Writing a book, like finding love, is a sacred pursuit. No one can tell you how to do it any more than they can tell you how to fall in love. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s not a simple thing. There’s a mystery to it – and the mystery is what makes it wonderful.

The essence of writing can’t be deduced to its most basic pieces, documented and reassembled in the same way every time. In fact, one must be careful in even attempting to dissect and analyze the writing process so much that we kill the very living thing we had hoped to preserve.There is magic in writing. It must be given room to breathe and live and grow in its own way if it is to be of any good to the writer or the reader.

That’s not to say there isn’t a place for sage advice or ‘how to’ books on the subject. We often find our own way by studying what has worked for others. Much like a long, happily married couple are worth listening to and learning from when it comes to your relationship with your spouse, a successful author’s observations about their own relationship with writing may certainly help you in your own pursuit.

But today’s post isn’t as much about advice as it is about observing the process itself. It’s not Valentines Day yet, but we’re going to celebrate the mystery of love and writing anyway.

It Begins With a Spark.

An idea. It could come from anywhere. Your heart skips a beat or two at the thought of it. There is no way to force or fake it. You don’t know where it comes from or why it comes, but one day…there it is. The idea you’ve been waiting for and searching for serendipitously pops onto the scene and commands your attention like nothing else in the room. It’s the “Oh-that-would-make-a-great-story” moment.

If you’re a regular reader of Speculative Faith, you’ve probably had a few of these moments before. Ideas are everywhere. But what if you can’t seem to make a connection with one? What if your idea tank is as dry and dusty as one of those candy hearts? Is there hope for an idea-less author this Valentines Day or are you doomed to write alone…without inspiration?

I can’t guarantee an idea will find you any more than I can guarantee you’ll find love, but there are a few things you can do to better position yourself to have an idea.

I find that simply reading awakens the writer in me and fills my literary awareness with new thoughts. I read books, the Bible, blogs, news articles and movie reviews in hopes of igniting the spark of “what if’s” that ultimately guide me to a great story.

• “What if all guns were outlawed? Would crime truly cease?”
• “What if Noah was building a spacecraft totake the DNA of every animal and man to a distant planet before the world was destroyed?”
• “What if my dad really was a secret agent for an enemy nation?”
• “What if a high schooler with a fatal disease runs away on a senior camping trip with her friends despite her parents warnings and they get lost.”

The Thrill of the Chase

The first glimpse is where the story begins. But sadly, for many aspiring authors, this is as far as the story goes. It is nothing short of childish infatuation. Perhaps they are too afraid to take it to the next step and see if the idea is worth pursuing further, or perhaps they are in love with the idea of writing and not the act of writing itself.

Whatever the case, the idea quickly dies. The moment passes. The story is over before it begins.

If this is you, don’t worry. It happens to all of us. I have many story starters trapped in my little black book of ideas.  Some of them are more intriguing to me than others – old flames that died out before I even gave them half a chance. The key is to pursue one. Don’t just think about them.

Collecting ideas is good, but writing them is even better. Perhaps someday, I’ll get reacquainted and see some of those old ideas through to completion, but I’m a one story at a time kind of guy. And there’s a reason why. A good story, written well, will take all of your focus.

Infatuation Vs. Inspiration

Like a budding relationship, the thrill of the chase is exhilarating for awhile. But how do you know if the idea is worth pursuing as a book? The answer comes in asking yourself this question: am I willing to commit myself to writing this story everyday, for as long as it takes? Some ideas are nothing more than temporary infatuation – a momentary crush on the new girl (if you will). These ideas are worth writing down but shortly after putting your pen to paper, the intrigue disappears like invisible ink. It was only skin deep.

Writing, like courtship, is a long process. There are no shortcuts. Your job, if you really want to win the idea over, is to find your way to its heart. Dont’ just talk about the story, dive in and spend time with it. Write. Write. Write. There are no shortcuts. When you invest long enough, the time will come when something changes. Your infatuation with the story will suddenly turn to true inspiration. From that moment on, you’ll be committed to the story and for the first time in the relationship, you have a real shot of finishing. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations…the worst is almost behind you.

Fight For It

There will come a moment in your story-writing relationship that you’ll want to call it quits. The idea wasn’t what you thought it was, something isn’t working and you just want to go back to the infatuation of a new idea for awhile. My advice to you is…don’t. You may need to take a break from your book for awhile, but writing, like love, is hard work. It’s  not for quitters.

I wanted to quit writing our second novel Hunter Brown and the Consuming Fire so badly. The plot wasn’t working, my characters weren’t cooperating and I was desperately lost. I thought I had a dud. Even worse, while I was in the middle of writing it, the first novel won a Moonbeam award. Suddenly, I felt as if I was in big trouble. How on earth was I going to top the first book. Everyone would know that I was a hack writer, right?

I’m glad I stuck it out. Our second novel went on to win awards as well, and has been one of our fans’ favorite books in the series.

The point is you have to be willing to fight for what you love – even when you don’t feel like it.

Tears of Joy

Writing is truly like a marriage. The love and effort you put into it comes back to you in tenfold rewards. I remember fighting harder than ever before to finish the third novel, Hunter Brown and the Eye of Ends. As I was writing the final scenes I realized that I had invested so deeply into it, that I began to physically cry as I wrote it. I knew, at that point, something wonderful had happened. I was connecting to my book in a way I never once imagined possible when I first had the simple idea years before. The book was changing me. I knew it would be a special story for others to read.

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” ― Robert Frost

In Closing

So, do you love to write? Do you really? Are you committed to pushing past the giddiness of infatuation to the heart of the idea? Are you willing to put in the hours it takes to make that idea blossom into pure inspiration? Will you fight for your story, forging ahead through the darkest times until you reach the place where tears of joy flow?

I hope so. It’s one of the most magical experiences in the world.

Just be sure you never let anyone else’s romance become your own. Some days come easier than others, but it is always worth the chase.

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What are some of your craziest ideas? Share them in the comments below.
Have you experienced difficulty in loving your writing? Share that too.

The subject of realism has cropped up in a number of posts of late. For the most part, all those who have written about the subject and many who commented are in favor of realism in our stories–whether in books or on TV or in movies. Who would rather replace the computer enhanced Aslan for an actor dressed in a lion costume? We want our Aslan to appear on the screen as real.

The desire and push for realism in our stories has given impetus to those who believe Christian fiction should include sex, profanity, and vulgarity. After all, those are real. What some of us point out, however, is that spiritual reality is often neglected by those who clamor for reality in fiction.

I think there’s something else not particularly real in twenty-first century stories, no matter how real the blue giants of Avatar might appear or how real the goblins of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey seem. We could chalk this up to “that’s just movies” if it weren’t for the fact that screen writing is beginning to dominate the way we write novels.

I’m not quite sure how to characterize this unrealistic phenomenon. Perhaps an illustration will serve to explain it.

Saturday I watched the last part of Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers which was airing on TV. This was the first time I’d seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies since I’d re-read the books, which as it happened, I’d done again just this past December. Hence, the story details were fresher in my mind, and consequently the disparities between the book and the movie jumped out at me. The main thing I noticed was conflict in the movie where none existed in the book.

For example, in Tolkien’s original once Gandalf had freed Theodin, the king of Rohan, from the influence of Wormtongue, he quickly became his adviser. Théoden did what Gandalf told him to do: trusted Éomer as his new right hand, sent the women and children away to a place of protection (not Helms Deep), prepared his army to march on Isengard, sent out word to gather troops to support Gondor against Mordor. In the film version, however, Théoden fought Gandalf at every turn. He was nearly as depressed and suicidal as Denethor the Gondor steward.

There was also enhanced conflict between Arwen and her father Elrond about her staying in Middle Earth for Aragon. She finally decided to leave–an incident that did not happen in the book.

Another “it did not happen in the book” example also involved Aragon. On the way to Helms Deep (rather than to Isengard, as the book had it), the people of Rohan were attacked by Uruk-hai and Wargs. In the battle, Aragon was dragged over a cliff and fell to the river. His companions presumed him to be dead.

Then, too, Treebeard and the Ents decided they would not help in the war against Saruman. Merry and Pipin tried to talk him into it, but he refused, only promising to take them out of the forest at whatever point they wished. On the way, they came to a place where Saruman’s forces had destroyed the trees, and the Ents then arose and fought. The motivation in the book is the same, but the conflict between the hobbits and the Ents never existed.

In the segments concerning Frodo, there were more of these manufactured conflicts. Frodo and Sam argued about the effect the ring had and about their disparate treatment of Gollum. Then too, Faramir insisted on taking Sam, Frodo, and Gollum to Gondor with the intent to use the ring (which they spoke of openly in front of all Faramir’s men) in the battle against Mordor. When they reached Osgiliath, they were attacked by one of the Nazgul. Under the influence of its presence, Frodo acted as if he’d been possessed and nearly put on the ring. Faithful Sam tackled him to stop him and they wrestled, with Frodo pulling his sword on Sam. None of this happened in the book.

As I thought about these differences, it seems to me that the movie was faithfully following the dictates of writing instructors who tell writers to make life hard for their characters and when it’s as bad as it can get, make it worse.

But is that reality?

Do friends always turn against one another? Does the hero always fall to his apparent death? Do the once mighty always succumb to discouragement and despair? Does doubt and fear always push loved ones to leave?

The answer is, no.

Tolkien got it right in his version of The Lord of the Rings–he told a realistic story. Borimir succumbed to the power of the ring, but Faramir did not. Denethor became suicidal, but Théoden did not. Gandalf fell to his apparent death, but Aragon did not.

In showing the strength of Faramir, the healing of Théoden, the prowess of Aragon, Tolkien enhanced Borimir’s failure, Denethor’s selfish choice, and Gandalf’s sacrifice. In other words, by not taking every character to the brink before leading them back, he magnified each case in which a character was taken to the brink.

If all characters are victims of disaster, I suggest readers or viewers stop caring and start looking for the “out.” Will the character die and come back? Have a narrow escape? Have a death that only looks like death? In truth, all the arguing and betrayal and refusal becomes–predictable and boring and unrealistic. Soon the characters seem more like caricatures because none acts with nobility or courage or hope. All display their flawed selves with so little inner struggle. And this, we’ve come to believe, is realistic.

Perhaps this twenty-first century version of realism is another way in which we are not addressing spiritual issues realistically. We are, after all, made in God’s image. We have within us a moral sense of right and wrong. We also have a sin nature. In essence, we are divided at our core.

We experience the truth of Romans 7 day in and day out, doing the thing we hate and neglecting the thing we know we should do. We struggle in the inner person. But Romans 8 follows, too. We revel in the freedom from the law of sin and death, we experience God’s sovereign purpose to work all things for our good, we enjoy His nothing-can-separate-us love. In short, reality is a mixed bag along the journey. It’s not all bad until the miraculously impossible reversal.

In story writing, I believe in conflict, I really do, though I believe in tension more. I wonder if twenty-first century authors aren’t needlessly creating artificial, “big bang” conflict when inner-struggle tension, more true to life, actually would make for a better story. Tolkien’s work convinces me that more external conflict isn’t particularly realistic nor is it always the best.

I want to thank RLM for inviting me to guest post for Speculative Faith. As this is my first (and hopefully, not last) post, I want to lay out my philosophy of Christian writing. Then I want to give a perspective on why I think speculative fiction is a very suitable vehicle for theology, contra Mike Duran [one of Spec Faith’s previous guest bloggers].

The writing of fiction is a noble calling. As men and women made in the image of God and having the responsibility to fulfill the cultural mandate (Gen 1:28) to develop the potential of this world (which presumably includes story-telling as much as it does flute-playing, Gen 4:21), a writer of fiction can imitate God the Creator through the creation of a fictional world filled with characters, activity, conflict, history, plot, suspense, climax, and denouement. I discuss this on my own site in the article, “Reflecting God’s Creation Work in Our Writing.”

There is an intrinsic splendor to the written word akin to that beauty that cannot be separated from any work of fine art. It requires natural talent that is improved upon. For Christian writers who are serious about writing, it behooves them, as an honor to God who has given the talent to write, to devote the time and effort necessary to produce the best possible fiction they are capable of and not to shy away from an effort to rival the more popular and celebrated non-Christian works.

If one claims to write Christian fiction, then it ought to be precisely that, Christian. To be Christian it must contain that which is at the heart of Christianity, and that is the person and work of Christ, or more succinctly stated, it must contain the gospel. This does not mean that everything about the gospel must be in a novel to qualify it as Christian. But it must have something about it and not in a cloudy way. It should be clear and obvious.

I am a Calvinist and hold fiercely to the five points of Calvinism (Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of the Saints). So, when I assess whether or not a novel is Christian, I assess if the gospel is there, and if it is, how closely it lines up with a Calvinistic understanding. If it holds closely, it is robustly Christian. The further it strays from Calvinism, the more anemic it becomes. I admit that for most, this is far too narrow. But that is my thinking. It is the only thing that makes sense for me.

It is unfortunate that too much of what is touted today as Christian has very little to do with the gospel. It may assume a Christian metaphysic and refer to a Supreme Being that vaguely resembles the God of the Bible. It may incorporate a system of morals that are a fine reflection of biblical morals. But without the gospel, they are at bottom without meaning or rationale. Such a story is not a Christian story because it is too vague – there is no gospel that one can put his finger on. Even if the protagonist behaves in an exemplary way, there is no gospel behind it to explain how that is possible. It does not differentiate itself from the best that a non-Christian can produce.

Yet, there is nothing wrong for a Christian to write purely for entertainment, whether or not there is any allusion to a Supreme Being or a Christian metaphysic. Only, do not call it Christian fiction. Through such fiction, the Christian writer reflects God’s creative work by analogously creating a world which the reader observes and participates in through his imagination. Because of God’s common grace, Christian and non-Christian alike can read the Christian author’s ‘non-Christian’ novel, and enjoy it. We should be thankful for such Christian writing and for those who can write it well. Regrettably, as Mike Duran intimates, the Christian market may tend to overlook that point and not give these works a fair readership.

One exception that I am aware of is Andrew Peterson (The Wingfeather Saga) who is doing very well in terms of Amazon ranking. And rightly so. It is a delightful tale that I recommend to all Christian parents who read to their children, or who have children who love to read. On the other hand, George Bryan Polivka (Blaggard’s Moon, The Trophy Chase Trilogy) has produced excellent fiction whose literary craftsmanship can go toe-to-toe with anything in the general market. Yet it has not been so well received. Perhaps pirate stories are not generally appealing. But every Christian who is a serious reader of fiction should have at least one of his novels on the shelf.

Now to state the obvious. Writing is a craft that weaves words together according to rules of grammar and syntax to produce something that is meaningful. Through fiction, a story is told that has meaning. When read, it makes sense, and the reader can put the book down and reflect on what he has read because it said something that he understands.  This is a self-evident truth, yet it has profound implications. It means that fiction is a suitable vehicle for conveying the teaching of the Bible. Christian doctrine – theology – is expressed in human language, and a work of fiction provides the means to do just that. The conveying of theological concepts is not restricted to such works as Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology. Indeed, if one requires a systematically thorough exposition of Christian theology, he may refer to such titles. But the expression of biblical doctrine is not limited to scholarly works. It can be developed in a Christian novel.

One may say that to do so, it would have to come through extended dialogue or sermonic monologue. Frankly, those are not bad ways of doing it, but they are not the only ways. Every element of good fiction writing has the potential to convey Christian truth. Old Testament narrative, though it is not fiction, uses the same grammar and syntax that fiction would use. That narrative is the story of creation, trickery and deceit, jealousy and hatred, the plagues of Egypt, the Passover, the Exodus, the tabernacle, the cultic ritual, the royal and prophetic personalities, all of which convey theological truth, even Christian truth albeit in the manner of shadow, as the New Testament letter to the Hebrews informs us (Heb. 8:5; Heb. 10:1).

Setting dialogue and sermon aside, Mike Duran points out that if Christian fiction is to convey theology, it “is pretty much consigned to showing doctrine through flawed characters and narrative, much like the Bible.” I wholeheartedly agree with that, and it is implicit in the OT narrative just alluded to. But we can go further. Fiction is not very good fiction, if fiction at all, without ‘flawed characters and narrative.’ As such, the gospel-story (narrative) is the story of sinful men and women (flawed characters) coming to repentance and faith in Christ, the Redeemer, whose sacrifice atones for their sins. The narrative does not stop at the point of conversion but continues with how such persons struggle with the remaining sin within them (flawed characters, again) and the sin in the world around them. How can that hamstring the creativity and talent of a good writer of fiction, as Mr. Duran contends? It is chock-full of possibilities and can be played out in a variety of plots and genres.

Another objection is the idea that “fiction explores issues or exposes things, but it doesn’t explain them.” The idea is that theology requires forthright explanation, and that is not what fiction does. If one thinks on that proposition, he sees that it is self-defeating. In the exploration of issues and the exposing of things, there comes understanding; understanding implies explanation, which is the by-product of exploring issues and exposing things. When writing for more than entertainment, explanation may not be an author’s foremost purpose, but it is unavoidable. Perhaps what Mr. Duran has in mind is that fiction is not the vehicle for systematic explanation, with which I agree. But to imply that fiction by nature is devoid of explanation is simply wrong.

Fiction is such a versatile apparatus that one may successfully write with a deliberate intent to teach and clarify – to explain. The writer can still produce an excellent work that meets the qualifications of good writing and story-telling. Michael Crichton’s State Of Fear is a thriller dealing with the issue of global warming. In some ways, it serves as a primer on the subject. Granted, some contend that the novel’s heavy reliance on technical data, charts, graphs, etc. detract from the plot. Personally, I found those things very appropriate. The point is that it is a work of fiction. As fiction, it explored the issues surrounding global warming and sought to expose industry as a culprit of sorts. In the doing of that, Chrichton explains what the global warming debate is about. That Crichton’s was a deliberate effort to explain through fiction is obvious as he provides addenda in which he reveals his own conclusions on the issue and provides a bibliography of sources on which he bases those conclusions. What is important for my point is that the story itself relies heavily on research and presents it in a plot that is entertaining and educational. In its exploring and exposing, it explained.

Speculative fiction, fantasy in particular, is especially suited to bring the reader face to face with biblical truth (See my article, “The Literary Genre of Fantasy and Its Use in Imparting Christian Truth).”

A Christian writer of fiction should strive to write fiction that rivals the work of our non-Christian peers. He should not shy away from writing purely for entertainment, but if he is of a mind to write Christian fiction, he should be careful to make it a story that is identifiably and pointedly Christian. He may write purely to entertain, or he may write to both entertain and teach, because fiction has all the necessary elements not only for amusement and pleasurable reading but also for explaining. As such, the Christian writer of fiction is engaged in a noble and valuable calling.

– – – – –

Thomas Clayton Booher and his wife, Kaye, live in Sanford, NC. He is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary (1979, M.Div, ) and is a ruling elder at Countryside Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Cameron, NC. He served in the US Air Force (1972-1976) and the US Army (1983-1990). He taught at Sandhills Community College, Pinehurst, NC for nearly three years, and is currently a computer programmer. He is working on the rewrite of his Christian fantasy for young teens to adults, The Oerken Leaves, book one of the trilogy, The Whole Creation Groans. He guest posts in the Tulip Driven Life and you may follow his blog, Yellow House News.

In real life, Christians have different views on how God communicates to people. Most of them believe that Scripture is God’s Word, I’m glad to say, with any errors arising in our own heads, or perhaps translation glitches. Others also believe the truth that Scripture is sufficient, that it is all we need for faith and practice (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Yet other Christians also think God may “speak to” or “nudge” people here and there, besides the finished Word.

While I may discuss more in the comments, here I’ll give no objection to that view. Rather, I’m hauling out my raygun to train on the invading extraterrestrial characters from certain Christian novels (not all of them) who imply or even overtly babble alien dialogue like this:

Rachael-Lynne was confused. “You mean, you hear from God personally?”

Wise old Aunt Mathilda smiled as she knit. “Someday you’ll know, dear, when you’re wise and old and can knit like me. That’s how I met your Uncle Jerome. That still, small voice told him to ask me out, and now we’ve been married for 78 years.”

Do you want a Christian-fiction notion that makes pagan readers cackle and other Christians cringe? Then exalt voices-from-beyond. To critics, this means professional sane adults urge readers to ignore Scripture and logic and follow only “whatever the voices in my head say.”

Again, if for now we ignore the issue of whether God ever “speaks” to people beyond the Bible today, this is a hallmark of Christian-fiction characters who don’t behave like they came from planet Earth. In certain novels, all the Christian characters advocate voice-listening. In the worst novels (I am trying not to be mean), non-Christian characters only convert to faith after God in some extra-Biblical way — ranging from Touched By An Angel smarmy to Raiders of the Lost Ark spectacular — reveals Himself personally and/or speaks to them.

Is that the only way God works among people of this planet (Earth)?

If not, why all these Christian characters who only croon, “Use the voice, Luke. Let go!”?

I believed because of this lady.

Some readers may still be in defense mode. (Something similar happened when I tried to question the “God told me to be a novelist” line.) Of them I’d only ask: if you’re a Christian, how did you first believe? Was it solely from an impulse or even “voice” from God? Or were you first captivated by His written Story in Scripture of Christ and His salvation, with any other help from Christian friends or spiritual “nudges” only supporting that?

In some novels I’ve read, the “nudges” aren’t merely supportive. They’re all a character has. Which again leaves me to ask why, and revisit some of my answers from last week:

1. It blocks controversy.

“God told me personally …” sounds very spiritual. So does “let go and let God.” So does “God helps those who help themselves.” Hmm, so maybe “it sounds spiritual” isn’t good criteria.

2. You can’t touch it.

“The Holy Spirit ‘nudged’ me to ask her out, and now we’ve been married for 78 years.” Who wants to argue with a statement like that? Well, I might. But not with hostility. Instead I would ask: what happens to someone who believes he’s been “nudged,” asks her out, then gets a flat no, then goes on to marry someone else? Will he publicly recount that incident? Not likely. Thus only the successful God-told-me anecdotes tend to rise to the top.

3. Authors just don’t know Christians who disagree with hearing-God’s-voice.

In that case the riposte is simple: Christian authors should get out more, then Celebrate Faith Diversity. Many genuine Christians and even whole churches believe that God doesn’t “nudge” or speak personally as clearly as He’s spoken in Scripture. Maybe we don’t need to get detailed sermons about that view in fiction, but we should at least meet those people.

4. Authors don’t believe God does guide people in “common” ways.

Suddenly every conversion to faith must be like those at Pentecost (Acts 2) or the Apostle Paul’s dramatic account. (Of course, even before that comes the first assumption that every novel must focus solely on conversion.) Or for Christian characters, it’s not cool for them to exercise free will, ask probing questions, do their best Biblical research, consult with wise friends, and finally make risky choices that could have consequences. Instead characters must first get Divine Vocal Intervention, then decide. (Interestingly, this view is often held by folks who thought they threw out fatalism a long time ago along with that “Calvinism.”)

5. Authors simply aren’t creative.

It starts by rehashing a “conversion story” at all, and gets worse by rehashing the same old conversion story: hero has tragic past, hero doubts God, hero meets Fiction Christians from Another Planet(!), said Christians sponsor “blind faith” and “listen to God’s voice,” hero does so and — surprise — finally hears God’s voice himself and gets saved. Borrrr-ing. How does this affect readers? Worse, what does it say of God, Who lovingly put in Scripture all we really need to know, and assured us He’s more creative than to guide people the same way twice?

Simple solution

No, let’s not “ban” “I myself heard from God and He said X” characters from Christian fiction. But let’s not also pretend they’re the only culture on this planet. Let’s “meet” Christians who believe differently, and hear their stories and their voices.

“Creativity is an act of rebellion,” declared a quote I recently read.

I suppose there’s some truth to that, if the creativity is a blatant attempt to improve upon God’s handiwork. (Good luck with that, by the way.)

Or to invalidate God’s authority, like the serpent in his conversation with Eve the garden. That might be what he said, but what he really meant was… (As if God’s commands aren’t clear and we need a snake to interpret?)

On the other hand: a child will naturally copy his parents. Whether it’s eating with a spoon or hammering a nail or driving a car—or mimicking our less attractive attributes—our children will observe and imitate.

Not even the pushiest mom expects her first-year piano student to master a Bach fugue. We don’t insist our eight-year-old shoot free throws like his old man. But few things warm our parental hearts more than seeing our children loving what we love, doing what we do, striving for what we strive for.

Isn’t that a reflection of the Father’s love? When, moved by the glory of a sunrise, we run to get our easel and oils, the result can never rival the grandeur of the original; but I doubt God sees it as rebellion. When we strum chords to accompany the song in our hearts, or sand a tabletop to release the wood’s beauty, or write a story that echoes His, I expect He’d call that the sincerest form of flattery.

He might even call it worship.

Our God has given us some pretty cool gifts. Why wouldn’t He want us to play with them? We have senses for observing, minds for contemplating, imaginations for creating. Why wouldn’t our Father want us to dump them out and scatter them around and see how they fit together?

When I became discouraged with writing in 2006, I made up my mind to quit. Then one of our pastors mentioned a book he was reading that moved him. He commented that, although it was the mere writing of man, not Spirit-inspired scripture, God used it to strengthen his faith. I doubt if anyone else in the church remembers him saying this, but his next words still echo in my mind: If God made you a writer, please write.

God made me a writer. If I didn’t use this creative gift, wouldn’t that be an act of rebellion?

In this letter penned by His Abysmal Sublimity Screwtape, Under Secretary of the Satanic Lowerarchy, Screwtape (in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters) advises Wormwood about how the junior temper can best stoke sin from a human during times of real war and horror.

For those who would also redefine “realism” in fiction as only showing the nasty effects of sin, and not also the wonder of God’s beauty, truth, Gospel, and creation — please take heed.

Probably the scenes he [the unnamed human “patient” of Screwtape’s demon nephew] is now witnessing will not provide material for an intellectual attack on his faith — your previous failures have put that out of your power. But there is a sort of attack on the emotions which can still be tried. It turns on making him feel, when first he sees human remains plastered on a wall, that this is “what the world is really like” and that all his religion has been a fantasy.

His Abysmal Sublimity Screwtape (Max McLean, from The Screwtape Letters stage production)

You will notice that we have got them completely fogged about the meaning of the word “real”. They tell each other, of some great spiritual experience, “All that really happened was that you heard some music in a lighted building”; here “Real” means the bare physical facts, separated from the other elements in the experience they actually had. On the other hand, they will also say “It’s all very well discussing that high dive as you sit here in an armchair, but wait till you get up there and see what it’s really like”: here “real” is being used in the opposite sense to mean, not the physical facts (which they know already while discussing the matter in armchairs) but the emotional effect those facts will have on a human consciousness. Either application of the word could be defended; but our business is to keep the two going at once so that the emotional value of the word “real” can be placed now on one side of the account, now on the other, as it happens to suit us.

The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are “Real” while the spiritual elements are “subjective”; in all experiences which can discourage or corrupt them the spiritual elements are the main reality and to ignore them is to be an escapist.

Thus in birth the blood and pain are “real”, the rejoicing a mere subjective point of view; in death, the terror and ugliness reveal what death “really means”. The hatefulness of a hated person is “real” — in hatred you see men as they are, you are disillusioned; but the loveliness of a loved person is merely a subjective haze concealing a “real” core of sexual appetite or economic association. Wars and poverty are “really” horrible; peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men happen to have certain sentiments. The creatures are always accusing one another of wanting “to eat the cake and have it”; but thanks to our labours they are more often in the predicament of paying for the cake and not eating it.

Your patient, properly handled, will have no difficulty in regarding his emotion at the sight of human entrails as a revelation of Reality and his emotion at the sight of happy children or fair weather as mere sentiment[.]

— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (boldface emphases added)

Realism, truth, beauty, message, God-glorifying, entertaining. Spec Faith has examined and re-examined these various aspects and purposes for writing and reading stories, and yet we are confronted, as we were these past two weeks in our guest posts, by a book like A Throne of Bones by Vox Day and an imprint like Hinterlands by a Christian publisher like Marcher Lord Press, and the old question re-surfaces: what are Christians doing when we read and write stories? What should we be doing?

Unsurprisingly, we are, in part, a product of our culture, so what we understand about story today has been influenced by postmodern thought. Consequently, it’s easy to discount or downplay “message” in a story and to emphasize the need for artistic value–from which a great deal of the push for realism comes.

Art is more important than message because the latter essentially declares that there is an absolute for everyone–something incongruent with postmodern thought. On the other hand, art is about beauty and truth–beauty being in the eye of the beholder and truth, determined by what is true for each individual.

The postmodern view of story, then, seems to downplay the idea that writers can and should communicate what they believe through the intertwining of a plot, characters, and a storyworld. Rather, stories, while being necessarily gritty to show the real world, should at the same time be purposefully ambiguous so readers can reach their own conclusions.

Of course this view of story has merits. Educators tell us that true learning takes place when a student appropriates knowledge for himself instead of simply interacting with facts on an intellectual level. Stories that make a difference, then, would seem to be the ones that do not draw a nice, neat conclusion: therefore, because our hero gave his life to Christ, you also should go and do likewise [overt conclusion]; or even our hero became a Christian and now he’s happier than any time in his life because things are going so well [implied conclusion].

The large elephant postmodernism ignores, however, is Truth–not the relativistic kind that shifts from person to person, but the absolute kind that doesn’t require anyone to believe it because it remains no matter what. The belief in absolute truth, we’re told, is the cause of religious fanaticism and intolerance–and this the postmodern thinker believes absolutely!

The fact is, absolute truth supersedes cultures and individuals and theories and philosophies. And guess what. Story does too. Jesus demonstrated this clearly in the parables He told. His stories spoke to first century Jews living in Judea but also to twenty-first century Gentiles living in Taiwan or Kenya or France or Mexico or Australia. His stories resonate with children in Sunday school or adults in Bible study. His stories make people laugh and cry and sit up, amazed, but they also prompt people to go and sin no more.

Consequently, many people have pointed to Jesus’s use of stories as an example for writers today, and I concur. When various people asked Jesus a question (IE, “Who is my neighbor?”) He answered by telling a story. Unlike postmodernism stories, however, His were never pointless nor were they caught up needlessly with gritty details. “A man fell among thieves” did not become a litany of the battering he took or the curses his assailants uttered as they attacked him.

So by looking at Jesus, what can we conclude Christians should be doing in regard to reading and writing stories?

One group advocates the approach of the apostle Paul in Athens, using Greek poetry and their religious system to make a case for Christ. Are we to win some by being all things to all people?

Should we seek to win the hard drinking and hard swearing jock by writing stories filled with drinking and swearing? Since real people do drink and swear and assault people and have affairs, since real people are prostitutes or frauds or terrorists, shouldn’t our stories show them in all their ugliness and need–without, of course, delivering a message of change or redemption since that would be unrealistic and preachy.

Others answer this approach as LukeLC did in a comment to “Marcher Lord Press And The Hinterlands Imprint“:

if the world could be won with the world’s ways, it would have won itself to Christianity long ago. What you win people with is what you win them to. If you attempt to win the unsaved to an appreciation of Christianity because, hey, we have Christian novels with all the same stuff as non-Christian novels…but different, all you’ll end up doing is proving to the unsaved that they’ve got no need for Christianity.

I suggest we Christians have gotten bogged down because we have focused on the meta-story, the overarching story of Mankind’s fall and God’s redemption through the death and resurrection of His Son. It seems as if we all want to be seed sowers when in fact some of us should be soil tillers or weed diggers or scarecrow makers or rock removers. Perhaps, for example, we should tell stories illustrating the existence of absolute truth so that readers will be alert and open to hearing about the One who is Truth. In other words, perhaps we should be more focused on telling micro-stories that address the issues that make belief in the meta-story difficult. This, rather than a focus on “realism,” seems to me to address readers across generations and cultures.

We have a winner in the 2013 Spec Faith Winter Writing Challenge:

Austin Gunderson

Austin, contact me about your prize at rluellam at Yahoo dot com.

Congratulations are in order for all three of our finalists. And special thanks to each of you who entered, commented, and voted.

To make the challenge work, we needed you all!

A Throne of Bones epic-fantasy author Vox Day discusses how he’s moved from columns to fiction, controversial novel content, and his criticism (not imitation) of A Game of Thrones.

Interviewer E. Stephen Burnett: Some years ago I recall seeing a headshot of this bald yet young columnist on the WorldNetDaily.com website. His first name was Latin for “voice”; he wrote as a “Christian libertarian.” Twelve years later, Vox, you’ve ended that column (but kept your blog) and say you prefer writing fiction. I can’t miss a chance to ask: why did you take that transition?

Click to learn more.

Vox Day: The time was right. First, I’ve lived in Europe a long time and I’ve been getting less and less interested in US politics. This is not a good thing for someone writing an op/ed column that deals regularly with American politics. Second, I conducted a little experiment last fall. I wrote a column I thought was really important on a book that has the potential to completely change how we think about economics. The following week, I wrote the dumbest, most simplistic column I could imagine. When the latter received ten times more traffic, comments, and Facebook likes than the former, I realized that I really needed to do something else. After A Throne of Bones came out in December 2012, I decided that I’d rather put more time into working on the next book in the series than spend it writing about the next Republican surrender on the debt ceiling.

ESB: On Sunday you wrote, “I could not care less about the so-called ‘Christian’ market. … While I am an evangelical Christian, I am not of the evangelical Christian culture.” What’s your story growing up — perhaps evangelical home, or adult convert? If the former, what could have kept you out of pervasive “evangelical Christian culture”? If the latter, what do you say makes you “evangelical” (a folk not yet well-known for their love of epic fantasy)?

Vox Day: I was raised in an evangelical Christian home, attended an evangelical church, and graduated from a private Christian academy. The experience was enough to put me off what passes for evangelical Christian culture for life and even drove me away from Jesus Christ for about ten years. I eventually came to the realization that one can’t reasonably judge the ism by the ists, particularly when the specific ism predicts and describes the fallen nature and inevitable failures of the ists. Seriously, though, if your kid likes AC/DC and you buy him a Sandi Patty album as a putative alternative, you may as well teach him to drink blood and sacrifice goats.

So, I was an adult convert in my late twenties. Before then, I’d been signed to the record label and music publisher that was the home of Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and I’d been working in the computer game business for five years making 2.5D shooters. If I’m going to be in, but not of, any world, I am much more comfortable being in that particular one than in the world of evangelical culture. I would rather debate theological matters with an angry, Richard Dawkins-brandishing atheist than listen to a fellow Christian ramble on about how he personally approves of this or that Bible verse and “just thinks” the revealed wisdom of the Creator Lord of the Universe is “neat”.

Why do I describe myself as that which still occasionally gives me the willies? Because, to most people of my acquaintance, “evangelical Christian” doesn’t have a particular doctrinal significance, it simply means someone who genuinely believes in the tenets of the Christian faith and attempts to live by them as opposed to being a cultural Christian in the broad civilizational sense. Perhaps it’s not the right term in the American sense, but that’s the way that I usually hear the term being used in Western Europe.

ESB: You’ve written novels before, and your first with Marcher Lord Press was Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy, one of the first novels on which this speculative publisher took a chance. What’s that story, and the story behind it?

Vox Day: Jeff is an extraordinary risk-taker. It’s one of the things I like and admire about him. He contacted me when he launched Marcher Lord and said that he was very interested in publishing my fiction. I wasn’t interested at first because it was quasi-CBA and small press; I was publishing with Pocket Books at the time. However, I did have this insanely ambitious idea for bringing religion back into high fantasy, inspired by an essay I’d written for Ben Bella’s Revisiting Narnia anthology, entitled “CS Lewis and the Problem of Religion in Science Fiction and Fantasy.” I knew no one else would ever even consider publishing it, so I said I would write it if it was of any interest to him. He said yes, so I got to it.

Unfortunately, I completely failed. Originally, the plan was for this massive structural subtext in which each fantasy race represented a different medieval philosophical school, but I just couldn’t pull it off. The intellectual scope was far too grand; it took me a year just to get a decent grasp of Thomas Aquinas via the Summa Theologica. So, the book went from being philosophically vast to atomic; the novel is essentially nothing more than a single Aquinas-style argument concerning whether elves have souls naturally united to them or not. It’s still ambitious in its own way; structurally speaking, it could reasonably be argued that it is one of the most conceptually original novels published in SF/F for decades. But it’s a very small fragment of what it was first conceived to be and even that fragment is clumsily executed.

Still, most of the people who read it rather liked it as a modestly intellectual high fantasy tale. And it very much amused me that the only professional reviewer of the novel was clearly under the impression that the philosophical argument was one from the real Summa. At least I got that bit right.

ESB: What’s different between Summa Elvetica and your newest novel, A Throne of Bones?

Vox Day: About 650 pages, for one thing. Summa Elvetica could be considered a long chapter in the life of one of the perspective characters in A Throne of Bones, the military tribune Marcus Valerius Clericus. In fact, it explains his agnomen, Clericus, which means “priest”. But the real difference is that I learned to stop being clever and to focus on the story instead of the subtext. The Wrath of Angels, for example, is a subtextual spin on the single European currency and the failure of the European elite to replace the pound sterling, but no one has ever picked up on that. I’ve found that the depth of the subtext tends to detract from the natural flow of the story, at least when written by an author of my admittedly limited talents.

After A Dance with Dragons came out, I was talking with a friend who was as disgusted with that epic disappointment as I was, and he was lamenting that with Martin having gone south, there wasn’t anything worth reading in that genre. I always wanted to write a fat fantasy and figured I couldn’t do all that much worse than Martin had, so I decided I would return to the world of Summa Elvetica. This time, however, I would throw out the intellectual fireworks that no one seemed to notice or care about anyhow and focus solely on writing a good story with strong, memorable characters. I assumed I’d have to self-publish it, but I needed to get Marcher Lord’s permission first since it could be considered a sequel of sorts even though there is absolutely no need to read the earlier novel. All I was looking for was a release and I was shocked when Jeff said he wanted to publish it, even after I warned him that I intended for it to be around 300,000 words. He didn’t blink, not then, and not later when I turned in the 297,500-word manuscript.

Despite being longer, Throne was much easier to write than Summa. It was exactly 494 days from that first conversation to publication on December 1, 2012. I figured that taking six years to write Dragons hadn’t done Martin any good, so what was the point of dragging the process out? Also, if it was going to be a spectacular failure, the less time I wasted on it, the better.

ESB: Now for the controversial parts. Last week, your editor/publisher Jeff Gerke shared the story behind the novel. In part: “The author felt very strongly that the book needed to have vulgarity (which, he informed me, is different from profanity), nudity, and even sex.” To you, how are vulgarity and profanity different? Which Scriptures have informed your views? Do you think you can write a character saying something you would try not to say?

Vox Day: The distinction between profanity and vulgarity is not original to me, anyone can look up the etymology of the words. To be profane is to attack the sacred. To be vulgar is merely to be low and common. Even the most uptight, eagle-eyed Churchian will not find any blasphemy or taking the name of our Lord and Savior in vain; such profanity wouldn’t make any sense in the world of Selenoth. To me, the idea of writing a book where legionaries are anything but low and common in their speech and behavior is so ludicrous that it would be more credible to give them jet packs and laser guns than to delicately avoid showing them drinking themselves insensate at every opportunity, whoring in brothels, bitching about their officers, and jeering at those who betray a physical response to being terrified in battle.

The verses which influence me on the subject of literary language are Leviticus 19:12, Colossians 3:8, and 1 Peter 3:10. Particularly Colossians 3:8. I find it absurd and bordering on the delusional to see Christians who would never think to object to angry, malicious, and slanderous speech in fiction nevertheless try to use the Bible as a basis for objecting to vulgar language in the mouths of fictional characters. I write about life in a fallen world and I do so as honestly and accurately as I can. I believe that to do otherwise is to be deceitful.

And yes, I absolutely assert that I can write something that I would never say or even think for myself. The writer is not the character. And the writer whose characters are little more than various reflections of himself is one who lacks imagination, creativity, and basic powers of observation.

ESB: How did you approach writing a romantic, even physical scene between two married characters? Do they feel real to you? What response do you hope readers will have to this?

Vox Day: I simply approached it by imagining the perspective of a man who has been absent from his wife for six months, who has been faithful to her, and who is understandably more than a little eager to get her dress off. Did they feel real to me? Not any more than any of the other characters who were engaged in other activities such as slaughtering rabbits, writing letters, and impaling enemies on their lances. The response I hope readers will have is to grasp the depth and the nature of the love and affection between the married couple concerned, while the meta response I hope they will have is to reflect upon the difference between way sex is depicted in my work and the way it is depicted in the works of other writers of epic fantasy such as George R.R. Martin, R. Scott Bakker, and Joe Abercrombie.

ESB: When I first saw the release about A Throne of Bones, several readers’ reactions were akin to, “Aw, just another evangelical-culture imitation.” But you specifically debunked that notion in your Sunday blog, especially regarding Gerke’s statement that A Throne of Bones may be “the Christian answer to [Game of Thrones author George R.R.] Martin.” You wrote:

And to those who will roll their eyes at the idea of “a Christian answer to George Martin” and imagine it is meant in the Stryper sense, let me hasten to disabuse you of that notion. A THRONE OF BONES is neither an homage nor an imitation, it is a challenge. It is intended as a literary rebuke.

So not “answer to” meaning “imitation of,” but “riposte.” How do you feel A Game of Thrones betrayed fantasy in favor of ugliness, hate, and glorification of sinful appetites?

Vox Day: The idea of writing a book that is “like X, only Christian” is entirely repugnant to me. I did not write “a Christian novel”, I am a Christian who wrote a novel in a specific literary tradition. I did not approach the process as a representative of modern evangelical culture, hoping to collect a few crumbs fallen from the medieval feast described in excruciatingly painstaking detail on the secular table, but as one of the legitimate heirs to the literary kingdom who is castigating the usurpers. Now, I very much enjoyed the first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire, but the idea that Martin is, or ever could be, “the American Tolkien” should offend anyone who loves Middle Earth. He would be more accurately described as “an anti-Tolkien” in much the same manner that Philip Pullman is a self-avowed “anti-Lewis”.

Don’t get me wrong. A Game of Thrones is an excellent novel when read in its own context. So are A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. But among their various themes is the subversion and overt mocking of concepts that Tolkien honored, concepts such as honor, courage, commitment, love, loyalty, and family. In Martin’s world, nobility is equated with stupidity; evil and treachery prospers abundantly on every side. While there is something to be said for rejecting the tedious old tropes of good, in the persona of the young farmboy, inevitably saving the world by triumphing over cackling, cartoonish, and cretinous evil, the reaction against the shadow of Tolkien that began with Michael Moorcock has gone much too far into nihilism and moral blindness.

I don’t object to the ugliness, hate, and perversion in A Song of Ice and Fire and other modern epic fantasies. Such things exist in all fallen worlds and must be included for the sake of verisimilitude in any work of sufficient seriousness and scope. Is there not ugliness, hate, and even perversion in the Bible? What I object to is the near-complete absence of beauty, love, and normalcy to oppose them. As I have written in other contexts, I don’t object to modern epic fantasy on moral or religious grounds, but on literary and philosophical grounds. Theories abound as to why the Martin series has declined so dramatically, but the fact that it is written from a nihilistic and overtly anti-heroic perspective may well have contributed to the lower quality of the two more recent books.

ESB: Do you feel Christians may act like they’re ripping off from a “secular” product, even when we have unique stories to offer (based on the Christian origin of the fantasy genre?)

Vox Day:I think they are often sold that way, which is occasionally misleading. It’s not at all hard to understand why some might erroneously conclude that A Throne of Bones must somehow be ripping off A Game of Thrones; the irony is that aside from the title, (which is much more closely akin to that of a Brian McNaughton novel), the length, and the multi-perspective approach, the only modern author from whom I have even borrowed is Joe Abercrombie. And even there, the single chapter concerned features a mild subversion of his cinematic technique. I’m not concerned about it; no one who has read the book seems to feel it can reasonably be described as any sort of ripoff or imitation.

But this sort of thing is hardly unique to Christians. In the game industry, most games are pitched as being “like Farmville, only with aliens” or “Call of Duty, but in space”. The same is true for the film industry. The reality is that in any given industry there are at least 20 imitators of varying levels of ability, and another 250 would-be imitators, for every genuinely innovative creator.

ESB: How is A Throne of Bones doing? What may be next for this series and your writing?

Vox Day: It is doing well. The reviews are very good and Jeff says that it is selling nicely. I’m currently working on the second book in the series, A Crash of Rings, and Hinterlands will be publishing Summa Elvetica in a hardcover volume that will also contain other novellas and short stories set in Selenoth, including “A Magic Broken”, “The Wardog’s Coin”, and “Qalabi Dawn”. And yes, I’m kidding about the title. Book Two will actually be called A Winter of Winds….

ESB: Finally, let’s say I’m not a faceless internet crank but a true friend of yours, likely from church, a strong Christian brother who isn’t an overt legalist. What if I said to you, “Vox, I just don’t think I could read this book ‘with Jesus looking over my shoulder’”? How might you reply to encourage yet challenge him? How might other similar readers respond?

Vox Day: I’d tell simply him not to worry about it. A few of my friends have read the book. Some of my friends have never read any of my books. That being said, I find it bizarre that some Christians who are clearly familiar with Martin, Rowling, Meyer, or even James will still claim to be unable to read books like A Throne of Bones. Read or don’t read, it’s up to you. But spare the rest of us the posturing.