I love speculative fiction. The first movie I remember seeing (at about age three or four) was the movie Them. I had a Darth Vader poster looming over my bed, and glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth on my bedside table. The first short story I ever wrote (in high school) was about a guy who invented time travel, but neglected to take into account the movement of the Earth in his calculations and found himself floating in Earth orbit when he (successfully) tested his time machine. For some reason unclear to me today, he had an Irish accent, I suppose in an attempt to make him interesting.

However, my favorite writing professor in college, Percival Everett, refused to let us turn in speculative fiction for our assignments. No fantasy. No science fiction. No slipstream or cyberpunk or alternate histories. Contemporary fiction or nothing. I remember one of my classmates defying him and turning in a fantasy story. He returned it to her and said, “No dragons.” (As I recall her next story was set in modern day but had a girl with a dragon tattoo … I bet she wishes she had run with that now!) I gave him a vampire story once and he called me into his office, stood up, and let it slip from his hands into the waste basket.

I was surprised to discover one day, reading some of my professor’s published stories, that he occasionally wrote speculative fiction. I confronted him (of course! Because I was in college! And I needed more drama in my life!), and he laughed at me and said something to the effect of, “So?” He went on to explain to me that I needed to be able to write “real life” before I would be able to write convincing speculative fiction. The more I thought about it, and the more I practiced it, I realized he was right. So, here are five ways that writing contemporary fiction will strengthen your speculative fiction:

1) It will make your stories more compelling.

It’s easy in speculative fiction to distract people with the special effects. If you have a mutated alligator chasing your hero through a museum, it’s simple to keep people turning the pages. Whole novels can be written with stock characters who have no reflection in real life. You can get away with it. In fact, people may applaud you for the great ride. And if you’re able to pull that off in your fiction, it’s no mean feat. But if you can take that same ability and also bring in meaningful, moving character moments that cause your readers to reflect on their lives and the world around them, you’ve taken it up a notch and people are going to remember your work as more than a getaway from a fifty-foot lizard.

2) It will keep you from cheating. 

When you’re writing speculative fiction and someone asks you a question about a character’s motivation, it’s tempting to say, “Well, that’s just the way things are done in Faerie Land.” Yeah, but why are the faeries stealing children from the humans? “Oh, that’s just something they do.” And what do they do with the children? “Um. I don’t know. Hide them away where they never grow old.” And this is because? “Faeries are capricious.”

That’s cheating. Any time you say, “That’s the way aliens think,” or “It’s different in the future,” you’re cheating your reader. We don’t want mysterious, unknowable motivations. They can be alien motivations. They can be strange motivations. They can even be hidden motivations. But at some point you have to reveal why the Morlocks are serving the Eloi, and why the Eloi sleep inside.

Imagine, now, that you were writing literary fiction and in your story you had a group of people who went around stealing babies. There’s no way you could get away with saying, “Well, that’s just what this group of people does” because we all know that people don’t do something horrible like that for no reason. “Real life” fiction shows the holes more readily when an author is being lazy or cheating on character motivation, and learning to shore up those holes will help you in your character development and your world building.

3) It will keep your reader better engaged in the story.

Let’s be honest, even books that are basically showcasing some world-building (Dune comes to mind) are, at the core of it, about the people. Dune without Paul Maud’dib would be a lousy story. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is essentially an epic filled with stock characters from epics with really two exceptions … the hobbits and Gollum. Many of the memorable scenes of the books, of course, come from those characters.

Now, it’s pretty easy to keep people entertained with stories about messiahs and saving the world. But what if you could do the same thing with a story about a man and a woman watching a television show together and wondering, without ever saying it, whether their marriage was going to work out or if it might be over? If you can hold attention with that story, I guarantee your next speculative story will be better. Because that same couple will realize, of course, that their strange infant is actually a changeling left by the faeries, and when they journey into Faerie to save their daughter they’ll also be discovering whether their marriage will survive. The reader will have a lot more to hold on to and to care about.

My second novel, Night of the Living Dead Christian, which comes out this October, is the story of a man named Luther who is wrestling with being a werewolf. Of course a werewolf hunter is chasing him, as well, and really that’s all you need for a nice speculative fiction novel right there.

In college that would have been the whole story for me. But because Professor Everett forced me to write other types of work, I knew I needed more than that. I needed to look at how Luther’s condition had effected his relationship with his wife and daughter, how the neighborhood looked at him, how his father had reacted when he first became a werewolf and how that impacted his adolescence. Those things make it a richer story, and make the reader understand the deep pain and loneliness that Luther is experiencing.

4) It will keep your reader from becoming distracted when you make character and world-building mistakes.

I recently watched a movie where the plot revealed a lack of understanding of human nature, economics, world politics and really pretty much anything in real life. In this film, people had embraced a new technology which allowed them to use remote control humanoid robots to live life, and the humans would stay safely ensconced in their bedrooms. Supposedly the entire world bought into this technology over the course of three years. And, although the technology was so expensive that most people even in the U.S. could only afford one robot (i.e. they didn’t have multiple bodies), somehow 99% of the world’s population used these robot surrogates.

I couldn’t enjoy the movie because there are so many holes in these few statements (and, believe me, there were plenty more in the movie). How did the third world countries all get their robots if they’re so expensive? What sort of resources were depleted in making BILLIONS of humanoid robots? How did they manufacture them all in three years? These sorts of questions don’t have to be answered, but I have to trust that the author at least considered them. The movie got worse … the few conscientious objectors to the robot-body idea had been forced to live on reservations. Nobody wanted them wandering around the cities with all the robots for some reason. Why? I have no idea. How did those people lose their right to travel in regular society? I don’t know.

A little more practice in looking at how human beings interact would have certainly made it a better movie. And, a small bit of thought would have introduced a more interesting plot … instead of dealing with a reservation of conscientious objectors, our hero could have crossed paths with impoverished people who had no ability to get robot surrogates … the moral complexities and potential complications for the hero would have been much more interesting.

5) Understanding other genres and how they work will make you a better writer within your own genre.

Okay, I’ll make a confession. For much of my life I stuck pretty closely to speculative fiction as the main staple of my reading life. I would take a break from it for superhero comics, which, okay, is pretty much the same thing. I learned a lot about world building. I read amazing novels which dealt with issues no one else was willing to touch, in a way that was both insightful and entertaining. What I wrote when I only read speculative fiction was basically an echo of what I read. It was carbon copies of someone else’s world, someone else’s ideas and stock characters moving through a quasi-medieval landscape trying to do something or other with some elves.

I’m guessing everyone here knows, loves and understands the speculative genres. We’ve all put in a lot of time and work toward understanding it. But if we stick too closely to our own genre (like, as I say, used to be the case for me), your work will seem derivative and in-bred. Breaking into some new genres expands our horizons as to what is possible in fiction, and shows us techniques and connections we may not have made within our favorite genre. I’m not saying you don’t already do this … I’m saying that it might be time, whatever you read, to pick a genre you’ve never been fond of and try it again. Get the absolute best Western you can find. Get a recommendation for a good Romance novel. Read a historical novel. See what you can learn from them and how that might impact your speculative fiction.

I realize that it’s difficult to make my point here in a way that is convincing without you actually trying your hand at it. So here’s an experiment. I’m going to give you five “real world” writing prompts. You choose one and write a short story using that prompt. AFTER you’ve written that story, take a character from your “real world” story and put them in a spec fic story. Be sure to put links in the comments so we can read your stories. I think you’ll be pleased by the results.

Okay, story prompts:

1. Two people who were best friends in high school meet after ten years apart. One of them has discovered s/he is gay and can’t quite get up the courage to tell the other friend. Show us in dialogue (but without ever directly saying it) the strength of this friendship and the underlying realities in each of their lives.

2. A young woman dying of leukemia has married a man old enough to be her father. Her husband’s daughter thinks she married him for his money. In an attempt to create peace between her husband and her step-daughter (who is the same age as her), she invites her step-daughter over to dinner without telling her husband.

3. A pastor realizes that after many years he has been serving God without interacting with God. He knows his congregation would never understand, and finds himself outside the church, trying to catch his breath, where he finds one of the junior high boys playing hooky and smoking a cigarette. The pastor, in his moment of weakness, finds that the junior high boy is the one person in the church he feels he can trust with this information ….

4. Two siblings take their miserly father out to pick a Christmas tree, and realize that their recently deceased mother had hidden the cost of Christmas trees from their father for years.

5. While helping her married neighbor clean out her garage, a woman discovers a packet of recent love letters that were not written by her neighbor’s husband ….

– – – –

Matt Mikalatos is the author of the comedy-theology novel Imaginary Jesus and the forthcoming Night of the Living Dead Christian. Being introduced to science fiction at an early age by his father, Matt grew up thinking that if he got too angry he’d turn into a monster, that Stonehenge could become blood-sucking rocks during the night and that you should never, never look in a mirror unless the bathroom light was on. Be sure to come hang out at his blog and his website, where you can read the first chapter of his new book.

A worst-case scenario: along with the fun, whimsical things like flying brooms, potions, and washing dishes by wand-work, the Harry Potter stories do show what pagans today would call “witchcraft.” And it’s not just the bad guys doing it. And it’s sinful practices that God does condemn in Scripture, either in the oft-cited Deuteronomy 18: 9-14 or elsewhere.

My contention: Even then, Christians strong in their faith could read the series, enjoying the true parts, and not sin. I believe we find this shown plainly in Scripture.

Sure, we would need to be more careful. We wouldn’t abuse that freedom or strength to crow about how spiritually superior we are. Maybe we would not enjoy the material as much. And we would certainly not go on publicly theorizing how the author is actually a closet Christian who meant all along to proclaim Jesus (something we don’t need to prove anyway in order to justify Harry Potter or any other secular story!). But we still needn’t fear exposure to it.

In this series’ final column, I hope to show that how we discern Harry Potter affects how we do discernment in other ways, especially how we interact with other people …

10. Because the Bible itself shows saints serving God and staying holy, even while knowing and studying actual pagan things.

For Christians who feel they must somehow show Harry Potter is just as “Christian” a series as, say, The Chronicles of Narnia, but only its author hides it — I want to know: why do you feel we must prove that? And what happens when another popular and well-written series comes along that clearly isn’t made by Christians but has truth anyway? You’ve just bought into this assumption: that “a story must be clearly Christian or else get shunned.”

Scripture doesn’t share this assumption. In Old Testament saints, Daniel in particular, and among New Testament believers, especially Paul, we see Godly practice of holiness, along with culture-engagement and without fear of God’s-truth-opposing beliefs.

Yes, someone can abuse “engaging the culture” to excuse sinful motives and behavior. But still we find that Daniel, a strange man in a strange land, sought purity and holiness even while studying actual pagan witchcraft manuals in his secular advanced-education program. With God’s help, he outclassed fellow scholars and grew in the pagan king’s favor (Daniel 1). We see this also in the apostle Paul, the first specific missionary to the Gentiles. He not only didn’t fear Greek literature or culture, but read and quoted a pagan poem that accidentally contained a truth about God, though it was wrongly applied to the false god Zeus (Acts 17).

Neither of these cases took place in a local church, say, like playing a secular song to appeal to nonbelievers. We don’t read of Daniel trying to blend ecumenically some of the mystical beliefs with his prayer practices, or Paul endorsing all of the pagan poem while saying it was also from God. But neither of those men, in either Covenant, avoided even genuinely bad stuff. Instead they studied it — Daniel while staying personally holy and giving God the glory for it, and Paul to use as a conversation-starter outside a local church for non-Christians.

(For more, see the Imagination: for God’s glory and others’ good series, especially part 4.)

11. Because “someone else used it to sin” is not a Biblical reason to avoid something, and no one can practice that consistently anyway.

“There is not an ounce of doubt that the witchcraft societies, the sorcerer societies, have benefited from Harry Potter,” Wretched Radio host Todd Friel said on his June 10 program. “Call ‘em and ask ‘em.” That research is done and old, he added, and it’s incontrovertible.

Actually I haven’t the slightest thought to controvert it — because Christians don’t need to.

“Pagans love the Harry Potter books.” That gets repeated often, and often without citation. But again, let’s assume that  is correct. What does it prove? Other pagans say they don’t like being stereotyped as humans in robes who learn how to turn teacups into tabby cats or fly on brooms, all of which have nothing to do with actual pagan practices. (And if you will excuse a bit of snark, why are we listening to, and basing discernment on, what pagans say anyway?)

So at best, that charge results in a stalemate: your Anecdotes versus my Anecdote. This is not only transparently silly — is the next move to count up Anecdotes to see who has the most and declare a winner? — but isn’t at all a Biblical method of deciding doctrine and practice.

What about the more-general argument that “someone else used it to sin”?

Author Randy Alcorn has written and hosted several balanced articles about Harry Potter, among them thoughts from a former occultist named Sarah Anne Sumpolec (Jan. 21, 2010):

I think Harry Potter is probably good clean fantasy fun for 99 percent of its readers. I’d be surprised if more than 1 percent went looking for the magical reality behind the fantasy. But then again, what is 1 percent of 500 million readers? How much of an impact is that?

That is indeed quite an impact, and I can understand Sumpolec’s concern — especially with her unique background. We should indeed be careful and seriously, yet winsomely, address the risks associated with any kind of art or fiction. Nothing is without potential of being abused for sin. But that is because humans are sinners. We’ll take anything and abuse it. Is that the Thing’s fault? No. If I wanted to get into real-life paganism, I’d use any excuse.

Ultimately “someone else used it to sin” is also an objection without Biblical basis. Moreover, if we tried to practice this same argument consistently, one could not read this column on the computer — someone else uses this same technology to gossip, look at porn, or waste time. One should avoid church — some elements of worship services may be borrowed from “pagans,” after all, and tainted! One might even want to reconsider the Bible itself — after all, many people have abused its truths to justify their own sin or even start cults. No one can practice this ethic consistently, and the Bible never levies this standard on us.

12. Because Christians should not base their discernment views only on the word of “weaker brothers” and sisters.

The “watch out for the weaker brother” argument is among the better objections to books like Harry Potter, or enjoying alcohol, big business earnings, or almost anything that could look “worldly.” For any Thing, be it book, song, or hobby, someone will be tempted to revert back to his tendency to abuse that thing for a sin — the real definition of “weaker brothers.” That’s a discussion Christians do need to have, along with rightful cautions against legalism.

"How to Tear Down The Strongholds of Rock Music." (Must be read in the voice of the old "Goofy" cartoon how-to narrator.)

However, the apostle Paul didn’t permit legitimate “weaker brothers” to set the agendas for everyone else. To the Corinthians he said that Christians who are stronger must be sensitive to conscience-tripping issues and abstain from even harmless activities if they hurt others. But that is far from looking to a new convert to set all doctrinal policy.

When I was younger I read a booklet we had lying about the house but never, to my memory, actually put into practice. (Its publisher was a ministry outfit called the Institute in Basic Life Principles, whose name sounds quite “Orwellian,” but unfairly so — it could be far worse.) Its title: “Ten Scriptural Reasons Why The ‘Rock Beat’ Is Evil in Any Form.” Its “evidence”: out-of-context Scripture and Anecdotes from people who it seems did abuse pop music and even “Christian contemporary” stuff for their own sin. And then there was this:

In April 1990, a Christian from Zimbabwe, Africa, arrived for his first visit to the United States. He is a native missionary under the Awana Youth Association. When he turned on a Christian radio station and listened to the music, he was shocked. Here is his report:

“I am very sensitive to the beat in music, because when I was a boy, I played the drums in our village worship rituals. The beat that I played on the drum was to get the demon spirits into the people. When I became a Christian, I rejected this kind of beat because I realized how damaging it was. When I turned on a Christian radio station in the United States, I was shocked. The same beat that I used to play to call up the evil spirits is in the music I heard on the Christian station.” (From this transcription.)

Now, how should a mature Christian, basing his discernment on the Bible, address this? One reply: “Lighten up, dude, it’s just a drum, and the Devil doesn’t work like that.” That takes his concern too casually. But the other extreme is followed here by this booklet’s writer: take it too seriously, as more true a Gospel result than what the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to say! Let’s all accept what our weaker brother, new in the faith, says about a Thing.

Neither response is Biblical. The former may occur more in a frivolity-obsessed evangelical culture. But the latter reaction may be worse because it actually accepts magical, mystical views as more true than Scripture itself, and in the name of “holiness.”

Isn’t this also like saying “he with the worst background gets to set the rules,” which treats a possible “weaker brother” as more discerning than faithful Christians who are more mature?

Paul’s advice to a new convert nervous about drum rhythms or fantasy books would surely be the same as his encouragement to the Corinthian church: for the sake of conscience, don’t enjoy that Thing when this beloved “weaker brother” is around. But I also highly doubt Paul asked that his letters be off-limits to the weaker brothers. So they would also read there that nothing is intrinsically evil about meat previously sacrificed to idols. The temple ceremonies offering them to idols were evil, but not the meat itself. And they need to grow in this.

Stronger brothers should be sensitive and loving. Yet weaker brothers also need to grow up. How that best happens is a topic for other books or articles. But let us not act as if “weaker brothers,” instead of Christians stronger in faith, have the final word on discernment.

13. Because we may accidentally base our “discernment” mainly on personal dislike or lack of enjoyment of certain kinds of things.

Are we sure we’re not basing views on our own dislikes, or simple lack of enjoyment, for some stories, and expecting other Christians to think the same?

Elvis has left the Evil building (perhaps due to the Biblical principle of Sanctification If It's Over Forty Years Old).

The day after the Wretched Radio program in which Friel dismissed Harry Potter as being without a clearly Christian “side,” he played a clip from an old Elvis song and mentioned that The Princess Bride is one of his favorite movies. Yet last I checked, neither the song nor the comedy/fantasy film mentions or honors Christ or His Church. In fact, both of them imagine (yes, even the song) a “world” in which God does not exist or isn’t a key Player!

So I must ask: how come the “rules” suddenly change when it comes to Harry Potter? How come some Christians say they expect only from that series a direct or allegorical inclusion of God or Christianity, or else reject it as evil and dangerous? Isn’t that a double standard? (Well, we haven’t seen hordes of people worshiping Elvis, or using him to sin or … oh wait.)

Here’s how the disparity just may arise: Elvis songs and The Princess Bride are older. Older stuff just happens to get away with more. Moreover, more people like old stuff — it’s their favorite Thing; it’s more acceptable among Christians to enjoy old stuff.

As for fantasy fiction — well, the quiet assumption exists that goes something like this: “why do you need that stuff at all? Better be safe than sorry. Scripture is sufficient anyway!” They naturally don’t think to apply the same ethics to, say, worship songs, or draperies, or fine cooking, or any other movie or genre or creative Thing they enjoy but don’t “need.”

But this ignores two vital details: first, this stuff is old anyway, thanks to the Patron Saints, Lewis and Tolkien! Second, many Christians have testified how much fantasy and visionary tales have helped them grow in Christ. Sure, many professing Christians go too far and equate the nonsense in, say, The Shack with actual truth from the all-sufficient Word — but that doesn’t make all fiction useless. Others can back up, with doctrine and practice, their claims that God has reminded them of Himself in secondary ways, like fantasy fiction.

All this applies to something like Twilight as well. Too bad. I dislike Twilight. By myself I can’t personally imagine why Christians would want to waste time with that series. We can ask those kinds of questions, and challenge others who we may believe aren’t making wise choices in their time or taking possible temptation sources seriously. But we should be consistent and not assume well, I know I wouldn’t enjoy it, so why does he/she “need” it?

14. Because we may forget that true Christians may hold different views of discernment, but still avoid worldliness and grow in grace.

There’s a lot of good discernment-oriented material out there. And then there’s the stuff that pits super-externally-“holy” avoid-the-world-first types against, say, punk tattooed folks who claim they’re Christians mainly because they agree with the statement “Jesus loves you.”

It’s an unfair, false dichotomy, and truly discerning Christians should beware reinforcing it. Example: I should not portray all Twilight fans as crazed middle-aged moms, who wish they were younger, cheering when young men remove their shirts to show their sparkling pecs onscreen. (Ugh.) Yes, those do exist. But others can enjoy those books for other reasons. And if I see them growing in love for Christ, resulting in their taking on His attributes thanks to the Holy Spirit changing them from within, it does not honor Him to judge their motives.

The same is true with Harry Potter. Or other fantasy stories. Or video games. Or fatty foods. Or music. Or alcohol. Or organs versus “praise teams.” … Anything that can be discerned.

Who would’ve thought a seven-book series about a boy wizard could help us learn so much?

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Thank you. Black’s fine. Doctor says I need to lay off the sugar.”

“Here you go.”

“Mmm. Nice. I like what you’ve done with the place. Are those new curtains?”

“Yes. We’ve redecorated the whole house. You should see the kitchen. It’s incredible.”

“We? I thought you lived alone.”

“I have an elephant.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, he’s a real, live, honest-to-goodness elephant. Big ears, prehensile trunk, skinny tail, everything. He’s two tons of fun!”

“Strange, it doesn’t look like you’re sharing your home with an elephant.”

“Who do you think did the redecorating?”

“Cute. Do you keep it in the backyard?”

“He is sitting over there on the sofa. Wave hello, Eddie.”

“There’s nothing on the sofa.”

“Eddie is an invisible elephant.”

“Riiight. How come the sofa hasn’t collapsed under his weight? There’s not even a dent on it.”

“It’s a very firm sofa, and Eddie counts his calories, though he raids the refrigerator every now and then, when I’m not looking.”

“How can you tell?”

“He leaves footprints in the butter.”

“Assuming for a moment there actually is an elephant in this room, how did the two of you get together?”

“Eddie found me. Since then, we’ve been inseparable. He’s an enormous part of everything I do.”

“But your house doesn’t look that different, and you could have installed the paneling and carpet by yourself.”

“You don’t believe me. You think I’m crazy, saying I live with an invisible elephant.”

“Oh, no. It’s not like you’re my only friend with an elephant. Bill has one, but it’s too big to fit in his apartment, and it has a temper. The landlord lets him keep it in the basement.”

“How awful. That’s no way to live with an elephant.”

“Well, there’s no mistaking that Bill has one. He smells like an elephant, always has pieces of straw tangled in his hair, and I don’t even want to talk about his shoes. How do you keep this place so fresh and flowery?”

“Lavender potpourri. And Eddie is very tidy.”

“Cindy has an elephant, too. A big, pink one. She has it trained. You come over to visit, Cindy gives the word, and her elephant sits in your lap. There’s no arguing with it.”

“My goodness. Eddie would never force himself on a guest like that.”

“Glad to hear it. You can’t fault Cindy for enthusiasm, though. She has her elephant, and she won’t rest until everybody in the world knows it, up-close and personal. Frankly, if you hadn’t told me, I never would have suspected you had an elephant.”

“It’s not like I’m trying to hide him. He may be invisible, but anybody can see him, if they’ll just look.”

“I’m looking, and I’m still not seeing.”

“Eddie has a presence–he’s always here, taking care of all the little things I don’t think about. He dusts, he unplugs the iron, winds the grandfather clock, keeps the weasels away…”

“Weasels? There aren’t any weasels in this whole county.”

“Thanks to Eddie. He makes me smile when I’m feeling sad, too. Gives me a strong shoulder to lean on when I’m tired. Spend a little more time here, and you’ll see what I mean.”

“It’d help if he’d trumpet once in a while or something.”

“Perhaps I could ask him to sit on your lap.”

“No, that’s all right. I’ll take a refill on the coffee, though, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Eddie, be a dear and help me get our friend a fresh cup.”

Well, I guess there’s no harm in playing along. “Hey…er…Eddie…could I have a spoonful of sugar with that, please?”

*SQUEAL*

“Yikes. I think I’m beginning to see. How about we make that two spoonfuls…and a shot of creamer.”

Last Friday, on my own blog I discussed truth in fiction. In part I looked at an article by Travis Prinzi at the Rabbit Room (where Andrew Peterson, Pete Peterson, Jonathan Rogers, and others interested in speculative fiction also hang out) which explored the Christian fantasy tradition established by the authors many think of as the founders of the genre.

What struck me forcibly was that Tolkien, Lewis, MacDonald, Chesterton, and L’Engel all seemed to consider their speculative writing to be a means of revealing truth. In contrast many speculative writers today, including some Christians, look at their fiction as a means of discovering what they believe to be true.

Most notably, perhaps, as I’ve mentioned before, Anne Rice stated that her vampire novels served to help her work her way to faith:

But though they didn’t include Jesus, the writer … says her previous books have always pursued questions of morality. From the vampire Lestat to the devil Memnoch, all her heroes are immortal outsiders who have supernatural powers and who live in worlds where right and wrong matter deeply. If the Russian novelist Dostoevsky had his Grand Inquisitor interrogate Christ in “The Brothers Karamazov,” Rice conducted her own theological investigation in “Memnoch the Devil.”

“The books in a way are like stations on a journey,” Rice said. “They reflect different points on a lifelong quest.” (“Anne Rice: ‘Stations On A Journey’ ” by Marcia Z. Nelson at beliefnet)

C. S. Lewis’s “supposal” and J. R. R. Tolkien’s subcreation stand in stark contrast to this discovery quest method of writing.

Lewis clearly started with the known — God — then speculated to what truth would look like in the imagined world of his creation.

I did not say to myself ‘Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia’: I said ‘Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would have happened.’ If you think about it, you will see that it is quite a different thing. (Walter Hooper, Literary Criticism, 426, as quoted by Joe Rigney in “Narnia Helps Us Live Better Here” at desiringGod)

He elaborated further:

If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in The Pilgrim’s Progress] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, ‘What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?’ This is not allegory at all.

(from a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December 1958, quoted in Wikipedia)

Nowhere is there a suggestion that Lewis was unclear about God’s nature or plan or purpose or manner of relating with His creation. In fact the opposite is true. Because Lewis knew these things about God, he could speculate what God might look like and how He might act if the world were one Lewis imagined.

As I look at our western world today and consider the prevailing postmodern and humanistic beliefs, I conclude that many writers, including Christians who claim to believe the Bible, have abandoned known truth for a type of agnosticism.

In a recent discussion (the other half of what prompted my Friday post) at Christian supernatural suspense author Mike Duran’s site, a number of commenters took this “unknowable” approach to explain why Christian writers couldn’t be held to a high standard for showing God realistically in fiction.

At one point, the idea surfaced that we shouldn’t base our theology on our fiction. True, I think, but perhaps writers should base our fiction on theology.

The idea also came out in the comments at my site that such an approach might make it hard to write good stories:

Depicting God in fiction, as I see it, requires a specificity that can actually stilt our storytelling.

While I don’t believe this is so in fantasy, I don’t know if that’s true about stories set in this world. However, good stories, by the definition of “good,” seem to me to require truth. Art has long been understood as the marriage of beauty and truth. How can a story be better if it is fuzzy about Truth? And why would anyone want to write such a story? That would be like saying it’s critical to care for the body of a car while neglecting the maintenance of the engine.

I can’t help but wonder . . . perhaps no new C. S. Lewis has surfaced in the past fifty years for the very reason that so few writers are starting with the known and speculating from there.

I read with interest a recent conversation on the Enchanted Inkpot regarding religion in fantasy novels. Most of the participants in the discussion were not Christians, therefore their responses gave a broader view than often seen in these sorts of faith in fantasy discussions. Several points in particular were relevant to Christian writers of speculative fiction, which I’ll recap here for conversation purposes.

The article offered an even-handed portrayal of religion in fantasy novels and the reasons you may or may not want to include it.

Possible advantages:
• Enhance richness of setting
• Add tension to plot
• Flesh out motivations of a character

Possible disadvantages:
• May not be relevant to a particular story
• May cause controversy
• May be prevented by the author’s personal beliefs

But in the comments, things really became interesting. Several common threads cropped up:
• People enjoy creating and reading about fictional religions (often ones that blend elements of real world faiths and mythologies)
• Some have had negative experiences with religious expression in speculative fiction, namely with preachiness (specifically mentioned in connection with Christianity), Christian themes, or the portrayal of monotheistic religions as uniformly bad.

Despite the variety of opinions shared and the distaste of some for Christian themes, almost every commenter placed a value on faith and its inclusion in fantasy tales. Why? Because everyone believes something about the supernatural. That’s equally true of individuals in an invented fantasy world or a far-future civilization as it is of people in our own world. Neglecting the spiritual element doesn’t enhance the realism or decrease the preachiness of the story, rather it leaves out a significant component that shapes the attitudes and actions of characters in a given culture — and indeed, shapes the world itself.

In a discussion of imagination and world creation, CS Lewis aptly stated that “no merely physical strangeness or merely spatial distance will realize that idea of otherness which we are always trying to grasp in a story about voyaging through space: you must go into another dimension. To construct plausible and moving ‘other worlds’ you must draw on the only real ‘other world’ we know, that of the spirit.”

So whether it’s overt or subtle, there has to be reflection of something greater for a story to resonate as true. It may take the form of direct allegorical elements or a subtle symbolic thread, but in capturing some element of spiritual truth, our stories will gain impact.

Yes, Christian writers face prejudice at times. There’s an interpretation (sometimes rightfully so) of Christian works as preachy, and there certainly seems to be a more favorable view toward the depiction of fictional faiths that spring from no greater reality than the mind of their inventor, fusing together bits and pieces of mythology, legend, and obscure spiritual beliefs.

Yet rather than taking this to mean any hint of our worldview should be expunged from our works, I take it as a challenge to craft something so compelling that even those that might normally be repelled by any Christian element would want to read it. To truly engage readers, we must craft the spiritual elements of our stories with as much care as plot and character.

We may end up with stories like Tolkien’s that only reveal a spiritual framework when viewed as a whole or tales like Lewis’s that contain more obvious suppositions. Either way, the faith element should dynamically connect with the story in a way that enriches setting, enhances character, and strengthens plot, a seamless fusion without which the story would fail to function. Can you imagine Middle Earth without Gandalf? Or Narnia without Aslan? The spiritual underpinnings of these books make the stories function at their highest and best…and that’s what we should all aspire to achieve.

– – – – –

Sarah Sawyer loves creating other worlds and exploring what they can reveal about our own. Her passion for story led naturally to novel writing, and her love of the imaginative to fantasy.

Sarah has served as a Carol Awards judge and a book reviewer, and she works to promote Christian speculative fiction wherever she can. She blogs on matters related to fantasy, faith, and the wonders of the everyday world at sarahsawyer.com.

Signs point to yes: the Magic 8-Ball was based on a "'spirit-writing' device." Could you be contaminated?

Quick quiz for a slow summer Thursday: what do the following things have in common?

• The Harry Potter series of books and films.
• Pictures of the devil or creepy creatures.
• Finery in religious worship services.
• “Rock and roll” or pop music.
• The “Magic 8-Ball” toy.
• Yoga.

They’re all things that have — or that some Christians have argued have — pagan origins and therefore should not be messed with, or at best are suspected to have some kind of latent evil “stuff.” Many such Christians have good intentions behind these beliefs, and rightly claim that other professing Christians aren’t on their guard against stuff that can cause temptation or acceptance of untruth. And as before in this series, I don’t want to question their hearts.

Yet I will question whether these kinds of Christians have considered the implications of this practice. Is this a Biblical view? Again we see that thinking through the Harry Potter issue, beyond just the fiction questions, can help us learn to discern in other ways …

9. Because those who try to avoid bad Things like “magic” in stories may themselves fall into practicing magic and mysticism.

I don’t have a copy of the minutes from Hell’s conference dungeons. But if I were the Devil, or at least an undersecretary in the Lowerarchy, this would be among my top plans for world domination. It seems to be one of the most ingenious conspiracies, so he must be behind it:

1. Exaggerate my powers. God still owns the world, even under the curse of sin, so let’s help humans forget that little truth so they think God is weaker and I’m stronger.
2. Let humans assume their own hearts are okay, or at best “neutral” even after Jesus saves them. Instead let them fear mainly books, movies, songs, or other Things.
3. Keep some of the worst actual Satanic occult stuff deeper in the dark.
4. And, maybe even better, let other mystical stuff be hidden in plain sight! Infiltrate the Church’s pews, bookstores, and blogs with un-Biblical notions that can only be tantamount to the actual practice of wrong witchcraft.

Such notions can include more-obvious things like televangelist healing crusades, or those silly paper “prayer rugs” that come in the mail. But better still are other seemingly harmless notions that people use to try to avoid all evil influences or to try to control their own lives.

A letter in the mailing actually says, "Psychics, mediums and clairvoyants have no place in God's plan for your life." Whew, I'm glad they know those things are wrong.

What better broad definition of actual witchcraft is there than a desire to control one’s own life or avoid bad Things? All “real” “magic” is made up for that goal. It’s the appeal of real-life Wicca, I’m sure, but frankly also any other religion centered on man.

Sinful humans are surely able to abuse even discernment in mystical ways to try to control. For example, with Harry Potter, the Magic 8-Ball, or yoga, some Christians may worry that any of these Things might somehow contain evil. Optimally he would best check to see if Scripture truly supports the idea that Things can contain some kind of spiritual residue, like germs, or else know his own gifts, history, and limitations and use that to choose what to avoid. But instead, a Christian may base his belief about the Thing’s nature on the testimony of a pagan or the Thing’s supposed history, or even worse, act as if he can avoid the evil, taboo Thing and thereby prevent evil’s influence and protect himself.

"We don't arrest people for being creepy." (... *Click* "Bruce, you know that guy we got in the tank?" "Ah, the creepy one?" "Yeah, better let him go.")

Either way, kazam, the demonic (or fleshly!) deception is complete. Even while trying to avoid supposed magic and evil influences, the Christian has just practiced a form of “magic” himself. Moreover, this kind of thinking is notorious among sincere Christians:

• Based mostly on Middle-Ages representations of demons as beings who resemble bats or made-up creatures, some Christians believe it’s always wrong to be exposed to such images. Thus an emotional response, that’s creepy, becomes a basis for “discernment,” instead of God’s revealed Word.

Chick tracts: used by God, I'm sure, despite superstitions about Things and myths about "Harry Potter"'s contents.

(Oddly enough, these Christians may believe it’s often okay to show bad stuff. Example: one popular tract artist. But he also spreads myths about the Harry Potter books and other superstitions, based partly on that’s-creepy reasons.)

• Some Christians act as though trappings of traditional or contemporary worship (yes, I’ve heard this applied to choir robes and electric guitars) have “pagan roots” and will corrupt people. Thus a Thing is shunned because of its supposed origin.
• In fall 2010, seminary president Al Mohler said something that cloistered secularists found suddenly outrageous: that Christians aren’t too thrilled about bringing yoga into the Church. Yet in many of his defenders’ haste, they failed to clarify for the Church and the world that Christians aren’t afraid of Things like breathing patterns or stretches, but of how they can be abused in ways that displease God. Thus Things are assumed to be evil, rather than objects to be abused.

All these amount to methods of control-my-life-style witchcraft! And whatever you think about Harry Potter or any of these things specifically, a Thing’s supposed pagan origins or “obvious” evil could be far less dangerous than the “angel of light” tricks the Devil (and our flesh!) uses. Christians who only warn against “obvious” mysticism may themselves act like superstitious shamans who shun supposed evil objects. Meanwhile, anti-God mysticism may go through the back way, directly into our hearts, even while we have illusions of safety.

And I haven’t even gone into other frequent ways Christians may, with good intentions, practice “divination” to seek secret things only God can know. (For more, read this guy.)

Rather, it’s enough to recall that sin is sneakier than we think and can infiltrate our lives from within; and that the Devil is not powerful enough to control us through Things, but is likely not so stupid only to make his assaults using obvious means that we could easily avoid.

Next Thursday: how did some Biblical saints handle actual bad stuff? And what about the “someone else used it to sin” objection, or “weaker brothers,” or personal preferences?

A dear friend of mine, also a writer, sent me a flurry of texts the other day. Our brief conversation went as follows:

Friend: I think authors are given an incredibly unique perspective into God’s relationship with us. Especially in understanding how things can end when life is dark and oppressive.

Me: Oh, yes. I think it’s partly because for writers it’s never as it seems. To the characters it may look like abandonment, rejection, or cruelty, but to us there’s always a point, and we’re oft more emotionally affected than they are.

Friend: [Just think about everything my character goes through, all of it. ] And she’s grown and learned so much. That’s how God sees our lives, and it’s amazing to think about. Because I know how incredible my ending for [her] feels; just imagine how many times more incredible God’s ending is! But in the end, she [has all she wanted & fought for and more].

Me: Right. More happened…because more had to happen. And yeah, it’s mind boggling.hah. Yeah. But it makes you think, too, how often we joke about characters hating us. Truth is, we love them deeply, and if they could we’d want their love in return.

Friend: I think that’s the beautiful thing about being a Christian author.

God talks to me in story-form, in the slow unveiling of revelation or a simple image from a book or movie rising in my head. Sometimes our relationship is a bit long-distance, other times it’s a quiet, mutual company-keeping. Sometimes I’ve awoken wide awake to the sound of my own name, and I swear it was him. Sometimes I feel his invisible, strong embrace; most often I hear his laughter. I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten more than one eyebrow-raise, you know, with his arms crossed as he gives me a look only a parent or a really good friend can give. He’s sat and watched me rant; seen me throw the car keys and kick a tree or brick wall, watched me worry myself to sleep and helped me struggle through a bout of insomnia. If I decide to go it alone, he follows behind with his hand on his sword, waiting for that moment where I’ve finally backed myself into a corner surrounded by enemies–and that’s when he rolls his eyes, draws his sword, and gets me out of trouble. Again.

As a reader, I’ve learned to trust the author. I enjoy the suspense as much as the grand finale, just like I enjoy waiting for Christmas as much as the actual event. I like being led by the nose, and I really don’t want to try to figure it out. If I do, so be it–knowing what happens isn’t the same as knowing how it happens, anyway. But don’t spoil it; I like to watch the author work, watch him spin his magic and tease me, baffle me, and play me. I’m not just a bystander, you see. I’m one of the pawns in play, and I can only see the squares immediately around me.

This sounds ridiculous, but I really don’t question God anymore than I would an author. Matter of fact, the minute the trust is broken between reader and author, it’s incredibly difficult to gain it back. Sometimes it’s impossible. For one thing, I’ve been severely blessed, so it’s very difficult to get too upset with him when the hole’s generally my fault and I’ve only to turn around to find someone worse off than me. I am the church brat of all church brats, and the older I get the more terrified I am to realize that, not only do I understand Paul’s “boastings” about his “pedigree,” I probably have more in common with Saul of Tarsus than I’m really comfortable with. And I think I’ve been mad at him once, but it simmered almost as fast as it began.

I know there’s hard questions out there, and I can give you a list that’s tragically long of people who faced severe trials and asked legitimate–well, logical/understandable–questions of him. For them, that trust was completely shattered, be it reality or perception.

But that goes back to what my friend was saying. We joke about characters hating us if they were real, and for several, that’s probably right. But authors are the gods of their storyworlds, and the bizarre truth is that our feelings toward them are, in reality, far from sadistic. We cry over them, plan their vindication, plot revenge against bad guys, and execute justice with cold pleasure. We sympathize with the misguided and destroy those who won’t accept a saving hand.

I wrote as an exercise a dialogue between the God figure of a story and a beloved character a few years ago, the same way I sometimes write my dialogue-prayers with God. The character doesn’t really have the capacity for such abstract questions and concepts, but I gave him full rein and vent to all the fear and doubt in his heart. You see, of all the characters I’ve created, this one is the most innocent. He’s a pure spirit, innocent and childlike, gentle and humble. And he’s probably been through all the levels of Hell two or three times over by the time he’s twenty-four.

So I wrote God and Man and let him ask what he willed.

He never questioned the figure’s existence, but he asked why all these things had been done to him, why he feared for his life every day and feared losing his own soul. He asked me what he’d done that needed penance and begged me to heal his broken mind and body. He wanted me to take away his weakness and make him strong, and he wanted to know why he’d learned to love only to be betrayed again. The questions came, unending, and he didn’t stop with himself. He asked me about his friends, one by one, even the ones turned traitor. He even asked me about his enemies, why they hated him so and what he’d done to deserve their loathing. He continued down the list, naming every wound I’d inflicted with tears in his eyes.

Then he finished. We were quiet for awhile. The God figure called him by name and asked, “What else happened?”

He looked away for a minute, knowing the answer and stubbornly refusing to give it. We waited; he’s stubborn, but he gets it from me, and in the end his nature is not to try to dominate.

Time after time he’d been rescued; time after time he’d been given new friends. He learned how to love–something no one thought him capable of–and gained a family. He earned respect and sonship; he became the champion of his entire region. He became gentle and meek, learning how to use his strength to protect instead of oppress. He learned good from evil and didn’t become what his enemies tried to make him to be. He learned who and what he really is, and, in the end, got something greater than he could have dreamed had none of those things ever happened. And he never would have met his Maker. Who, in the story, is not me.

He started out a small boy. He’d have had a decent life left alone, but it’d have been in hiding, at best. But I had bigger plans for him than that, and I had to equip him for it. So I sent him through Hell. Two or three times, at least.

When he finished, his Maker asked him with a sad smile, “Would you have had it any different?”

My sweet boy raised his head, offered a shy smile back, and said, “Not a moment.”

” For we are His workmanship [ his poetry, handiwork], created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

~ Ephesians 2.10

If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom.  – Job 13:5

Inspiration is a funny thing. There are some days when you wake up, ready to rock the world with your insightful insights and witty wit…and there’s nothing there.

Today is one such day.

I’ve learned through bitter experience that it’s best not to force my brain to produce when I’m in tabula rasa mode. Sometimes it’s best for me and everybody else to just keep my mouth shut.

So, without further ado, here’s a rather clever little video some kids put together a couple of years ago in support of a good cause. It perfectly summarizes my state of mind. Enjoy.

Click Here For Video

Regular visitors here at Speculative Faith know that we are expanding our vision and purpose. With the addition of the Spec Faith Library, we are offering a resource for readers looking to find books in our genre — Christian speculative fiction.

In fact, we’re working on other resources, too — articles we think might be helpful and books we can suggest to different people depending on their level of interest.

But as we move in this direction, I think a word of caution might be in order. Or several words. 😉

First, no book is “safe.” Within the pages (even screen pages) of every book resides ideas. Apart from the Word of God itself, these ideas are generated by a sinful human being. If the author is a Christian, he would presumably be aligning those ideas with God’s truth. But ought we to presume such a thing?

Can Christians be followers of Christ in name only? Can Christians be self-deceived or swayed to believe (and repeat within their stories) false teaching? Scripture would indicate so. (See the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13:24-30.)

Consequently, books that purport to be stories containing Christian truth must be examined as closely as any other to see if the ideas within are consistent with God’s revelation.

Note, I am not saying that books showing sinful human behavior are not consistent with God’s revelation. In fact, the opposite is true. God’s Word reveals Mankind’s sinful state. A story that does not show man as a sinner would be more suspect than one that does.

A second word of caution is this: A recommendation is one person’s opinion. Of course, some people have credentials that make their opinion seem more valid than others. The opinion of doctors, for example, carries more weight regarding a medical condition than would that of a group of business executives.

Hence, people writing Christian fantasy, for instance, would presumably have some ideas about what makes a fantasy Christian and what makes a story well-written. But there’s that pesky “presumably” again. Nothing about book recommendations is certain, and therefore they should not be taken as absolutes.

We can conclude that one factor to consider when looking for recommendations is the person’s credentials — what makes this individual’s opinion something others should listen to? Of equal importance to a list of qualifications, is some idea of what the person giving recommendations believes.

Years ago, when one of the first movie recommendation programs came on TV, I quickly learned that the reviewers looked at movie content differently than I did. As a result they gave thumbs up to stories espousing values I opposed. With that understanding, I could then more accurately consider their recommendations.

Happily, those of us writing regularly here at Speculative Faith (and eventually passing along recommendations) are “known entities.” We may not (probably won’t) always agree, but anyone who wishes can find out about us from our Author page which contain short bios, links to our personal sites, and a statement of faith that reflects what we believe.

Our guest posters may or may not agree with those basic statements, so comments, including recommendations, from someone here at Spec Faith still need to be examined with discernment.

And this brings me to the next caution: there is strength in numbers, but the majority isn’t always right. Generally speaking, I think that lots of people recommending a book means it’s probably a good book. If I had to choose between two books with equally intriguing premises and attractive covers and well-written first chapters, and the first had one favorable recommendation but the second had a hundred, I’m pretty sure I’d opt for the latter.

Still, Job was one man opposed to three friends, Moses was one man opposed at times by the company of Israelites, Elijah was one man opposed to three hundred prophets of Baal. Right is not always on the side of the many. A reader still must be discerning.

So what do recommendations mean? I’ll answer with the negative: they do not mean a guarantee that the content will be absolutely safe and free from error — artistic or spiritual. They do not mean the reader can put his critical thinking to bed when diving into books given high praise.

Am I saying recommendations are worthless? Not at all. I rely on the opinion of those I trust to help me filter through the countless number of titles on cyberspace or bookstore shelves. However, I must be in charge of my own choices. Recommendations can narrow the field, and that makes my decisions a lot easier. But they remain mine to make.