns us most of all). As I prepared this post, I found it was not as easy a task to do as I thought it might be. In its broadest sense, astrology simply means the “search for meaning in the stars” which I contend is a Biblical truth as well and will show you soon. In medieval times the word was synonymous with astronomy (which none that I know are offended by).

In fact, Merium-Webster’s first definition is simply “Astronomy”, followed by a second definition that claims it to be “the divination of the supposed influences of the stars and planets on human affairs and terrestrial events by their positions and aspects”. I’m not sure about you but there seems to be quite a wide range of interpretations that can be explored between the two definitions. That is to say, simply saying “astrology” does not have as definite a meaning as one might first think.

To borrow a bit from last week’s post let’s assume there are two faces to astrology, just as there are two faces to magic. We’ll call these two “Deep Astrology” and “Dark Astrology”. Let’s agree to define “Deep Astrology” as the search for signs and wonders in the stars which act as heralds of coming events as ordained by the deep and all powerful Creator King. And we’ll define “Dark Astrology” as the worship of the stars as supernatural “influencers” over the daily acts of men.

Fair enough?

Okay. If you’re still not convinced, I beg you to stick with me. I think I can win you over with Biblical truth on the matter.

Written in the Stars (Deep Astrology)

If you have never had the pleasure of watching the film “The Star of Bethlehem”, I’d invite you to do so at your earliest opportunity. It was this film that opened my eyes to the truth of Scripture about the nature of the stars and their purpose. I’ll be borrowing some of the points here from it’s research to help us in our own unraveling of star meaning.

Why did God create the stars in the first place?

Genesis 1:14 says “And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years…”

Job 9:9 declares that God is the creator of the constellations: “He is the Maker of the Bear [Ursa Major] and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.”

Psalm 19:1-4  says that the stars communicate to us, “…The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world…

Not only that, but Paul believes the stars had a specific message to communicate, one that everyone could see and know. Paul believed that all the Jews of Christ’s day had heard that the Messiah had come, and quotes the stars mentioned in David in the Psalm above as the reason.

In Romans 10:17-18 he says, “17Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask: Did they [the Jews] not hear? Of course they did: “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

The creators of the Star of Bethlehem series have this to say:

“Paul is taking the position that something has happened in the stars which indicated to the Jews of his time that the Messiah had come. As we shall see, the apostle Peter elsewhere forcefully makes the same argument. Of course, this argument has exactly no force unless something had happened in the stars. The fact that both men employed this line of reasoning shows they are making the same assumption. They assumed that their listeners were aware of celestial phenomena associated with Christ.”

But the ultimate authority on the matter of looking to the heavens for signs would be Christ himself. In Luke 21:25-28 Chris declares that…”there will be signs in sun and moon and stars,…” and that “when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

In other words, Christ is telling us that something will be happening in the heavens that we should be looking for and that when it happens, we will know the end is near.

Hmmmm…sounds a bit like “star reading” to me, doesn’t it?

At the very least, it should give us the freedom to understand that the stars can be messengers of major events which God has ordained to happen in our history – events that have been foretold long before they occur. In fact, isn’t that exactly what the magi seeking Christ said. “We have seen his star in the heavens…”

With that in mind lets take a quick look at how Lewis uses the stars in his books and if it is supported Biblically.

Here are a few specific uses of star-searching as they appear in the Narnia books:

1. In Prince Caspian, Cornelius (a minor magician) looks to the stars and ponders the meaning of two ‘noble planets’ crossing in the skies. He explains the event to Caspian: “Look well upon them. Their meeting is fortunate and means some great good for the sad realm of Narnia. Tarva, the Lord of Victory, salutes Alambil, the Lady of Peace.”

2. In Dawn Treader, the children visit two stars in human form. They seem almost angelic in their appearance and provide guidance and aide to them.

3. In Last Battle, a centaur claims  ‘If Aslan were really coming to Narnia the sky would have foretold it. If he were really come, all the most gracious stars would be assembled in his honour.’

In each of these cases, the stars are subject to a greater authority. Nobody in these passages are worshipping the stars or claiming that the stars alone are the source for the events which are happening (which is where the deception of Dark Astrology can lead us). The stars are merely messengers, working on behalf of the greater authority of Aslan’s Deep Magic (even if it is not being expressly identified as such in every instance).

In medieval cosmology, the Earth was at the centre and surrounding it in concentric circles were seven heavens, each governed (under God) by a particular planet or celestial body with its own distinct characteristics and influences; and around and beyond them all was the Empyrean or dwelling place of God. It was therefore a cosmos characterized by order and teeming with life and personality, not a dead, empty ‘space’.

The ‘Great Dance’, in which Lewis imagines the stars and planets as participants, are dancers in the court of heaven, praising God and forming patterns of deep meaning and great beauty. Indeed, the stars in Narnia are not lifeless orbs but sentient, even angelic beings – which means that their movements and positions in the sky can legitimately be intentional, meaningful and above all relational.

The Stars Are Writing? (Dark Astrology)

So, herein lies the danger.

Many determine Astrology to be the “influence of stars and planets on earthly affairs and human destinies”. This is a false belief. By this definition, we would be wise to flee. As we saw last week, it is always lie of Satan when the created are served over their creator. If we elevate anything or anyone other than God as the source of worship we become twisted in our thinking and are clearly in the wrong.

Job warns us in Job 31:26-28, “If I have regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor, so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.”

The royal astrologers of the Babylonian court were put to shame by God’s prophet Daniel (Daniel 1:20) and were powerless to interpret the king’s dream (Daniel 2:27). God specifies astrologers as among those who will be burned as stubble in God’s judgment (Isaiah 47:13-14). Astrology as a form of divination is expressly forbidden in Scripture (Deuteronomy 18:10-14). God forbade the children of Israel to worship or serve the “host of heaven” (Deuteronomy 4:19). Several times in their history, however, Israel fell into that very sin (2 Kings 17:16 is one example). Their worship of the stars brought God’s judgment each time.

But it was the worship of the things that earned the judgement, not the searching.

Those who believe their daily lives are determined by the stars themselves are focusing on the wrong thing. God is the Author of all, not the stars. We are not to confuse this.

Also, nowhere in scripture does God tell us to live our lives by the stars. On the contrary, we should be careful of this. We should always look to Scripture alone for guidance. His Word has all the answers we need, the stars are merely there to support His truths and reinforce the fact that God alone is in charge. The signs we find in the sky will always bring glory to God.

Conclusion

Having messages hidden in the stars is nothing new. The order of the stars are awe inspiring and a key element in my coming novel (which will be released soon on Codebearers.com). In the new book (authored by my brother and I) the stars are disappearing and mankind is searching for answers as to how this is even possible.

I’m glad that we serve a God who is big enough to ordain the position of all the stars and planets in perfect time with human history. He has pre-ordained it all, and it is a good thing to be reminded of his unchanging plan when we turn our eyes to the stars.

Looking forward to your comments.

More and more fantasy, even Christian fantasy, is available these days. Some small presses are devoted to the genre and its cousins, science fiction and horror. But some authors are putting their work on their sites for free, some are self-publishing, and traditional publishers are adding more and more titles to their stock.

The truth is, however, most readers will only learn of a small number of the books that are available. Chalk it up to promotion or platform, if you will, but I don’t think we can ignore that some fantasy works better than most. Readers love Narnia and Lord of the Rings, and they love a handful of later fantasies. But a lot of stories don’t go viral, don’t get hundreds of reviews, and in fact get tepid responses. So what makes fantasy work?

In some ways, I think the answer is no different than what makes any other piece of fiction work. But I also think fantasy aims to accomplish more, so it has more that can go wrong.

I suppose that isn’t quite true. Mystery writers could say that mystery tries to accomplish more because the story tries to create a puzzle that keeps the reader guessing. And romance writers could say that romance tries to accomplish more because the story tries to bring two people together while keeping them apart. Writers of historical fiction could really make a case for their fiction doing more.

In other words, each genre has its own tropes to which the author must adhere, so it isn’t quite as simple as just writing a story. But when I say that fantasy does more, I’m thinking of the depth—the way that the story is only the obvious part of what the writer is saying, not the entire substance.

In C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, for example, Orual’s experiences say much more about Mankind’s spiritual life than about the mistakes of one lonely girl who became queen.

But what makes Lewis’s stories work so well? Why, in fact, are the Narnia stories known around the world but few people have read Till We Have Faces? Of course, the only people I know who have read the latter, count it among their favorites, so I’m not suggesting it doesn’t “work.”

And yet, it’s hard to say it works as well as Narnia. Otherwise, wouldn’t there be as many people who have read it and loved it? I suppose we could argue that children’s books have an advantage. Often times, parents who love the books they enjoyed as children, read them aloud to their children, and the love of the books is passed on, as much by the pleasure of the reading aloud experience as by the quality of the stories.

Has anyone read Till We Have Faces aloud to their children lately? I suspect not. It’s not that kind of book.

So I suppose the first thing to realize is that what “works” is somewhat subjective. Yet I can’t help thinking that a lot of the books available today don’t work, or at least not as well.

Perhaps the key is to look at what each book is trying to accomplish. The question would then be, did the author get it done?

The higher the book aims, the harder it is to reach that goal. Consequently, if a story aims to be a sweet romance as a means of providing a little escape for the reader, then it works if it does just that. But if it aims to be the next Gone with the Wind, the author has set an ambitious goal and her work must be judged based on whether or not she accomplished what she set out to do. If she wrote a sweet romance, albeit a thousand pages long, I’d say she did not meet her goal.

So too with fantasy.

When I first considered the question, what makes fantasy work, my immediate thought was, an engaging character. That’s when I realized that there might not be so much difference between fantasy and other fiction.

In some of the fantasy that doesn’t seem to be working, I’ve seen three problems with the central character—she/he doesn’t have a specific goal, is nondescript, or whines.

Readers are most engaged with a character if they care about him and if they can cheer him along as he tries to accomplish an important goal. He needs to seem real, so he must have a rounded personality. For fallen humanity, that means weaknesses and needs as well as strengths and things to offer others. At times, however, a character weakness can be painted with too much emphasis. I know because I created such a character.

It crushed me at first when members of my critique group told me they hated my main character. Hated him? I loved him. How could they misunderstand him so completely? Yes, he had problems, but don’t all characters? I mean, isn’t that part of the character arc?

That, in a nutshell, is the balancing act authors must achieve—give the character problems but not let him become embittered, sullen, whiny, complaining, slothful.

In some ways, Jonathan Rogers’ Grady in The Charlatan’s Boy is the perfect character. He’s got a problem—he’s an orphan, but that’s not all of it. The only person who knows anything about where he came from is unreliable—worse than unreliable. He twists the truth at will, however it suits him.

But instead of wallowing in self-pity, Grady makes the most of his circumstances. Here’s where the reader sees his real strengths. He’s loyal, hard working, and humble enough to do the job he needs to do.

So the first thing fantasy has to have in order to work is a main character that is believable and engaging.

The second thing, because this is fantasy I’m talking about, is a well-developed, consistent world. This is the aspect J. K. Rowling mastered. If I were to grade her, I might give her a C or C+ for her character. Harry wasn’t particularly believable in the first book because the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Dursleys was over the top. Nor was he particularly engaging. He didn’t whine but neither did he do anything to change his situation.

But the world Rowling created was awesome. She did such a great job creating a magic place that the story came alive. She paid attention to detail and didn’t overlook anything.

In Hogwarts, food appeared magically on plates, the ceiling in the dining hall changed to appear like the outdoor sky, persons in portraits moved (and moved from their own frame to another’s), persons in newspaper photos moved too, and so did the figures on the cards that came with certain candy. And those chocolate frogs could actually jump away. The students had to be taught how to fly a boom and how to use their wands. And on and on and on. So many little details, everyday things twisted to fit a place where magic was real.

But there’s still more to this “What makes fantasy work” question which I’ll look at next time.

Adapted from posts on this subject at A Christian Worldview of Fiction

Previously, in Part 1:
So what does Philippians 2:12-13 have to say about perseverance?  And how does that fit in with Christian speculative fiction?

The first piece of the puzzle was to understand “work out.” And now, the conclusion:

The Second Piece To the Puzzle—Understanding “Salvation”

This question is more theological and less lexical than the previous question.  By saying this, it is meant that there is no question that the Greek word soterian should be translated as “salvation.”  It is rather a question of “how do we understand this word?”

To begin with, there are many different uses for the word.  Among these:

1.    Physical deliverance from danger (as from the sea)

2.    National deliverance (from enemies of Israel)

3.    Spiritual and eternal deliverance

When understanding Philippians 2:12-13, the third, or last, definition is the best, as Paul is not speaking about salvation from the Romans, or salvation from some imminent danger.

If this is true, then the question remains:  How do we understand spiritual salvation?  Is it something we possess, as in, it is already “inside” of us?  Or is it rather an event that will occur in the future when Christ returns?

It is argued here that in the New Testament, “spiritual salvation” is only of the second kind—meaning that our salvation is a future event.  Now, why do most of us practically think of this as something that we “posses” if it is in reality a future event?  This is because, in a sense, we do “possess” it, but it is not a “thing” that is inside of us.  Rather, it is something that is guaranteed to happen to us.

Salvation is similar to an inheritance.  When we are written into the “last will and testament” of our parents, we are guaranteed (by law) that we will one day receive our inheritance.  God has made us “heirs with Christ” in that we are guaranteed to receive salvation.  In this sense we possess it right now—it is a future event that we, right now, are guaranteed to have.   Eternal life begins now, but we have not been brought to it yet.  This salvation will come on the “day of the Lord.”

Does scripture hold up to this understanding?  Here is a survey of some passages (especially those in Philippians):

Bonus Readings: 1 Timothy 6:11-16, 2 Timothy 2:8-13, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, Titus 2:11-14, Hebrews 10:24-25, 35-39, 1 Peter 1:3-9, and 1 Peter 2:12.

So then, with the understanding of “salvation” as something that will happen in the future, but something guaranteed to us, we can come back to Philippians 2:12-13, and translate it correctly.

Three potential translations are offered:

1.    Work [out] your salvation

2.    Produce [out of your life] your salvation

3.    Work [until] your salvation

The first two are really the same translation, worded differently.  Number 1 is what is typically found in our Bibles, but number 2 is a better form of this, as it makes clear what the translators are doing.

Number 3, however, is the translation that I argue is best.  If you combine the understanding of “salvation” as something that will happen in the future, along with the “taking to a natural conclusion” aspect of kata, and if you understand kata in this context as modifying the verb in the sense of a “time span,” then this translation makes great sense.

With this, the final translation is offered here:

Therefore my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work until your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

So then, we neither need to work “for” our salvation, nor do we need to “produce” it… rather we are called to be faithful until the very end—to persevere—using the power that God gives us!

So how does this apply to Christian speculative fiction, and how does it apply to our lives?

If you are at all familiar with the difficult time Christian speculative fiction has had getting a foothold in the market, you understand our need to persevere—both as readers and as authors.

As a reader, anything you can do to promote the genre will be boosting a good thing—a thing that God can use. For Christian speculative fiction has an awesome place in God’s plan as we reach out and shine His light into the darkness—glorifying the Great Storyteller through excellent writing and through themes, plots, and characters that prick the infected boils of the world.

In fact, this is a great way to get a non-Christian to think about spiritual truths. I know this first-hand: when I was a nearly delinquent young man who had almost never stepped into a church, a friend shared The Chronicles of Narnia with me and explained that Aslan represented Christ. This opened my eyes to things I had rarely, if ever, thought about. Within three years, God brought me to faith.

For all you authors out there, you know better than I that this journey of sub-creating, this journey of writing, this very journey of faith—requires great perseverance. And the best part? We can know that it is God working through us as we continue to work and write until he calls each one of us home to his great feasting hall in heaven.

 On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.

The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

Isaiah 25:6-9

– – – – –

Robert Treskillard is a Celtic enthusiast who holds a B.A. in Biblical & Theological Studies from Bethel University, Minnesota. He has been crafting stories from his early youth, is a software developer, graphic artist, and sometime bladesmith. He and his wife have three children and are still homeschooling their youngest. They live in the country outside St. Louis, Missouri.

It all began when Robert’s son wanted to learn blacksmithing and sword-making. The two set out to learn the crafts and in the process were told by a relative that they were descended from a Cornish blacksmith. This lit the fire of Robert’s imagination, and so welding his Celtic research to his love of the legends of King Arthur, a book was forged—Merlin’s Blade, book one of The Merlin Spiral, coming April 2013 from Zondervan.

More information about Robert can be found through his blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Why do some Christian novels treat church involvement like going to the bathroom?

Yes, characters “go to the bathroom,” even if we rarely hear of them doing it. But let us face the fact: say, in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Elves would have had to add a little less beauty to the woods, and Dwarves had to bury something in the earth.

Why don’t we hear of these moments? Not just from the mild “ew” factor, but because most of the time they serve no purpose in the story.

Ever the efficient storyteller, Scripture, apart from prophetic mentions of bodily waste —records only one “bathroom” incident: in 1 Sam. 24 when King Saul enters a cave to “relieve himself” (verse 3). The story needs this, for David not only spares Saul’s life but avoids assassination at what would have been an awkward moment for the Lord’s anointed.

But based on the contents of some Christian speculative novels — most often, the novels that touch on the real world — authors seem to assume two ways of viewing the Church:

1. “We don’t need to show people going to church or being part of denominations.”

E.g.: Church bodies are “ew.” Instead let’s show rogue Christians (sort of) all by themselves.

Click here to view this now-complete thrilling adventure serial.

This notion was latent in the contemporary/speculative novel I read that inspired this Fiction Christians From Another Planet(!) series. That novel included Christian characters, more or less, of the child-people, blind-faith, living-the-voices-driven-life sort. But Biblically speaking, they were separate from the body; if they had church, it must have been church in a bathroom. Throughout the whole story, which covered weeks, no one mentioned going to church, visiting friends from church, meeting at church, inviting folks to church. Nothing.

In all those phrases I don’t mean mere duty-driven devotion, “religious” in the wrong way. I mean organic desires to organize for Christ — the same way He’s mandated, and the same way fans of anyone or anything else want to find other fans and join a Vast Movement.

Elsewhere in this blog series I noted novels’ issues with megachurchianity. Even that would not be so bad if novels included actual physical megachurches or people being involved in them. Instead such stories only repeat notions culled from megachurch memes. The actual churches are only out there on a spiritual plane, or stuck in a bathroom somewhere.

2. “If we do show church involvement, it’s of an absurdly hyper-idealized variety.”

Never trust any “utopian” society in Star Trek — regardless if flower spores are involved. Even the Federation in later years panicked over neck-scorpions and Dominion shape-shifters.

In this view, evidently the church Body has already been resurrected and doesn’t have any sickness or suffering or even human waste products. (By the way, that last may actually not be true of resurrected bodies; after all, before sin, did Adam and Eve “go to the bathroom”?)

We’ve all seen these in non-speculative Christian fiction that shows the general Church and particular local churches as pretty much utopian, where everyone floats about and smiles and lives in harmony and cares for others — and certainly has nothing to hide whenever the new Federation delegation beams down. But speculative storytellers aren’t immune to this wrong kind of “fantasy” either, especially if their stories touch the real world. Here I’m thinking of the Left Behind series, soon to start a new micro-series on SF, which include no other denominations or different end-times views, only a clear division: good guys (some readers assume dispensational pre-millers) raptured, bad guys (liberals, etc.) left behind.

3. A praise: high fantasy novels may include better Church parallels.

We read of no First Temples of Aslan or hobbit-hole fellowships (ha!) intended to study the truth myths of Ilúvatar. But any time a fantasy novel explores a good kingdom, a questing fellowship, or any group of people bound by a common purpose beyond themselves, that is like the Church — the Church that C.S. Lewis’s demon Screwtape described as “spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.”

Quite a spectacle, founded by Christ Himself: a capital-C “invisible” Church of lowercase-C visible churches, “organized” around the Savior, teaching, fellowship, and His sacraments.

So why do some stories fear showing local churches? Here are a few possibilities.

1. Local churches are scary.

Screwtape described the Church as “terrible,” an entity that “makes our boldest tempters uneasy.” Yet Lewis as the demon’s author might have similarly quivered. At least for a while he was no fan of his local church, and many Christians now feel the same way about theirs.

A better nonfiction book about why Christ’s physical Bride matters.

Rebuttal: Having real grievances about churches’ abuses or other sins is different from the evangelical cottage criticize-church industry. For example, George Barna found a house-church advocate named Frank Viola and together they (re-)published a book about how almost everything in your local church-that-meets-in-a-building is wrong. Meanwhile Brian McLaren and other liberal “evangelicals” attack the broader Church from other angles.¹

 2. Local churches are messy.

If Christian post-dystopian action-heroine Jane Jubilee is on the run from atheist assassins, life is messy enough without also worrying about her underground Baptist church’s latest squabble over possibly switching to sprinkling instead of immersion. So authors cut the fat.

Rebuttal: Real Christians go to church. It’s what we do. Even this heroine could be shown missing her church friends and teaching while dodging evil atheists’ attacks. And certainly realistic local-church issues could come into play even in such a setting. How may the same baptism debate go when almost all the world’s waterways are polluted? Or how would this Christian group debate carrying weapons in light of Jesus’s warning to Peter in Matt. 26:52?

3. Novels focus on non-Christians anyway (or their fantasy equivalents)

This I partly covered in part 1: too many novels forego the challenge of following a strong Christian character, who would surely want to be a church member, in favor of following yet another (likely megachurch-clichéd or straw-man) nonbeliever. This gets boring.

Rebuttal: Strong Christians are very interesting people with fantastic stories. It’s a tragic cheat that many novels, including speculative ones, prefer exploring pre-converted pagans.

Solutions and series conclusion

Much of this could be avoided if people would, as a social-network friend simply suggested, just read the Bible, people. Scripture — especially the books authored by the Apostle Paul — loves the Church and churches yet also reflects and criticizes them honestly. So should our stories. That’s why I as a reader will seek and enjoy and positively review Christian novels endorse the beauty, presently flawed but future-perfect, of Christ’s Bride. And we can only do this in cooperation with other local-church members, as we enjoy stories together.

Which leads to a brief response to one series commentator: That’s why I wrote this series. It’s not to rant about or spank fiction authors. It’s to exhort readers to identify fiction aliens like this, perhaps by this series’s whimsical retro-sci-fi-esque names. As more readers point these out and gently criticize, gradually more authors will respond to reader desires. And the imagination, realism, and writing quality of Christian speculative novels may improve.

THE END (?)

. . . that is . . . well, it’s a question, anyway.

Actually, it’s a question I wanted to ask all of you. As some of you may or may not know, Failstate: Legends, the sequel to my debut novel, is releasing this Friday from Marcher Lord Press. Yeah, I know, I haven’t spoken much about it. Bad author, bad! I should have been rattling people’s cages and getting the word out as best I could. Sad to say, but marketing is not one of my strong suits. You can ask my agent. We have long chats about this. A lot.

But one of the things that I did in preparation for this was put together a book trailer.

When Failstate came out, I actually did more than one. I planned a whole series of trailers and even included a contest. I asked people to submit videos of them in costume, auditioning for the superhero reality show in the book, America’s Next Superhero. If you look at the stats for the video announcement, it was viewed a whopping 400 times. And it garnered exactly . . . zero entries.

Insert sad trombone sound here.

Undaunted, I trimmed down my trailer release schedule and wound up releasing five. You can watch them below:

I went all out the first time around. I recruited two of my youth to play Lux and Failstate. I cajoled my alma mater, Concordia University in St. Paul, to let me use their stage, and I have to say, it was a lot of fun.

This time around, I didn’t have the time or the energy to bust out the costumes for another live action trailer. This time, it took me about two hours and this is what I came up with:

Of course, I’m not the only author that does this. For example, Jill Williamson recently released a trailer about her upcoming book, Captives. I think it’s mostly put together with stock footage, but it’s a lot of fun:

About a year ago, I found this trailer for Christian author Conlan Brown and I wound up drooling all over my keyboard:

So a lot of authors do this. What I’m curious about is this: what’s your opinion of book trailers? Do you watch them? Has a book trailer ever made you want to buy the book (hint, hint)? What makes for a good book trailer? Let me know in the comments.

And if you’re not interested in this discussion, by way of apology, I offer two non-book trailer videos: me playing Slender: The Arrival late at night (warning, it’s a little scary) and Taylor Swift singing a duet with a goat.

You’re welcome.